THE ESCAPE.
Red Cedar had seen his son tied up, from the tree where he was concealed. This sight suddenly stopped him; he found himself just over the Comanche camp, in a most perilous situation, as the slightest false movement, by revealing his presence, would be sufficient to destroy him. Sutter and Fray Ambrosio in turn parted the branches and looked down at Nathan, who certainly was far from suspecting that the persons he had left on the previous day were so near him.
In the meanwhile the shadows gradually invaded the clearing, and soon all objects were confounded in the gloom, which was rendered denser by the gleam of the fires lighted from distance to distance, and which shed an uncertain light around. The squatter did not love his son; for he was incapable of feeling affection for more than one person, and it was concentrated on Ellen. Nathan's life or death, regarded in the light of paternal love, was of very slight consequence to him; but in the situation where his unlucky star placed him, he regretted his son, as one regrets a jolly comrade, a bold man and clever marksman—an individual, in short, who can be relied on in a fight.
We need not here describe Red Cedar's resolute character, for the reader is acquainted with it. Under these circumstances, a strange idea crossed his brain; and as, whenever he had formed a resolution, nothing could stop it, and he would beard all dangers in carrying it out, Red Cedar had resolved on delivering his son, not, we repeat through any paternal love, but to have a good rifle more, in the very probable event that he should have to fight.
But it was not an easy matter to liberate Nathan. The young man was far from suspecting that at the moment he was awaiting worse than death, his father was only a few paces from him, preparing everything for his flight. This ignorance might compromise the success of the daring stroke the squatter intended to attempt.
The latter, before undertaking anything, called his two companions to him and imparted his plan to them. Sutter, adventurous and rash as his father, applauded the resolve. He only saw in the bold enterprise a trick to be played on his enemies, the redskins, and rejoiced, not at carrying off his brother from among them, but at the faces they would cut when they came to fetch their prisoner to fasten him to the stake and no longer found him.
Fray Ambrosio regarded the question from a diametrically opposite point of view: their position, he said, was already critical enough, and they ought not to render it more perilous by trying to save a man whom they could not succeed in enabling to escape, and which would hopelessly ruin them, by informing the redskins of their presence.
The discussion between the three adventurers was long and animated, for each obstinately held to his opinion. They could not come to an agreement; seeing which, Red Cedar peremptorily cut short all remarks by declaring that he was resolved to save his son, and would do so, even if all the Indians of the Far West tried to oppose it. Before a resolution so clearly intimated, the others could only be silent and bow their heads, which the monk did. The trapper then prepared to carry out his design.
By this time, the shades of night had enveloped the prairie in a black winding sheet; the moon, which was in her last quarter, would not appear before two in the morning; it was now about eight in the evening, and Red Cedar had six hours' respite before him, by which he intended to profit. Under circumstances so critical as the adventurers were now placed, time is measured with the parsimony of the miser parting with his treasure, for five minutes wasted may ruin everything.
The night became more and more gloomy; heavy black clouds, charged with electricity, dashed against each other and intercepted the light of the stars; the evening breeze had risen at sunset, and whistled mournfully through the branches of the primæval forest. With the exception of the sentries placed round the camp, the Indians were lying round the decaying fires, and, wrapped in their buffalo robes, were soundly asleep. Nathan, securely tied, slept or feigned to sleep. Two warriors, lying not far from him, and ordered to watch him, seeing their prisoner apparently so resigned to his fate, at length yielded to slumber.
Suddenly, a slight hiss, like that of the whip snake, was audible from the top of the tree to which the young man was fastened. He opened his eyes with a start, and looked searchingly round him, though not making the slightest movement, for fear of arousing his guardians. A second hiss, more lengthened than the first, was heard, immediately followed by a third.
Nathan raised his head cautiously, and looked up; but the night was so dark that he could distinguish nothing. At this moment, some object, whose shape it was impossible for him to guess, touched his forehead and struck it several times, as it oscillated. This object gradually descended, and at length fell on the young man's knees.
He stooped down and examined it.
It was a knife!
Nathan with difficulty repressed a shout of joy. He was not entirely abandoned, then! Unknown friends took an interest in his fate, and were trying to give him the means of escape. Hope returned to his heart; and like a boxer, stunned for a moment by the blow he had received, he collected all his strength to recommence the contest.
However intrepid a man may be, although if conquered by an impossibility he has bravely sacrificed his life, still, if at the moment of marching to the place of punishment a gleam of hope seems to dazzle his astonished eyes, he suddenly draws himself up—the image of death is effaced from his mind, and he fights desperately to regain that life which he had so valiantly surrendered. This is what happened to Nathan; he gradually sat up, with his eyes eagerly fixed on his still motionless guards.
My readers must pardon the following trifling detail, but it is too true to be passed over. When the first hiss was heard, the young man was snoring, though wide awake; he now continued the monotonous melody which lulled his keepers to sleep. There was something most striking in the appearance of this man, who, with eyes widely open, frowning brow, features painfully contracted by hope and fear, was cutting through the cords that fastened his elbows to the tree, while snoring as quietly as if he were enjoying the quietest sleep.
After considerable efforts, Nathan managed to cut through the ligatures; the rest was nothing, as his hands were at liberty. In a few seconds he was completely freed from his bonds, and seized the knife, which he thrust into his girdle. The cord that let it down was then drawn up again.
Nathan waited in a state of indescribable agony. He had returned to his old position, and was snoring. All at once one of his guardians turned towards him, moved his limbs, stiffened with cold, rose and bent over him with a yawn. Nathan, with half-closed, eyes, carefully watched his movements. When he saw the redskin's face only two inches from his own, with a gesture swift as thought, he threw his hands round his neck, and that so suddenly that the Comanche, taken unawares, had not the time to utter a cry.
The American was endowed with Herculean strength, which the hope of deliverance doubled at this moment. He squeezed the warrior's neck as in a vice; and the latter struggled in vain to free himself from this deadly pressure. The bandit's iron hands drew tighter and tighter with a slow, deliberate, but irresistible pressure. The Indian, his eyes suffused with blood, his features horribly contracted, beat the air two or three times mechanically, made one convulsive effort, and then remained motionless. He was dead.
Nathan held him for two or three minutes, to be quite certain that all was over, and then laid the warrior by his side, in a position that admirably resembled sleep. He then passed his hand over his forehead to wipe away the icy perspiration, and raised his eyes to the tree, but nothing appeared there. A frightful thought then occupied the young man; suppose his friends, despairing of saving him, had abandoned him? A horrible agony contracted his chest.
Still, he had recognised his father's signal: the hiss of the whip snake had been long employed by them to communicate under perilous circumstances. His father was not the man to leave any work he had begun undone, whatever the consequences might be. And yet the moments slipped away one after the other, and nothing told the wretch that men were at work for his deliverance; all was calm and gloomy.
Nearly half an hour passed thus. Nathan was a prey to feverish impatience and a terror impossible to describe. Up to the present, it was true, no one in camp had perceived the unusual movement he had been obliged to make, but an unlucky chance might reveal his plans for flight at any moment; to effect this, an Indian aroused by the sharp cold need only pass by him while trying to restore the circulation of his blood by a walk.
As his friends forgot him, the young man resolved to get out of the affair by himself. In the first place, he must get rid of his second watcher, and then he would settle what next to do. Hence, still remaining on the ground, he slowly crawled toward the second warrior. He approached him inch by inch, so insensible and deliberate were his movements! At length he arrived scarce two paces from the warrior, whose tranquil sleep told him that he could act without fear. Nathan drew himself up, and bounding like a jaguar, placed his knee on the Indian's chest, while with his left hand he powerfully clutched his throat.
The Comanche, suddenly awakened, made a hurried movement to free himself from this fatal pressure, and opened his eyes wildly, as he looked round in terror. Nathan, without uttering a word, drew his knife and buried it in the Indian's heart, while still holding him by the throat. The warrior fell back as if struck by lightning, and expired without uttering a cry or giving a sigh.
"I don't care," the bandit muttered, as he wiped the knife, "it is a famous weapon. Now, whatever may happen, I feel sure of not dying unavenged."
Nathan, when he found his disguise useless, had asked leave to put on his old clothes, which was granted. By a singular chance, the Indian he stabbed had secured his game bag and rifle, which the young man at once took back. He gave a sigh of satisfaction at finding himself again in possession of objects so valuable to him, and clothed once more in his wood ranger's garb.
Time pressed; he must be off at all risks, try to foil the sentries, and quit the camp. What had he to fear in being killed? If he remained, he knew perfectly well the fate that awaited him; hence the alternative was not doubtful; it was a thousandfold better to stake his life bravely in a final contest, than wait for the hour of punishment.
Nathan looked ferociously around, bent forward, listened, and silently cocked his rifle. The deepest calm continued to prevail around.
"Come," the young man said, "there can be no hesitation; I must be off."
At this moment the hiss of the whip snake was again audible.
Nathan started.
"Oh, oh!" he said, "It seems that I am not abandoned as I fancied."
He lay down on the ground again and crawled back to the tree to which he had been fastened. A lasso hung down to the ground, terminating in one of those double knots which sailors call "chairs," one half of which passes under the thighs, while the other supports the chest.
"By jingo!" Nathan muttered joyfully, "Only the old man can have such ideas. What a famous trick we are going to play those dogs of redskins! They will really believe me a sorcerer; for I defy them to find my trail."
While talking thus to himself, the American had seated himself in the chair. The lasso drawn by a vigorous hand, rapidly ascended, and Nathan soon disappeared among the thick foliage of the larch tree. When he reached the first branches, which were about thirty feet from the ground, the young man removed the lasso, and in a few seconds rejoined his comrades.
"Ouf!" he muttered, as he drew two or three deep breaths, while wiping the perspiration from his face; "I can now say I have had a lucky escape, thanks to you; for, deuce take me, without you, I had been dead."
"Enough of compliments," the squatter sharply answered; "we have no time to waste in that nonsense. I suppose you are anxious to be off?"
"I should think so; in which direction are we going?"
"Over there," Red Cedar answered, holding his arm out in the direction of the camp.
"The devil!" Nathan sharply objected, "Are you mad, or did you pretend to save my life, merely to deliver me to our enemies with your own hands?"
"What do you mean?"
"Something you would see as well as I, if it were day; the forest suddenly terminates a few yards from here on the edge of an immense quebrada."
"Oh, oh," Red Cedar said, with a frown; "what is to be done in that case?"
"Return by the road you came for about half a league, and then go to the left. I have seen enough of the country since I left you to have a confused resemblance of the shape of the mountain, but, as you say, the main point at this moment is to be off from here?"
"The more so, as the moon will soon rise," Sutter observed, "and if the redskins perceived Nathan's escape, they would soon find our trail."
"Well said," Nathan replied, "let us be off."
Red Cedar placed himself once more at the head of the small party, and they turned back. Progress was extremely difficult in this black night; they were obliged to grope, and not put down their foot till they were certain the support was solid. If they did not, they ran a risk of falling and being dashed on the ground, at a depth of seventy or eighty feet.
They had scarcely gone three hundred yards in this way, when a frightful clamour was heard behind them: a great light illumined the forest, and between the leaves the fugitives perceived the black outlines of the Indians running in every direction, gesticulating and yelling ferociously.
"Hilloh," Red Cedar said, "I fancy the Comanches have found out your desertion."
"I think so, too," Nathan replied, with a grin; "poor fellows! They are inconsolable at my loss."
"The more so, because you probably did not quit them without leaving your card."
"Quite true, father," the other said, as he raised his hunting shirt and displayed two bloody scalps suspended to his girdle; "I did not neglect business."
The wretch, before fastening the lasso round him, had, with horrible coolness, scalped his two victims.
"In that case," Fray Ambrosio said, "they must be furious; you know that the Comanches never forgive. How could you commit so unworthy an action?"
"Trouble yourself about your own affairs, señor Padre," Nathan said, brutally, "and let me act as I think proper, unless you wish me to send you to take my place with the butt end of my rifle."
The monk bit his lips.
"Brute beast!" he muttered.
"Come, peace, in the devil's name!" Red Cedar said; "let us think about not being caught."
"Yes," Sutter supported him, "when you are in safety, you can have an explanation with knives, like true caballeros. But, at this moment, we have other things to do than quarrel like old women."
The two men exchanged a glance full of hatred, but remained silent. The little party, guided by Red Cedar, gradually retired, pursued by the yells of the Comanches, who constantly drew nearer.
"Can they have discovered our track?" Red Cedar said, shaking his head sadly.