Майн Рид
The White Squaw
Chapter Thirty Eight.
The Sleeping Draught
Cris Carrol’s fortitude did not desert him, when he once more found himself alone in his prison.
He was not wholly unmoved by the reflection that on the morrow he must die; for it was a death such as even a brave man might not meet bravely, but a lingering death by torture.
The hunter knew what this meant.
“A bullet ain’t nothin’,” said he to himself, “it’s into yer body afore ye knows it, and if it’s in your vitals there’s an end on it; but to stand up to be prodded with burning sticks, requires philosophy a’most as much as this hyar chile have got. Dog-rot it, it won’t bear thinkin’ on – that it won’t. But I’ll be all-fired eternally if them fellows shall know how it hurts Cris Carrol! So let ’em do their worst, dura ’em!”
After this self-consoling soliloquy, he calmly went to work to make himself comfortable, by laying his blanket on the bare ground and improvising a pillow out of some logs that lay within reach.
As he handled the billets, a strange desire seized him. It was to knock his guard’s brains out and make a dash for liberty. But a moment’s reflection convinced him that the attempt at escape would be futile, the men outside being doubtless prepared to oppose his exit.
A disinclination to shed blood uselessly decided him, and he lay down composedly after lighting his pipe.
For some time he ruminated on his condition, puffing curls of smoke into the air, and watching them as they disappeared.
Once or twice he heard a scratching noise near the corner of the room, but it ceased almost as soon as he had noticed it.
At length, giving way to weariness, he composed himself to sleep, and before long, his loud snoring suggested to his guards that they might relax their vigilance.
They accordingly retired outside the door, after having assured themselves that his slumber was genuine.
There were still four of them, and they began chattering to each other, for a time forgetting their prisoner.
He was at length awakened by a gentle tug at his arm, which had to be repeated several times before it had the effect of arousing him.
In an instant he sat up.
“Eh? what? By the etarnal – ”
An admonition of silence checked him, and he surveyed, with an astonished countenance, the cause of his disturbance.
In the darkest corner of the hut he perceived an opening, through which the face of a young girl was visible. He started on recognising her.
“Hush!” she said in a whisper. “Remember you are watched. Lie down again – listen; but say nothing. Ha! they are coming back!”
At these words the speaker withdrew, just in time, as two of the guards next moment re-entered the room.
They did not stay long. The heavy snoring which Cris improvised for them disarmed them of suspicion.
The moment they were again gone, he turned his eyes towards the opening, and listened.
“Do you know me? – answer by a sign.”
Cris nodded in the affirmative.
“You believe I am desirous to serve you?”
To this question he almost nodded his head off.
“Listen, then; and be careful to obey my instructions. This opening leads into the next house. The exit from it is through another – unfortunately it is a public room; therefore you cannot escape that way without as much risk as you would by going directly out by the door. Don’t go that way, but by the window. You see that window?”
Cris looked up. He had seen the window, certainly, and had already looked at it in every possible light, while considering a means of escape, but had come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t suit.
In reply, he shook his head despairingly.
His visitor seemed to understand him.
“It is too high, perhaps?”
Cris intimated by a sign that the difficulty was not in its height.
“The bars would prevent you getting out?”
The hunter’s head nodded like a mandarin’s.
“Is that all? Then I may as well tell you. Hush! some one is coming.”
One of the sentinels had thrust his head inside the door; he luckily withdrew it, convinced that all was right.
On its disappearance Carrol’s mysterious visitor returned, and resumed the conversation.
“You think those bars would hinder your escape?”
Another nod was the answer.
“You are mistaken.”
The backwoodsman, now perfectly au fait with his pantomimic part of the dialogue, gave a modest but expressive look of dissent.
“I tell you you are mistaken,” continued the young girl, “they are all sawn through. I see you are curious to know who did that?”
Cris said “yes,” without speaking a word.
“It was I!”
“You?” he telegraphed.
“Yes; I was once a close prisoner in this very room – not watched as you are, but still a prisoner. I broke a watch to pieces, took out the mainspring, filed a saw with the nail-cleaning blade of a pen-knife, and with that I sawed away the bars, leaving barely enough to hold them together.”
Carrol’s look expressed astonishment.
“Yes; it was hard work, and it took weeks to accomplish it. I dare say you wonder why I didn’t make my escape. That’s too long a story to tell you now.”
The backwoodsman’s look was very eloquent, and his visitor equally quick of comprehension. By that look he asked a question.
“No; I’m not a prisoner now,” she answered, “only in name. You shall have the benefit of my labours. But you must do everything cautiously. And first, to get rid of your guards.”
“How was that to be done?”
It was the captive who asked himself this question.
“Here is a bottle,” continued she; “it contains a sleeping draught. When they return, ask them for a drink; they will give it to you in a gourd; manage to pour the contents of this bottle into the gourd, and invite them to drink along with you. They will do so, as they never refuse a condemned captive. In a few minutes the draught will take effect. Then climb to the window, remove the bars without noise, let yourself down softly, and make your way straight into the forest. No thanks, till I see you again!”
With these words his visitor vanished, the opening in the wall closed noiselessly, and Cris lay wondering whether he had been sleeping or waking, listening to a soft, delicate voice, or only dreaming that he heard it.
The phial in his hand, however, gave token that he had not been dreaming. His visitor was no creature of another world, but one of this mundane sphere.
The hunter scratched his head with bewilderment, and mentally reviewed the situation.
“Wal, of all the surprisingest things as ever I met, this air the most tremenjous. Bite me to death with gallinippers if ever I thought to have seed sich a thing and not yell right out! And me a lyin’ here when that splendiferous critter war a botherin’ her brain to sarve this old sinner! It’s the most etarnal ’stonishing thing ever heerd on – that’s what it is. Yah! so you’re come agin, air ye?” he continued, as two of his guards re-entered. “Wal, I reckon I’ve got somethin’ as ’ill suit your complaint. Come in, ye devils, you!”
The unconscious objects of his apostrophe having entered the room, seated themselves not far from him, chattering with each other. The subject of the conversation was uninteresting to their prisoner, who lay revolving in his mind what was best to be done.
The time for putting his plan into execution had at length arrived.
His sentinels had ceased conversing, and were with difficulty keeping themselves awake.
“Look hyar, red-skins,” he said, addressing them, “have ye sich a thing as a drop of water? I’m most chokin’ wi’ thirst, and I see its no use waiting till you axes me, so I’ll take the trouble off your hands, and axe you.”
One of the Indians good-naturedly went outside, returning with a gourd, which he handed to the prisoner.
Cris raised it to his lips, and drank; then paused, as if for breath.
“By the etarnal!” said he, “if I didn’t think I seed one of your comrades put his head in that thar door. What kin he want?”
The men looked in the direction of the door.
The contents of the phial were poured into the gourd.
When the Indians looked again at their captive, he was apparently enjoying another long draught of water.
Not a drop, however, passed his lips.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, after his seemingly exhausting imbibation, and with the greatest difficulty suppressing a grimace, “there’s nothing like water to refresh one. It a’most gives a dyin’ man new lease o’ his life. I wonder I never tried it afore. There’s a smack o’ freedom about it that’s worth its weight in gold. Try it yourselves, and don’t stand staring, as if you was agoin’ to swallow me.”
The comical expression of their captive’s face, more than the long speech he made to the two men, induced them to oblige him.
Putting their lips to the gourd, each took a draught of the water.
They did not seem to coincide with him in his opinion of its virtues.
The old hunter laughed in his sleeve on perceiving their wry faces.
“Don’t like it, eh? Wal, you don’t know what’s good for ye. Poor benighted critters! how should ye?”
As he made the remark he fell back upon his log bolster, and again seemed to compose himself to sleep.
If the Indians had been somnolent before drinking the water, they were not rendered more wakeful by the indulgence, and it was almost ludicrous to see what useless efforts they made to battle against the potent narcotic.
In vain they talked to each other, got up, and paced the room, and endeavoured to stand up without leaning up against the wall.
This struggle between sleep and watchfulness at length came to a close.
In less than ten minutes after taking the draught, both lay stretched along the floor in a deep death-like slumber.
The backwoodsman lost no more time.
With an agile motion, he planted his feet in the interstices of the logs, and reached the window.
A slight wrenching of the bars showed the skill with which they had been sawn asunder.
One after another gave way, and the whole framework was in his hands.
He was on the point of dropping it gently, when outside, under the window, a human form appeared.
It was that of an Indian!
Chapter Thirty Nine.
An Old Acquaintance
On seeing the Indian, Cris Carrol felt himself in a dilemma.
But he did not pause long before taking action.
He saw that the man was not watching him, but seemed to have his eyes fixed upon the windows of the adjoining habitation.
Quietly pulling in the iron framework which was beginning to feel heavy, Cris deposited it without noise in the interior of the room and again clambered up to the window. Before doing so, however, he stole his knife from one of the sleeping sentinels.
The Indian outside had still maintained his attitude.
When Cris looked forth again, he saw him with his eyes fixed on the same spot.
What was to be done?
The only thing that suggested itself to the hunter was precisely what he did do.
He crept through the window.
So quietly, that ere the individual below was aware of his presence, he had seized him by the throat and forced him to the ground.
A surprise awaited him when he had accomplished this feat. The Indian’s face was revealed, and, to Carrol’s surprise, no less than his joy, for not having plunged the knife into his heart, he recognised it.
“Nelatu!”
“Carrol!”
“Hush! or you’ll alarm all the red-skins about the place.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve just dropped out o’ that thar window,” he paid, pointing to the opening above.
“How came you to go in there?”
“I didn’t go in of my own will, you may bet high on that. I war brung.”
“Who brought you?”
“Some o’ yur own Injuns.”
“A prisoner?”
“That’s about the size o’ it. I shouldn’t have been one much longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that to-morrow I’d have been as dead as a man could be, with forty or fifty fellows playing blue-blazes on his carcase.”
“Ha! they have decreed on burning you?”
“That’s it, lad, and consarn me if I ain’t glad to be out hyar in the open air a tellin’ it you, ’stead of in there a thinkin’ on it.”
“Who condemned you?”
“Wal, names hev a kind o’ slipped my memory, but they wur warriors and braves of yur enlightened community.”
“Why did you not send for me?”
“I thought of that, but they told me you war gone, and wouldn’t be back in time for the ceremony.”
“How did you get out here? Who opened the window?”
“That war done by a angel.”
“An angel? – what do you mean?”
“Jist this; that at one of the corners of that thar eternal hole, a angel appeared and showed me the road to liberty.”
“Who was it?”
“Wal, it air no use keepin’ it from you – ”
“Speak! who was it?”
“I’ll tell you, but first listen a spell to somethin’ else. Nelatu, lad, I once did you a sarvice.”
“You did! I shall never forget it!”
“Durn it, it warn’t for that I made mention on’t. It war only this – look me in the face, and tell me on the word of a man you mean square with me. Do that an’ I’ll put my trust in ye, as I’m now puttin’ my life in your hands.”
“Upon an Indian warrior’s word, I am your friend!”
“You air, Nelatu? Then dog-gorn me if I doubt you. Your hand!”
They exchanged a friendly grasp.
“It is more nor my life – it am the good name and actions of the most splendiferous, angeliferous critter the sun ever set eyes on! It air – ”
“Alice Rody!”
The hunter showed some surprise as Nelatu uttered the name.
“Yes, it war that same gal; but how on airth did you come for to guess it so straight?”
“Because that one name is never absent from my thoughts.”
The hunter uttered a strange exclamation.
“Ho-ho!” he muttered to himself, “the wind sits in that quarter, do it? Poor lad, I’m fear’d thar ain’t no chance for him.”
“I fear it,” said Nelatu, overhearing the muttered remark; “but, come! – what she has commenced, I will accomplish. At all risks I shall assist you in regaining your liberty.”
“Wal, I’ll be glad to get it.”
“Then, follow me!”
The Indian rapidly crossed the open space at the back of the house, and led the way to the edge of the forest.
The released captive strode silently after.
They paused under a grove of live oaks, in the shadow of which Carrol perceived a horse.
“It is yours,” said Nelatu, “follow the straight path, and you are free.”
“Nelatu,” said the backwoodsman, “you’ve done me a great sarvice. I’m goin’ to give you a bit of advice in return for it – ”
“Give up the angeliferous critter that’s your prisoner; send her back to her own people, and forget her!”
“If I could forget her, you mean?”
“Wal, I don’t know much myself about them thar things; only my advice is – Give her up! You’ll be a deal happier,” he added, suddenly waxing impassioned. “That ere gal am as much above either you or me, or the likes of us, as the genooine angels air above all mortals. Therefor’ give her up, lad – give her up!”
Again pressing Nelatu’s hand in his, the old hunter climbed into the saddle, gave a kick to the horse, and rode off a free man.
“Kim up, ye Seminole critter!” said he to the animal he bestrode, “an’ take me once more to the open savannas; for, durn me! if this world arn’t gettin’ mixed up so, thet it’s hard for a poor ignorant feller like me to know whether them that call ’emselves civilised air more to be thought on than them air savages, or wisey wersey.”
The question was one that has puzzled clearer brains than those of Cris Carrol.
Chapter Forty.
The Tale of an Indian Chief
As the old hunter has ridden out of our sight for ever, let us return to the Indian town, where Alice Rody was so strangely domiciled.
Her people had buried the ill-fated Sansuta near the old fort.
The wild flowers she had loved so well had already blossomed over her grave.
Wacora and Nelatu had both been present – both much affected.
The events of the contest had called them away immediately afterwards. Wacora remained absent, but his cousin had made a stolen visit to the town, as shown by the incidents already related.
The search for the escaped captive was carried on for some time with vigour, but was at length abandoned.
Meanwhile, the other captive’s life passed without incident. The aid she had given the backwoodsman had afforded her the greatest pleasure.
She had been informed of his capture immediately after his condemnation, and was resolved to help him in his escape.
She did not know of Nelatu’s presence near the scene, nor of his well-timed assistance.
The Indian youth had ridden many miles that evening, merely to stand and gaze at her window.
To feel that he was near her seemed a happiness to him.
He departed without even seeing her.
Weeks had elapsed since the Indian maiden had been laid to rest within the old fort.
Alice often visited the spot.
And there Wacora, who had once, more returned to the town again, saw her.
She was resting on the same stone where Sansuta’s head had rested on her bosom.
On perceiving the chief’s approach she rose to her feet, as if to quit the spot.
“Does my coming drive you away?” he asked.
“Not that; but it is growing late, and I must return to my prison.”
“Your prison?”
“Is it not my prison?”
“It is no more your prison than you are a prisoner. You have long been free.”
There was a mournful sadness in Alice Rody’s speech which touched the heart of the Indian chief.
“Freedom is a boon only to those who can enjoy it,” she said, after a pause.
“And are you unhappy?” asked Wacora.
“Can you ask that question? – you who have done so much – ” She paused; her generous nature hesitated to inflict pain.
He concluded her speech for her.
“I have done so much to make you unhappy. You are right. I have been an instrument in the hands of Fate, and you owe your misery to me. But I am only an instrument, not the original cause. My will had no voice in my actions, and but one motive prompted me. That was Duty.”
“Duty?” she asked, a smile curling her lip.
“Yes, duty! I could prove it to you had you the desire to hear me.”
She resumed her seat, and said, quietly —
“I will hear you.”
“There was an Indian chief, the son of a Spanish woman. His father was a Seminole. Both are dead. He was reared amongst his father’s people, and learned from them all that Indian youths are taught. Schools then existed amongst the Seminoles. The white missionaries had established them, and were still at their heads. They had both the ability and the desire to teach. From them Wacora learned all that the pale-faced children are taught. His mind was of his mother’s race; his heart inclined to that of his father.”
“But why this difference?” she asked.
“Because the more he knew the more was he convinced of the cruel oppression that had been suffered in all ages. History was a tissue of it. Geography marked its progress. Education only proved that civilisation was spread at the expense of honour and of right. This is what the schools taught him.”
“That is but one side of the question.”
“You are right, so he resolved to make himself familiar with the other. The story of the past might be applicable to the events of the present. Believing this, he left the schools, and sought the savannah and the forest. What did he find there? Nothing but the repetition of the past he had read of in books, aggravated by the lawlessness and rapacity of the present. The red man was ignorant. But did the pale-faces seek to educate him? No! They sought and still seek to keep him ignorant, because, in his ignorance, lies their advantage.”
“Was that all the fault of our race?” Alice asked, as she noticed the enthusiastic flush upon the speaker’s face.
“Not all. That were to argue falsely. The red man’s vices grew greater as the chances of correcting them were denied him. His instinct prompted him to retaliation, for by this he sought to check oppression. ’Twas a vain effort. He found it so; and was forced to practise cruelty. So the quarrel progressed till to-day the Indian warrior sees in every white man only an enemy.”
“But now? Surely you are not so?”
“I am the Indian chief I have attempted to describe. Take that for your answer.”
The young girl was silent.
“If my heart bleeds for suffering, it is my mother’s nature pleading within me. I check it, because it would be unworthy of a warrior, and the leader of warriors. The storm has arisen – I am carried along with it!”
As he uttered the last words his form seemed to dilate, while his listener stood wondering at it spell-bound.
After a pause, he continued in a tone more subdued, but still full of feeling.
“If I have caused you unhappiness, think of me as the involuntary instrument. My uncle was beloved by all his tribe – by all our race. His injuries were ours; it was ours to avenge them. And for her” – his voice trembled as he pointed to Sansuta’s grave – “she was his only hope and joy upon earth.”
Alice Rody’s tears fell in torrents over the last resting-place of the Indian maiden. Wacora observed them, and, with a delicacy of feeling, was about to withdraw from her presence, when she stayed him with a motion of her hand.
For some time neither uttered a word. Alice at length spoke, through sobs which she vainly strove to check or conceal.
“Forgive me,” said she, “for I have done you a great wrong. Much that was dark and terrible appears now just and natural. I cannot say that I am happier, but I am less troubled than before.”
He would have kissed her hand, but, with a slight shudder, she drew back.
“No, no; do not touch me! Leave me to myself. I shall be more composed by-and-bye.”
He obeyed, without saying a word; leaving her alone.
For a long time she sat in the same place, a prey to thoughts she scarce understood.
At length she rose, to all appearance more composed, and retracing the forest path with slow, sad steps, she re-entered the Indian town.
