LOVE!
An hour later, the hunters, on reaching the top of a hill, perceived, about a mile ahead of them, a large village, before which three hundred Indian warriors were ranged in battle array.
At the sight of the whites the warriors advanced at a gallop, making their horses curvet and dance, and discharging their muskets in the air. They uttered their war cry, and unfolded their buffalo robes, performing, in a word, all the usual evolutions in a friendly reception.
Valentine made his companions to imitate the Indians; and the hunters, who asked nothing better than to display their skill, descended the hill at headlong speed, shouting and discharging their rifles, amid the yells of joy from the redskins, who were delighted at this triumphal arrival among them.
After the usual salutations and expressions of welcome, the Comanches formed a semicircle round the hunters, and Pethonista advanced to Valentine, and held out his hand, saying:—
"My brother is an adopted son of the nation. He is at home. The Comanches are happy to see him. The longer he remains among them with the persons who accompany him, the more pleasure he will cause them. A calli is prepared for my brother, and a second for the White Lily of the Valley; a third for his friends. We have killed many buffaloes; my brothers will eat their meat with us. When our brother leaves us, our hearts will be swollen with sorrow. Hence my brother must remain as long as possible with his Comanche friends, if he wishes to see them happy."
Valentine, well versed in Indian customs, replied graciously to this harangue, and the two bands, smiling, made their entry into the village to the sound of the chichikouis, conches, and Indian instruments, mingled with the voices of the women and children, and the barking of the dogs, which produced the most horrible row imaginable.
On reaching the village square, the chief conducted the guests to the huts prepared to receive them, which stood side by side, after which he invited them to rest, with a politeness that a man more civilised than him might have envied, after telling them at twelve o'clock they would be summoned to the meal.
Valentine thanked Pethonista for the kind attention he displayed to him and his comrades: then, after installing Doña Clara in a hut with Sunbeam, he entered his own, after recommending the hunters to display the greatest prudence toward the Comanches, who, like all Indians, are punctilious, irascible, and susceptible to the highest degree.
Curumilla lay down without saying a word, like a good watchdog, across the door of the lodge inhabited by Doña Clara. So soon as the two females were alone, Sunbeam seated herself at the Mexican lady's feet, and, fixing on her a bright glance, full of tenderness, she said, in a soft and caressing voice—
"Is my sister, the White Lily of the Valley, satisfied with me? Have I faithfully fulfilled the obligation I contracted toward her?"
"What obligation was that, child?" the girl said, as she passed her hand through the Indian's long hair which she began plaiting.
"That of saving you, my sister, and conducting you in safety to the callis of my nation."
"Yes, yes, poor girl," she said, tenderly, "your devotion to me has been unbounded, and I know not how I can ever requite it."
"Do not speak of that," the Indian said, with a charming pout. "Now that my sister has nothing more to fear, I will leave her."
"You would leave me, Sunbeam?" Doña Clara exclaimed anxiously. "Why so?"
"Yes," the young woman answered, as she frowned, and her voice became stern, "I have a duty to accomplish. I have taken an oath, and my sister well knows that is sacred. I must go."
"But where are you going, my poor child? Whence arises this sudden thought of leaving me? What do you intend? Where are you about to proceed?"
"My sister must not ask me. Her questions would only grieve me, for I cannot answer her."
"Then you have secrets from me, Sunbeam. You will not give me your confidence? Fool! Do you fancy I do not know what you intend doing?"
"My sister knows my plan!" The Indian interrupted her with flashing eye, while a convulsive tremor passed over her limbs.
"Yes, I do," the other answered with a smile. "Unicorn is a renowned warrior, and my sister is doubtless anxious to rejoin him?"
The Indian shook her head in denial.
"No," she said, "Sunbeam is following her vengeance."
"Oh, yes, poor child," Doña Clara said, as she pressed the young squaw to her heart, "I know from what a fearful catastrophe Don Valentine saved you."
"Koutonepi is a great warrior. Sunbeam loves him; but Stanapat is a dog, son of an Apache devil."
The two women wept for several minutes, silently mingling their tears, but the Indian, overcoming grief, dried her red eyes with a passionate gesture, and tore herself from the arms that held her.
"Why weep?" she said. "Only cowards and weak people groan and lament. Indian squaws do not weep. When they are insulted they avenge themselves," she added, with an accent full of strange resolution. "My sister must let me depart! I can no longer be useful to her, and other cares claim my attention."
"Go, then, poor girl. Act as your heart orders you. I have no right either to retain you or prevent you acting as you please."
"Thanks," the Indian said. "My sister is kind. The Wacondah will not desert her."
"Cannot you tell me what you intend doing?"
"I cannot."
"At any rate, tell me in what direction you are going?"
The girl shook her head with discouragement.
"Does the leaf detached from the tree by a high wind know in what direction it will be carried? I am the leaf. So my sister must ask me no more."
"As you wish it, I will be silent; but before we separate, perhaps forever, let me make you a present, which will recall me to mind when I am far from you."
Sunbeam laid her hand on her heart with a charming gesture.
"My sister is there," she said, with emotion.
"Listen," the maiden continued: "last night I gave you a bracelet; here is another. These ornaments are useless to me, and I shall be happy if they please you."
She unfastened the bracelet, and fastened it on the Indian's arm. The latter allowed her to do it, and, after kissing the pearl several times, she raised her head and held out her hand to the young Mexican.
"Farewell!" she said to her, with a shaking voice. "My sister will pray to her God for me: He is said to be powerful, perhaps He will come to my help."
"Hope, poor child!" Doña Clara said, as she held her in her arms.
Sunbeam shook her head sadly, and, making a last sign of farewell to her companion, she bounded like a startled fawn, rushed to the door, and disappeared.
The young Mexican remained for a long time pensive after Sunbeam's departure; the Indian's veiled words and embarrassed countenance had excited her curiosity to the highest degree. On the other hand, the interest she could not forbear taking in this extraordinary woman, who had rendered her a signal service, or, to speak more correctly, a gloomy presentiment warned her that Sunbeam was leaving her to undertake one of those dangerous expeditions which the Indians like to carry out without help of any soul.
About two hours elapsed. The maiden, with her head bowed on her bosom, went over in her mind the strange events which had led her, incident by incident, to the spot where she now was. All at once a stifled sigh reached her ear; she raised her head with surprise, and saw a man standing before her, humbly leaning against a beam of the calli, and gazing on her with a strange meaning in his glance. It was Shaw, Red Cedar's son.
Doña Clara blushed and looked down in confusion; Shaw remained silent, with his eyes fixed on her, intoxicating himself with the happiness of seeing and contemplating her at his ease. The girl, seated alone in this wretched Indian hut, before the man who so many times had nobly risked his life for her, fell into profound and serious thought.
A strange trouble seized upon her—her breast heaved under the pressure of her emotion. She did not at all comprehend the delicious sensations which at times made her quiver. Her eye, veiled with a soft languor, rested involuntarily on this man, handsome as an ancient Antinous, who with his haughty glance, his indomitable character, whom a frown from her made tremble—the wild son of the desert, who had hitherto known no will but his own!
On seeing him, so handsome and so brave, she felt herself attracted to him by all the strength of her soul. Though she was ignorant of the word love, for some time an unconscious revolution had taken place in her mind: she now began to understand that divine union of two souls, which are commingled in one, in an eternal communion of thoughts of joy and suffering.
In a word, she was about to love!
"What do you want with me, Shaw?" she asked, timidly.
"I wish to tell you, señorita," he answered, in a rough voice, marked, however, with extraordinary tenderness, "that, whatever may happen, whenever you have need of a man to die for you, you will have no occasion to seek him for I will be there."
"Thanks," she answered, smiling, in spite of herself, at the strangeness of the offer and the way in which it was made; "but here we have nothing to fear."
"Perhaps," he went on. "No one knows what the morrow has in store."
Women have a decided taste for taming ferocious animals: like all natures essentially nervous, woman is a creature of feeling, whose passion dwells in her head rather than in her heart. Love with a woman is only an affair of pride or a struggle to endure: as she is weak, she always wishes to conquer, and above all dominates at the outset, in order to become presently more completely the slave of the man she loves, when she has proved her strength, by holding him panting at her feet.
Owing to that eternal law of contrasts which governs the world, a woman will never love any man but him who, for some reason or another, flatters her pride. At any rate, it is so in the desert. I do not pretend to speak for our charming European ladies, who are a composite of grace and attraction, and who, like the angels, only belong to humanity, by the tip of their little wing, which scarce grazes the earth.
Doña Clara was a Mexican. Her exceptional position among Indians, the dangers to which she had been exposed, the weariness that undermined her—all these causes combined must dispose her in favour of the young savage, whose ardent passion she divined, with that intuition peculiar to all women.
She yielded so far as to answer him, and encourage him to speak. Was it sport, or did she act in good; faith? No one could say: woman's heart is a book, in which man has never yet been able to construe a word.
One of those long and pleasant conversations now begun between the two young people, during which, though the word "love" is not once uttered, it is expressed at every instant on the lips, and causes the heart to palpitate, which it plunges into those divine ecstacies, forgotten by ripe age, but which render those who experience them so happy.
Shaw, placed at his ease by the complacent kindness of Doña Clara, was no longer the same man. He found in his heart expressions which, in spite of herself made the maiden quiver, and put her into a confusion she could not understand.
At the hour indicated by Pethonista, a Comanche warrior appeared at the door of the calli, and broke off the conversation. He was ordered to lead the strangers to the meal prepared for them in the chief's lodge. Doña Clara went out at once, followed by Shaw, whose heart was ready to burst with joy.
And yet what had Doña Clara said to him? Nothing. But she had let him speak, and listened to him with interest, and at times smiled at his remarks. The poor young man asked no more to be happy, and he was so, more than he had ever been before.
Valentine, Don Pablo, and the two Indians were awaiting Doña Clara. So soon as she appeared, all proceeded to the calli of the chief, preceded by the Comanche warrior, who served as guide.