Heralds of Empire Part 30

When the frost smoke cleared, there was such a scene as I may not paint; for you must know that your Indian hero is not content to kill.

Like the ghoul, he must mutilate. Of all the Indian band attacked by our forces, not one escaped except the girl, whose form I could descry nowhere on the stained snow.

Jack Battle presently regained his senses and staggered up to have his arms thonged behind his back. The thongs on my arms they tightened with a stick through the loop to extort cry of pain as the sinew cut into the shattered wrist. An the smile had cost my last breath, I would have defied their tortures with a laugh. They got no cry from me. G.o.defroy, the trader, cursed us in one breath and in the next threatened that the Indians would keep us for torture.

"You are the only man who can speak their language," I retorted. "Stop whimpering and warn these brutes what Radisson will do if they harm us!

He will neither take their furs nor give them muskets! He will arm their enemies to destroy them! Tell them that!"

But as well talk to tigers. Le Borgne alone listened, his foxy glance fastened on my face with a strange, watchful look, neither hostile nor friendly. To G.o.defroy's threats the Indian answered that "white-man talk--not true--of all," pointing to Jack Battle, "him no friend great white chief--him captive----"

Then G.o.defroy burst out with the unworthiest answer that ever pa.s.sed man's lips.

"Of course he's a captive," screamed the trader, "then take him and torture him and let us go! 'Twas him stopped the Indian getting the girl!"

"Le Borgne," I cut in sharply, "Le Borgne, it was I who stopped the Indian killing the girl! You need not torture the little white-man.

He is a good man. He is the friend of the great white chief."

But Le Borgne showed no interest. While the others stripped the dead and wreaked their ghoulish work, Le Borgne gathered up the furs of the Little Sticks and with two or three young men stole away over the crest of the hill.

Then the hostiles left the dead and the half-dead for the wolves.

Prodded forward by lance-thrusts, we began the weary march back to the lodges. The sun sank on the snowy wastes red as a s.h.i.+eld of blood; and with the early dusk of the northern night purpling the shadowy fields in mist came a south wind that filled the desolate silence with restless waitings as of lament for eternal wrong, moaning and sighing and rustling past like invisible spirits that find no peace.

Some of the Indians laid hands to thin lips with a low "Hs-s-h," and the whole band quickened pace. Before twilight had deepened to the dark that precedes the silver glow of the moon and stars and northern lights, we were back where Le Borgne had killed the old man. The very snow had been picked clean, and through the purple gloom far back prowled vague forms.

Jack Battle and I looked at each other, but the Indian fellow, who was our guard, emitted a harsh, rasping laugh. As for G.o.defroy, he was marching abreast of the braves gabbling a mumble-jumble of pleadings and threats, which, I know very well, ignored poor Jack. G.o.defroy would make a scapegoat of the weak to save his own neck, and small good his cowardice did him!

The moon was high in mid-heaven flooding a white world when we reached the lodges. We three were placed under guards, while the warriors feasted their triumph and danced the scalp-dance to drive away the spirits of the dead. To beat of tom-tom and shriek of gourd-rattles, the whole terrible scene was re-enacted. Stripping himself naked, but for his moccasins, the old wizard pranced up and down like a fiend in the midst of the circling dancers. Flaming torches smoked from poles in front of the lodges, or were waved and tossed by the braves.

Flaunting fresh scalps from lance-heads, with tomahawk in the other hand, each warrior went through all the fiendish moves and feints of attack--prowling on knees, uttering the yelping, wolfish yells, crouching for the leap, springing through mid-air, brandis.h.i.+ng the battle-axe, stamping upon the imaginary prostrate foe, stooping with a glint of the scalping knife, then up, with a shout of triumph and the scalp waving from the lance, all in time to the dull thum--thum--thum of the tom-tom and the screaming chant of the wizard. Still the south wind moaned about the lodges; and the dancers shouted the louder to drown those ghost-cries of the dead. Faster and faster beat the drum.

Swifter and swifter darted the braves, hacking their own flesh in a frenzy of fear till their shrieks out-screamed the wind.

Then the spirits were deemed appeased.

The mad orgy of horrors was over, but the dancers were too exhausted for the torture of prisoners. The older men came to the lodge where we were guarded and G.o.defroy again began his importunings.

Setting Jack Battle aside, they bade the trader and me come out.

"Better one be tortured than three," heartlessly muttered G.o.defroy to Jack. "Now they'll set us free for fear of M. Radisson, and we'll come back for you."

But G.o.defroy had miscalculated the effects of his threats. At the door stood a score of warriors who had not been to the ma.s.sacre. If we hoped to escape torture the wizard bade us follow these men. They led us away with a sinister silence. When we reached the crest of the hill, half-way between the lodges and the ma.s.sacre, G.o.defroy took alarm. This was not the direction of our fort. The trader shouted out that M. Radisson would punish them well if they did us harm. At that one of the taciturn fellows turned. They would take care to do us no harm, he said, with an evil laugh. On the ridge of the hill they paused, as if seeking a mark. Two spindly wind-stripped trees stood straight as mast-poles above the snow. The leader went forward to examine the bark for Indian signal, motioning G.o.defroy and me closer as he examined the trees.

With the whistle of a whip-lash through air the thongs were about us, round and round ankle, neck, and arms, binding us fast. G.o.defroy shouted out a blasphemous oath and struggled till the deer sinew cut his buckskin. I had only succeeded in wheeling to face our treacherous tormentors when the strands tightened. In the struggle the trader had somehow got his face to the bark. The coils circled round him. The thongs drew close. The Indians stood back. They had done what they came to do. They would not harm us, they taunted, pointing to the frost-silvered valley, where lay the dead of their morning crime.

Then with harsh gibes, the warriors ran down the hillside, leaving us bound.

CHAPTER XVIII

FACING THE END

Below the hill on one side flickered the moving torches of the hostiles. On the other side, where the cliff fell sheer away, lay the red-dyed snows with misty shapes moving through the frosty valley.

A wind of sighs swept across the white wastes. Short, sharp barkings rose from the shadowy depth of the ravine. Then the silence of desolation . . . then the moaning night-wind . . . then the s.h.i.+vering cry of the wolf-pack scouring on nightly hunt.

For a moment neither G.o.defroy nor I spoke. Then the sinews, cutting deep, wakened consciousness.

"Are they gone?" asked G.o.defroy hoa.r.s.ely.

"Yes," said I, glancing to the valley.

"Can't you break through the thongs and get a hand free?"

"My back is to the tree. We'll have to face it, G.o.defroy--don't break down, man! We must face it!"

"Face what?" he shuddered out. "Is anything there? Face what?" he half screamed.

"The end!"

He strained at the thongs till he had strength to strain no more. Then he broke out in a volley of maledictions at Jack Battle and me for interfering with the ma.s.sacre, to which I could answer never a word; for the motives that merit greatest applause when they succeed, win bitterest curses when they fail.

The northern lights swung low. Once those lights seemed censers of flame to an invisible G.o.d. Now they shot across the steel sky like fiery serpents, and the rustling of their fire was as the hiss when a fang strikes. A shooting star blazed into light against the blue, then dropped into the eternal darkness.

"G.o.defroy," I asked, "how long will this last?"

"Till the wolves come," said he huskily.

"A man must die some time," I called back; but my voice belied the bravery of the words, for something gray loomed from the ravine and stood stealthily motionless in the dusk behind the trader.

Involuntarily a quick "Hist!" went from my lips.

"What's that?" shouted G.o.defroy. "Is anything there?"

"I am cold," said I.

And on top of that lie I prayed--prayed with wide-staring eyes on the thing whose head had turned towards us--prayed as I have never prayed before or since!

"Are you sure there's nothing?" cried the trader. "Look on both sides!

I'm sure I feel something!"

Another crouching form emerged from the gloom--then another and another--silent and still as spectres. With a sidling motion they prowled nearer, sniffing the air, s.h.i.+fting watchful look from G.o.defroy to me, from me to G.o.defroy. A green eye gleamed nearer through the mist. Then I knew.

The wolves had come.

G.o.defroy screamed out that he heard something, and again bade me look on both sides of the hill.

"Keep quiet till I see," said I; but I never took my gaze from the green eyes of a great brute to the fore of the gathering pack.

"But I feel them--but I hear them!" shouted G.o.defroy, in an agony of terror.