Kitabı oku: «The Yellow Chief», sayfa 5
Chapter Thirteen.
Making a Bolt
At the new and still strange speech, Snively started again, and Clara Blackadder looked up with a yet still more puzzled expression; while among the blacks there ran a murmur of interrogatories and exclamations of terror.
It was on the overseer, however, that the words produced the strongest impression. He was a man of too much intellect – or that ’cuteness that passes for it – to be any longer in doubt as to the situation in which he and his fellow-captives, were placed. A clear memory, coupled with an accusing conscience, helped him to an explanation, at the same time telling him of a danger far worse than being captive in the hands of hostile Indians. It was the danger of death, with torture for its prelude. Both now appeared before his imagination, in their most horrid shape – an apprehension of moral pain, added to the physical.
He glanced at his fastenings; examined them, to see if there was any chance of setting himself free. It was nor the first time for him to make the examination; but never more earnestly than now.
The raw-hide thong, wetted with the sweat of his body – in places with his blood – showed signs of stretching. By a desperate wrench he might get his limbs clear of it!
What if he should succeed in untying himself?
His liberty could only last for a moment – to be followed by a renewal of his captivity, or by a sudden death?
Neither could be worse than the fate that now seemed to be awaiting him, and near? Even death would be preferable to the agony of apprehension he was enduring!
One more glance at his fastenings, and along with it the determination to set himself free from them.
And, without reflecting further, he commenced a struggle, in which all his strength and cunning were concentrated.
The raw-hide ropes yielded to the superhuman effort; and, clearing himself of their coils, he sprang out from among his fellow-prisoners; and off at full speed towards the prairie!
He did not continue far in the direction of the outward plain. With no other hope of getting clear, than that held out by mere swiftness of foot, he would not have made the attempt. With the Indians’ horses standing near, ready to be mounted at a moment’s notice, the idea would have been simply absurd. Even before he had made a half-score strides, several of the savages were seen rushing towards their steeds to take up the pursuit, for the prairie Indian never thinks of following a foe upon foot.
Had Snively kept on for the open plain, the chase would have been a short one. He had determined on a different course. While lying on the ground, and speculating on the chances of getting away, he had noticed a ravine that ran sloping up towards the summit of the cliff. Trees grew thickly in it. They were dwarf cedars, bushy and umbrageous. If he could only get among them, screened by their foliage, he might succeed in baffling his pursuers. At all events, their arrows and bullets would be aimed with less likelihood of hitting him.
Once on the mountain slope above, which was also forest-clad, he would have at least a chance for his life.
He was a man of great strength, swift too of foot, and he knew it. It was his knowledge of the possession of these powers that gave him hope, and determined him on the attempt he had made.
It was not so unfeasible, and might have succeeded, had his only pursuers been they who had taken to their horses.
But there was one who followed him on foot, of equal strength, and swifter of foot than he. This was the Cheyenne chief. The latter had noticed the prisoner as he gave the last wrench to the ropes, and saw that he had succeeded in setting himself free from their coils. At the same instant that Snively sprang out from among his fellow-prisoners, the chief was upon the hound after him, with his long spear poised and ready for a thrust. He had thrown off his wolf-skin cloak to obtain freedom of movement for his arms.
Snively, as he had intended, turned abruptly to one side, and struck up the ravine, with the chief close following him. Those who had taken to their horses were for the time thrown out of the chase.
In a few seconds, both fugitive and pursuer had entered the gorge, and were lost to view under the spreading fronds of the cedars.
For a time those remaining below could not see them, but by the crackling of the parted branches, and the rattle of stones displaced by their feet, it could be told that both were still struggling up the steep.
Then came loud words, proclaiming that the pursuer had overtaken the pursued.
“A step further, you accursed nigger-driver! one step further, and I’ll run my lance-blade right up through your body! Down again! or I’ll split you from hip to shoulder.”
Although they saw it not from below, a strange tragical tableau was presented at the moment when these words were spoken.
It was the chief who had uttered the threat. He was standing upon a ledge, with his spear pointed vertically upward. Above him, hanging from a still higher ledge, with one hand grasping the edge of the rock, was the long lathy form of the Mississippian overseer, outlined in all its ungainly proportions against the façade of the cliff!
He had been endeavouring to climb higher; but, not succeeding, was now overtaken, and at the mercy of his savage pursuer.
“Down!” repeated the latter, in a voice that thundered along the cliffs. “Why do you want to run away? You see I don’t intend to kill you? If I did, how easily I might do it now. Down, I say!”
For a moment Snively seemed to hesitate. A desperate effort might still carry him beyond the reach of the threatening spear. Could he be quick enough?
No. The eye of his enemy was too watchful. He felt, that on turning to make another attempt, he would have the iron blade, already red with his own blood, thrust through his body.
Another thought came into his mind. Should he drop down, grapple with the savage, and endeavour to wrest the weapon from his hands? He now knew whose hands held it.
It was a design entertained but for a moment. Ere he could determine upon its execution, half a dozen of the Indians, who had close followed their chief, came rushing up the ravine, and stood upon the ledge beside him.
Exhausted by long hanging, with but slight foothold against the cliff, Snively’s gripe became detached from the rock; and he fell back into their midst; where he was at once seized and tied more securely than ever.
“Drag him down!” commanded the Cheyenne chief, speaking to his followers. And then addressing himself to the overseer, he continued: “When we get below, Mr Snively, I’ll explain to you why you’re not already a dead man. I don’t wish that; I want to have you alive for awhile. I’ve a show for you, as well as the others – especially those belonging to old Blackadder’s plantation; but above all for yourself, its worthy overseer. Bring him below!”
The recaptured captive, dragged back down the ravine, though with fearful apprehensions as to what was in store for him, had no longer any doubt as to the identity of him with whom he had to deal.
When the Cheyenne chief strode up to the waterfall; washed the paint from his face; and, then, turning towards the other captives, showed them the bright yellow skin of a mulatto, he was not taken by surprise.
But there was profound astonishment on the countenances of the negro captives; who, on recognising the freshly washed face, cried out as with one voice:
“Blue Dick!”
Chapter Fourteen.
The Rescuers
While the savage scenes described were being enacted in the mountain valley, a band of horsemen was fast approaching it, making their way around the skirting spurs that at intervals protruded into the prairie.
It is scarce necessary to say that these were the trappers from Saint Vrains, nor to add that they were riding at top-speed – fast as the horses and mules on which they were mounted could carry them.
Conspicuous in the front were two who appeared to act in the double capacity of leaders and guides. One of them seemed exceedingly anxious to press forward – more than any of the party. He was acting as if some strong urgency was upon him. It was the young Irishman, O’Neil. The man riding by his side, also seemingly troubled about time, was his old comrade, ’Lije Orton, the trapper.
The two kept habitually ahead, now in muttered converse with one another, and now shouting back to their companions, to urge them onward. Some of these came close up, while some, at times, showed a disposition to straggle.
The truth is, the “mountain men” had brought their whisky-flasks along with them, and, at every stream crossed, they insisted on stopping to “take a horn.”
O’Neil was the one who chafed loudest at the delay. To him it was excruciating torture.
“Arter all,” said Orton, with the intention less to restrain than comfort him, “it won’t make so much diffrence, Ned. A wheen o’ minutes ant neyther hyur nor thur, in a matter o’ the kind. In course, I know well o’ what ye’re thinkin’ about.”
He paused, as if expecting a rejoinder.
O’Neil only answered with a deep, long-drawn sigh.
“Ef anything air to happen to the gurl,” continued ’Lije, rather in the strain of a Job’s comforter, “it will hev happened long ’fore this.”
The young Irishman interrupted him with a groan.
“Maybe, howsomdever,” continued ’Lije, “she air all right yet. It air possible enuf the Injuns’ll all get drunk, as soon as they lay ther claws on the licker that must ’a been in the waggins; an’ ef that be the case, they won’t think o’ troublin’ any o’ thar keptives till thar carousin’ kums to a eend. This chile’s opeenyun is, ef they intend any torturin’, they’ll keep that sport over till the morrow: an’, shud they do so, darn me, ef we don’t dissapeint ’em. Oncst we git upon the spot, we’ll gi’e ’em sport very diff’runt from that they’ll be expectin’.”
There was reason in what ’Lije said. His words were consolatory to O’Neil; and, for a time, he rode on with a countenance more cheerful.
It soon became clouded again, as he returned to reflect on the character of the Indians who were supposed to have “struck” the caravan; more especially their chief, whose fame as a hater of white men was almost equalled by his reputation as a lover of white women. There was more than one story current among the trappers, in which the Yellow Chief had figured as a gallant among white-skinned girlish captives, who had fallen into his hands on their passage across the prairie.
With the remembrance of these tales coming freshly before his mind, O’Neil groaned again.
What if Clara Blackadder – in his memory still an angel – what if she should, at that moment, be struggling in the arms of a paint-bedaubed savage? Beauty in the embrace of a fiend! The reflection was fearful – odious, and, as it shadowed the young hunter’s heart, he drove the spurs deep into the flanks of his horse, and cried to his comrade, “Come on, ’Lije! come on!”
But the time had arrived when something besides haste was required of them. They were nearing the spot where the pillagers of the caravan were supposed to have made camp; and the trappers were too well acquainted with the wiles of prairie life to approach either men or animals in an open manner. They knew that no Indians, even in their hours of carousal, would leave their camp unguarded. A whole tribe never gets drunk together. Enough of them always stay sober to act as sentinels and videttes.
Safe as the Cheyenne Chief and his fellow-plunderers might deem themselves – far away from any foe likely to molest them – they would, for all this, be sure to keep pickets around their camping-place, or scouts in its vicinity.
There was a bright daylight, for it was yet early in the afternoon. To attempt approaching the bivouac of the savages across the open plain, or even close-skirting the mountains, could only lead to a failure of their enterprise. They would be sure of being seen, and, before they could get within striking distance, the Indians, if not disposed to fight, would be off, carrying along with them both their booty and their captives. Mounted on fresher horses than those ridden by the trappers, now panting and sweating after a long, continuous gallop, they could easily accomplish this.
There seemed but one way of approaching the Indian camp – by stealth; and this could only be done by waiting for the night and its darkness.
As this plan appeared to be the best, most of the trappers counselled following it. They could think of no other.
The thought of such long delay was agony to O’Neil. Was there no alternative?
The question was put to his comrade, ’Lije, while the discussion was in progress.
“Thur air a alturnative,” was the answer addressed to all, though to none who so welcomed it as his young friend.
“What other way?” demanded several voices, O’Neil’s being the first heard.
“You see them mountings?” said ’Lije, pointing to a range that had just opened to their view.
“Sartin; we ain’t all; blind,” replied one of the men. “What about them?”
“You see that hill that sticks out thur, wi’ the trees on top o’t, jest like the hump o’ a buffler bull.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Clost by the bottom o’ that, them Injuns air camped – that be, ef this chile hain’t made a mistake ’bout thar intenshuns. We’ll find ’em thur, I reck’n.”
“But how are we to approach the place without their spying us? There ain’t a bit o’ cover on the prairie for miles round.”
“But there air kiver on the mounting itself,” rejoined ’Lije. “Plenty o’ tree kiver, as ye kin see.”
“Ah! you mean for us to make a circumbendibus over the ridge, and attack ’em from the back-side. Is that it, ’Lije?”
“That’s it,” laconically answered the old trapper.
“You must be mistaken about that, Orton,” put in Black Harris, supposed to be the sagest among “mountain men.”
“We might get over the ridge ’ithout bein’ noticed, I reck’n; but not with our animals. Neyther hoss nor mule can climb up yonder. And if we leave them behind, it’ll take longer than to wait for the night. Besides, we mightn’t find any track up among the rocks. They look, from here, as if they had been piled up by giants as had been playing jack-stones wi’ ’em.”
“So they do, Harry,” responded ’Lije, “so do they, But, for all that, there’s a coon kin find a path to crawl through among ’em, an’ that’s ’Lije Orton. I hain’t trapped all roun’ hyur ’ithout knowin’ the neer cuts; an’ there’s a way over that ridge as’ll fetch us strait custrut to the Injun campin’-groun’, an’ ’ithout their purseevin’ our approach in the clarest o’ sunlight. Beeside, it’ll bring us into sech a pursishun that we’ll hev the skunks ’ithin reech o’ our guns, afore they know anythin’ ’bout our bein’ near ’em. Beeside, too, it’ll save time. We kin get thur long afore dark, so as to have a good chance o’ lookin’ through the sights o’ our rifles.”
“Let us go that way,” simultaneously cried several voices, the most earnest among them being that of O’Neil.
No one dissenting, the mountain-path was determined upon.
Continuing along the plain for a half-mile farther, the trappers dismounted, cached their animals among the rocks, and commenced ascending the steep slope – ’Lije Orton still acting as their guide.
Chapter Fifteen.
Retaliation in Kind
The thrill that passed through the captives as Blue Dick discovered to them his identity was not so startling to all. With Blount Blackadder and Snively, his words, as well as his acts, had long since led to his recognition. Also among the slaves were some who remembered that scene in the court-yard of the old home plantation, when he had been subjected to the punishment of the pump. Despite their supposed obtuseness, they were sharp enough to connect it with the very similar spectacle now before their eyes; and, on hearing the command, “Give him a double dose,” more than one remembered having heard the words before. Those who did were not happy, for they also recalled their own conduct on that occasion, and were apprehensive of just retaliation from the hands of him whom they had scoffed. Seeing how their young master had been served, they became sure of it; still more when the overseer, Snively, was submitted to the same dread castigation, and, after him, the huge negro who had worked the pump-handle when Blue Dick was being douched.
Both these received the double dose, and more than double. As Snively was unloosed from the cross, and dragged out beyond the water-jet, the hideous gash along his cheek looked still more hideous from its blanching.
And the negro, thick as was his skull, roared aloud, and felt as though his head had been laid open. He said so on recovering his senses. The grin upon his face was no longer that of glee, as when he himself was administering the punishment. It was a contortion that told of soul-suffering agony.
He was not the last to be so served. Others were taken from the crowd of slaves, not indiscriminately, but evidently selected one after another. And the rest began to see this, and to believe they were not to be tortured. Some were solaced by the thought that to others gave keen apprehension. They had not all jeered their fellow-slave, when he was himself suffering. Only the guilty were stricken with fear.
And need had they to fear; for, one after another, as the chief pointed them out, they were seized by his satellites, dragged from amongst their trembling fellow-captives, and in turn tied to the pine-tree cross. And there were they kept, till the cold melted snow from Pike’s Peak, descending on their crania, caused them to shriek out in agony.
All this while were the Cheyennes looking on; not gravely, as becomes the Indian character, but laughing like the spectators of a Christmas pantomime, capering over the ground like its actors, and yelling until the rocks gave back the mimicry of their wild mirth in weird unearthly echoes.
Never till now had they held in such high esteem the mulatto adopted into their tribe, who, by brave deeds, had won chieftainship over them. Never before had he treated them to such a spectacle, consonant to their savage natures, and still more in consonance with their hate for the pale face.
For, even at this period of their history, when the elders of the Cheyenne tribe were in a sort of accord with the white man, and professing a false amity, the young filibustering “bloods” were with difficulty restrained from acts of hostility.
The Yellow Chief, who had strayed among them coming from afar, who had married the belle of their tribe – the beautiful daughter of their “medicine man” – who surpassed all of them in his hatred of the white race, and more than once had led them in a like murderous maraud against their hereditary enemies was the man after their heart, the type of a patriotic savage.
Now, more than ever, had he secured their esteem; now, as they saw him, with cruel, unsparing hand, deal out castigation to their pale-faced captives; a punishment so quaintly original, and so terribly painful, that they would not have believed in it, but for the cries of keen agony uttered by those who had to endure it.
To Cheyenne ears they were sounds so sweet and welcome, as to awake the intoxicated from their alcoholic slumbers, and call them up to become sharers in the spectacle. Drunk and sober alike danced over the ground, as if they had been so many demons exhibiting their saltatory skill upon the skull-paved, floors of Acheron.
Nor was their laughter restrained when they saw that the punishment, hitherto confined to their male captives, was about to be extended to the women. On the contrary, it but increased their fiendish glee. It would be a variety in the performance – a new sensation – to see how the latter should stand it.
And they did see; for several of the female slaves – some of them still young, others almost octogenarian “aunties” – were ruthlessly led up to the stake, to that martyrdom of water painful as fire itself!
Chapter Sixteen.
The White Women
For more than two hours was the fiendish spectacle kept up – a tragedy of many acts; though, as yet, none of them ending in death.
But neither actors nor spectators knew how soon this might be the termination of it.
So horrified were the captives, they could not calmly reflect; though, from the heartless revelry around them, instinct itself guided them to expect very little mercy.
The discrimination shown in their punishment led some to entertain a hope. All, both blacks and whites, now knew with whom they had to deal; for, in a whispered conversation among themselves, the story of Blue Dick was told to those of the emigrant party who had never heard of him before.
And the slaves who were not of the Blackadder plantation, as also the white men to whom these belonged, began to indulge in the belief that they were not to be made victims to the vengeance of the mulatto.
They were allowed time enough to reflect; for after some ten or a dozen of the female slaves had been douched, to the delight of the young Cheyennes, and the apparent satisfaction of their chief, there was an interlude in the atrocious performance. The renegade, as if contented with revenge – at least, for the time – had turned away from the waterfall, and gone inside his tent.
Among the three captive groups, there was none in which apprehension could be more keen than that composed of the white women. They had to fear for something dearer to them to life – their honour.
Several of them were young, and more than one good-looking. Not to know it they could not have been women.
Up to that hour the savages had not insulted them. But this gave them no assurance. They knew that these loved wine more than women; and the whisky taken from the despoiled wagons had hitherto diverted the savages from intruding upon them.
It could not long continue, for they had been told of something besides this. The character of cold incontinence given to the forest-Indian – he who figured in the early history of their country’s colonisation – has no application to the fiery Centaurs of the prairie. All they had ever heard of these savages led to this conclusion; and the white women, most of them wives, while thinking of danger to their husbands, were also apprehensive about their own.
She who had no husband, Clara Blackadder, suffered more than any of them. She had seen her father’s corpse lying upon the prairie sward, bathed in its own blood. She had just ceased to behold her brother subjected to a punishment she now knew to be fearfully painful; and she was reflecting what might be in store for herself.
She remembered Blue Dick well. As his master’s daughter – his young mistress – she had never been unkind to him. But she had never been specially kind; for some influence, exerted by the slave Sylvia, had rather turned her against him. Not to actual hostility; only to the showing of a slight disfavour. The truth was, that the heart of the planter’s daughter had been so occupied with its own affairs – its love for the young stranger, O’Neil – it had little room for any other thought.
The same thought was still there; not dead, but surrounded by a woe-begone despair; that, even now, hindered her from feeling, keenly as she otherwise might have done, the danger of the situation.
Still was she not insensible to it. The Cheyenne Chief, in passing, had glared angrily upon her, with an expression she remembered more than once to have seen in the eyes of Blue Dick. As Sylvia’s mistress, as the friend and confidant of the quadroon slave, more than all, as the sister of Blount Blackadder, she could not expect either grace or mercy from the mulatto. She knew not what she might expect. It was painful to think, still more to converse, upon it with the women around her.
These did not talk or think of her fate. It was sorrow enough for them to reflect upon their own. But she had more to dread than any of them, and she knew it. With that quick instinct peculiar to women, she knew she was the conspicuous figure in the group.
As the horror of the situation came palpably before her mind, she trembled. Strong as she was, and self-willed as through life she had been, she could not help having the keenest apprehensions.
But along with her trembling came a determination to escape, even with Snively’s example and failure before her face!
She might be overtaken. No matter. It could not increase the misery of her situation. It could not add to its danger. At the worst, it could only end in death; and death she would accept sooner than degradation.
She was but slightly tied. In this the Indians do not take much pains with their women captives. It is not often these make any effort to get free; and when they do, it costs but little trouble to track and recapture them.
Still have there been incidents in the history of the prairies where brave, heroic women – even delicate ladies – have contrived to escape from such captivity, and in a manner almost miraculous. The early history of the West teems with such episodes; and she, a child of the West, had heard them as part of her nursery lore. It was their remembrance that was partly inspiring her to make the attempt.
She did not communicate the design to her fellow-captives. They could not aid, but only obstruct her. Under the circumstances, it would be no selfishness to forsake them.
One might deem it a wild, hopeless chance. And so, too, would she, but for a thought that had stolen into her mind. It had been suggested by the sight of an animal standing near. It was her own horse, that had been appropriated by one of the Indians. He was standing with the saddle still on, and the bridle resting over the crutch. A riding-gear so new to them had caught the fancy of the Indians, and they had left it on for exhibition.
Clara Blackadder knew her horse to be a fleet one.
“Once on his back,” thought she, “I might gallop out of their reach.”
She had a thought beyond. She might get upon the trace which the wagons had followed from Bent’s Fort. She believed she could remember, and return along it.
And still another thought. At the Fort she had seen many white men. They might be induced to come back with her, and rescue her captive companions – her brother.
All this passed through her mind in a few short moments; and while it was so passing, she slipped off the thongs, that were but carelessly lapped around her delicate limbs, and prepared for a start.
Now was the time, while the chief was inside his tent.
