CHAPTER VIII.
INDIAN VENGEANCE.
The position of the Americans, was most critical.
The captain, surprised by the silent attack of the Comanches, had beensuddenly awakened by the frightful war cry they uttered, as soon as theyhad set fire to the materials heaped up in front of the fort.
Springing out of bed, the brave officer, for a moment dazzled by theruddy gleam of the flames, half-dressed himself, and, sabre in hand,rushed towards the side where the garrison reposed; they had alreadytaken the alarm, and were hastening to their posts with that carelessbravery which distinguishes the Yankees.
But what was to be done?
The garrison amounted, captain included, to twelve men.
How, with so numerically weak a force, could they resist the Indians,whose diabolical profiles they saw fantastically lit up in the sinisterreflections of the conflagration?
The officer sighed deeply.
"We are lost!" he murmured.
In the incessant combats fought on the Indian frontiers, the laws ofcivilized warfare are completely unknown.
The _vae victis_ reigns in the full acceptation of the term.
Inveterate enemies, who fight one against another with all therefinements of barbarity, never ask or give quarter.
Every conflict, then, is a question of life and death.
Such is the custom.
The captain knew this well, therefore he did not indulge in the leastallusion as to the fate that awaited him if he fell into the hands ofthe Comanches.
He had committed the fault of allowing himself to be surprised by theredskins, and he must undergo the consequence of his imprudence.
But the captain was a good and brave soldier; certain of not being ableto retreat safe and sound from the wasp's nest into which he had fallen,he wished at least, to succumb with honour.
The soldiers had no need to be excited to do their duty; they knew aswell as their captain that they had no chance of safety left.
The defenders of the fort, therefore, placed themselves resolutelybehind the barricades, and began to fire upon the Indians with aprecision that speedily caused them a heavy loss.
The first person the captain saw, on mounting the platform of the littlefort, was the old hunter, White Eyes.
"Ah, ah!" murmured the officer to himself, "what is this fellow doinghere?"
Drawing a pistol from his belt, he walked straight up to the half-breed,and, seizing him by the throat, he clapped the barrel of his pistolto his breast, saying, to him with that coolness which the Americansinherit from the English, and upon which they have improved--
"In what fashion did you introduce yourself into the fort, you oldscreech owl?"
"Why, by the gate, seemingly," the other replied, unmoved.
"You must be a sorcerer, then!"
"Perhaps I am."
"A truce with your jokes, mixed-blood, you have sold us to your brothersthe redskins."
A sinister smile passed over the countenance of the half-breed; thecaptain perceived it.
"But your treachery shall not profit you, you miserable scoundrel!" hesaid, in a voice of thunder; "you shall be the first victim of it."
The hunter disengaged himself by a quick, unexpected movement; then,with a spring backwards, and clapping his gun to his shoulder, he said--
"We shall see," with a sneer.
These two men, placed face to face upon that narrow platform, lighted bythe sinister reflection of the fire, the intensity of which increasedevery minute, would have had a terrific expression for the spectatorwho was able to contemplate them coolly.
Each of them personified in himself those two races confronted inthe United States, whose struggle will only finish by the completeextinction of the one to the profit of the other.
At their feet the combat was taking the gigantic proportions of an epic.
The Indians rushed with rage, and uttering loud cries, against theintrenchments, where the Americans received them with musket shots or atthe point of the bayonet.
But the fire continued to increase, the soldiers fell one after another;all promised soon to be over.
To the menace of White Eyes, the captain had replied by a smile ofcontempt.
Quick as lightning he discharged his pistol at the hunter; the latterlet his gun drop, his right arm was broken.
The captain sprang upon him with a shout of joy.
The half breed was knocked down by this unexpected shock.
Then his enemy, placing his knee upon his breast, and looking at him foran instant, said, with a bitter laugh,--
"Well! was I mistaken?"
"No," the half-breed replied in a firm tone; "I am a fool--my lifebelongs to you--kill me!"
"Be satisfied I shall reserve you for an Indian death."
"You must be quick, then, if you wish to avenge yourself," thehalf-breed said, ironically, "for it will soon be too late."
"I have time enough. Why did you betray us, you miserable wretch?"
"Of what consequence is that to you?"
"I wish to know."
"Well then, be satisfied," the hunter said, after an instant of silence;"the white men, your brothers, were the murderers of all my family, andI wished to avenge them."
"But we had done nothing to you, had we?"
"Are you not white men? Kill me and put an end to all this. I can diejoyfully, for numbers of victims will follow me to the tomb."
"Well, since it is so," said the captain, with a sinister smile, "I willsend you to join your brothers; you see I am a loyal adversary."
Then pressing his knees strongly on the chest of the hunter, to preventhis escape from the punishment he reserved for him, he cried--
"In the Indian fashion!"
And taking his knife, he seized with his left hand the half-breed'sthick and tangled head of hair, and with the greatest dexterity scalpedhim.
The hunter could not restrain a cry of frightful agony at thisunexpected mutilation. The blood flowed in torrents from his bare skull,and inundated his face.
"Kill me! kill me!" he said, "this pain is horrible!"
"Do you find it so?" said the captain.
"Oh! kill me! kill me!"
"What!" said the captain, shrugging his shoulders, "do you take me for abutcher? No, I will restore you to your worthy friends."
He then took the hunter by the legs, and dragging him to the edge of theplatform, pushed him with his foot.
The miserable creature instinctively endeavoured to hold himself up byseizing, with his left hand, the extremity of a post which projectedoutward.
For an instant he remained suspended in space.
He was hideous to behold; his denuded skull, his face, over whichstreams of black blood continued flowing, contracted by pain and terror;his whole body agitated by convulsive movements, inspired horror anddisgust.
"Pity! pity!" he murmured.
The captain surveyed him with a bitter smile on his lips, and with hisarms crossed upon his chest.
But the exhausted nerves of the hunter could sustain him no longer; hisclenched fingers relaxed their hold of the post he had seized with theenergy of despair.
"Hangman! be for ever accursed!" he cried, with an accent of franticrage.
And he fell.
"A good journey to you!" said the captain, sneeringly.
An immense clamour arose from the gates of the fort.
The captain rushed to the assistance of his people.
The Comanches had gained possession of the barricades.
They rushed in a crowd into the interior of the fort, massacring andscalping the enemies whom they encountered in their passage.
Four American soldiers only were left standing; the others were dead.
The captain entrenched himself in the middle of the staircase which ledto the platform.
"My friends," he said to his comrades, "die without regret, for I havekilled the man who betrayed us."
The soldiers replied by a shout of joy
to this novel consolation,and prepared to sell their lives dearly. But at this moment anincomprehensible thing took place.
The cries of the Indians ceased, as if by enchantment.
The attack was suspended.
"What are they about now?" the captain muttered; "What new devil's trickhave these demons invented?"
Once master of all the approaches to the fort, Eagle Head ordered thefight to cease.
The colonists who were made prisoners in the village were brought, oneafter another, into his presence: there were twelve of them, and fourwere women.
When these twelve unfortunates stood trembling before him, Eagle Headcommanded the women to be set apart.
Ordering the men to pass one by one before him, he looked at themattentively, and then made a sign to the warriors standing by his side.
The latter instantly seized the Americans, chopped off their hands atthe wrists with their knives, and, after having scalped them, pushedthem into the fort.
Seven colonists underwent this atrocious torture, and there remained butone.
He was an old man of lofty stature, thin, but still active; his hair,white as snow, fell on his shoulders; his black eyes flashed, but hisfeatures remained unmoved; he waited, apparently impassible, till EagleHead should decide his fate, and send him to join the unfortunates whohad preceded him.
But the chief continued to survey him attentively.
At length the features of the savage expanded, a smile played upon hislips, and he held out his hand to the old man,--
"_Usted no conocer amigo?_" (No you know friend?) he said to him in badSpanish, the guttural accent of his race.
At these words the old man started, and looked earnestly at the Indianin his turn.
"Oh!" said he, with astonishment, "El Gallo!" (the Cock.)
"Wah!" replied the chief, with satisfaction, "I am a friend of the greyhead; redskins have not two hearts: my father saved my life,--my fathershall come to my hut."
"Thanks, chief! I accept your offer," said the old man, warmly pressingthe hand the Indian held out to him.
And he hastily placed himself by a woman of middle age, with a noblecountenance, whose features, though faded by grief, still preservedtraces of great beauty.
"God be praised!" she said, with great emotion, when the old manrejoined her.
"God never abandons those who place their trust in Him," he replied.
During this time the redskins were preparing the last scenes of theterrible drama which we have made the reader witness.
When all the colonists were shut up in the fort, the fire was revivedwith all the materials the Indians could find; a barrier of flames forever separated the unfortunate Americans from the world.
The fort soon became one immense funeral pyre, from which escaped criesof pain, mingled at intervals with the report of firearms.
The Comanches, motionless, watched at a distance the progress of thefire, and laughed like demons at the spectacle of their vengeance.
The flames, which had seized upon the whole building, mounted withfearful rapidity, throwing their light over the desert, like a dismalbeacon.
On the top of the fort some individuals were seen rushing about indespair, while others, on their knees seemed to be imploring divinemercy.
Suddenly a horrible crackling was heard, a cry of extreme agony rosetowards heaven, and the fort crumbled down into the burning pile whichconsumed it, throwing up millions of sparks.
All was over.
The Americans had perished!
The Comanches planted an enormous mast on the spot where the square hadbeen. This mast, to which were nailed the hands of the colonists, wassurmounted by a hatchet, the iron of which was stained with blood.
Then, after setting fire to the few cabins that were left standing,Eagle Head gave orders for departure.
The four women and the old man, the sole survivors of the population ofthis unfortunate settlement, followed the Comanches.
And a melancholy silence hovered over these smoking ruins, which hadjust been the theatre of so many sorrowful scenes.