THE LAST REFUGE.
We must now return to Red Cedar. When the squatter heard the yells of the redskins, and saw their torches flashing through the trees in the distance, he at the first start of terror thought himself lost, and burying his head in his hands, he would have fallen to the ground, had not Fray Ambrosio caught hold of him just in time.
"Demonios!" the monk exclaimed, "take care, gossip, gestures are dangerous here."
But the bandit's despondency lasted no longer than a flash of lightning; he drew himself up again, almost as haughty as he had been previously, saying in a firm voice—"I will escape."
"Bravely spoken, gossip," the monk said; "but we must act."
"Forward!" the squatter howled.
"What do you mean?" the monk cried, with a start of terror; "why, that leads to the redskins' camp."
"Forward, I tell you."
"Very good, and may the devil protect us!" Fray Ambrosio muttered.
The squatter, as he said, marched boldly toward the camp; they soon reached the spot where they let down a lasso for Nathan, and which they had beaten a retreat from in their first movement of terror. On reaching it, the squatter parted the branches, and looked down. All the camp was aroused; Indians could be seen running about in all directions.
"Oh," Red Cedar muttered, "I hoped all these demons would start in pursuit of us; it is impossible to cross there."
"We cannot think of it," said Nathan, "we should be hopelessly lost."
"Let us do something," said the monk.
Ellen, exhausted with fatigue, seated herself on a branch, and her father gazed at her in despair.
"Poor child," he said, in a low voice, "how she suffers!"
"Do not think about me, father," she said; "save yourself, and leave me here."
"Leave you!" he cried, savagely; "never! Not if I died; no, no, I will save you."
"What have I to fear from these men, to whom I never did any harm?" she continued; "they will have pity on my weakness."
Red Cedar burst into an ironical laugh. "Ask the jaguars if they pity the antelopes," he said. "You do not know the savages, poor child. They would torture you to death with ferocious joy."
Ellen sighed, and let her head droop.
"Time is slipping away; let us decide on something," the monk repeated.
"Go to the demon!" the squatter said brutally; "You are my evil genius."
"How ungrateful men are!" the monk said, ironically, as he raised his hypocritical eyes to Heaven; "I, who am his dearest friend."
"Enough," Red Cedar said, furiously; "we cannot remain here, so let us go back."
"What, again?"
"Do you know any other road, demon?"
"Where is Nathan?" the squatter suddenly asked; "has he fallen off?"
"Not such a fool," the young man said, with a laugh; "but I have changed my dress."
He parted the leaves that hid him, and his comrades gave a cry of surprise. Nathan was clothed in a bearskin, and carried the head in his hand.
"Oh, oh!" said Red Cedar, "That is a lucky find; where did you steal that, lad?"
"I only had the trouble to take it off the branch where it was hung to dry."
"Take care of it, for it may be of use ere long."
"That is what I thought."
After taking a few steps, Red Cedar stopped, stretched out his arm to warn his comrades, and listened. After two or three minutes, he turned to his comrades and whispered—"Our retreat is cut off; people are walking on the trees, I heard branches creaking and leaves rustling."
They gazed at each other in terror.
"We will not despair," he went on, quickly, "all is not yet lost; let us go higher, and on one side, till they have passed; during that time, Nathan will amuse them; the Comanches rarely do an injury to a bear."
No one made any objection, so Sutter started first, and the monk followed. Ellen looked at her father sorrowfully. "I care not," she said.
"I say again, I will save you, child," he replied with great tenderness.
He took the maiden in his powerful arms, and laid her softly on his shoulder.
"Hold on," he muttered, "and fear nothing."
Then, with a dexterity and strength doubled by a father's love, the bandit seized the bough over his head with one hand, and disappeared in the foliage, after saying to his son: "Look out, Nathan, play your part cleverly, lad, our safety depends on you."
"Don't be frightened, old one," the young man replied, as he put on the bear's head; "I am not more stupid than an Indian; they will take me for their cousin."
We know what happened, and how this trick, at first so successful, was foiled by Curumilla. On seeing his son fall, the squatter was momentarily affected by a blind rage, and pointed his rifle at the Indian. Fortunately the monk saw the imprudent gesture soon enough to check him. "What are you about?" he hoarsely whispered, as he struck up the barrel; "you will destroy your daughter."
"That is true," the squatter muttered.
Ellen, by an extraordinary hazard, had seen nothing; had she done so, it is probable that her brother's death would have drawn from her a cry of agony, which must have denounced her companions.
"Oh," Red Cedar said, "still that accursed Trail-hunter and his devil of an Indian. They alone can conquer me."
The fugitives remained for an hour in a state of terrible alarm, not daring to stir, through fear of being discovered. They were so close to their pursuers that they distinctly heard what they said, but at length the speakers retired, the torches were put out, and all became silent again.
"Ouf!" said the monk, "they have gone.
"Not all," the squatter answered; "did you not hear that accursed Valentine?"
"That is true; our retreat is still cut off."
"We must not despair yet; for the present we have nothing to fear here; rest a little while, while I go on the search."
"Hum!" Fray Ambrosio muttered; "why not go all together? That would be more prudent, I think."
Red Cedar laughed bitterly. "Listen, gossip," he said to the monk, as he seized his arm, which he pressed like a vice: "you distrust me, and you are wrong. I wished once to leave you, I allow, but I no longer wish it. We will perish or escape together."
"Oh, oh! Are you speaking seriously, gossip?"
"Yes; for, trusting to the foolish promises of a priest, I resolved to reform; I altered my life, and led a painful existence; not injuring anybody, and toiling honestly. The men I wished to forget remembered me in their thirst for revenge. Paying no heed to my wish to repent, they fired my wretched jacal and killed my son. Now they track me like a wild beast, the old instincts are aroused in me, and the evil leaven that slept in my heart is fermenting afresh. They have declared a war to the death. Well, by heaven, I accept it, and will wage it without pity, truce, or mercy, not asking of them, if they captured me, less than I would give them if they fell into my hands. Let them take care, for I am Red Cedar! He whom the Indians call the Man-eater (Witchasta Joute) and I will devour their hearts. So, at present, be at your ease, monk, we shall not part again: you are my conscience—we are inseparable."
The squatter uttered those atrocious words with such an accent of rage and hatred, that the monk saw he really spoke the truth, and his evil instincts had definitively gained the upper hand. A hideous smile of joy curled his lips. "Well, gossip," he said, "go and look out, we will await you here."
During the squatter's absence not a word was uttered. Sutter was asleep, the monk thinking, and Ellen weeping. The poor girl had heard with sorrow mingled with horror her father's atrocious sentiments. She then measured the fearful depth of the abyss into which she was suddenly hurled, for Red Cedar's determination cut her off eternally from society, and condemned her to a life of grief and tears. After about an hour's absence Red Cedar re-appeared, and the expression of his face was joyous.
"Well?" the monk anxiously asked him.
"Good news," he replied; "I have discovered a refuge where I defy the cleverest bloodhounds of the prairies to track me."
"Is it far from here?"
"A very little distance; but that will prove our security. Our enemies will never suppose we had the impudence to hide so close to them."
"That is true; we will go there, then."
"When you please."
"At once."
Red Cedar told the truth. He had really discovered a refuge, which offered a very desirable guarantee of security. Had we not ourselves witnessed a similar thing in the Far West, we should not put faith in the possibility of such a hiding place. After going about one hundred and fifty yards, the squatter stopped before an enormous oak that had died of old age, and whose interior was hollow.
"It is here," he said, cautiously parting the mass of leaves, branches, and creepers that completely concealed the cavity.
"Hum!" the monk said, as he peered down into the hole, which was dark as pitch; "Have we got to go down there?"
"Yes," Red Cedar replied; "but reassure yourself, it is not very deep."
In spite of this assurance the monk still hesitated.
"Take it or leave it," the squatter went on; "do you prefer being captured?"
"But we shall not be able to stir down there?"
"Look around you."
"I am looking."
"Do you perceive that the mountain is perpendicular here?"
"Yes, I do."
"Good; we are on the edge of the precipice which poor Nathan told us of."
"Ah!"
"Yes; you see that this dead tree seems, as it were, welded to the mountain?"
"That is true. I did not notice it at first."
"Well; going down that cavity, for fifteen feet at the most, you will find another which passes the back of the tree, and communicates with a cavern."
"Oh!" the monk exclaimed gleefully, "How did you discover this hiding place?"
The squatter sighed. "It was long ago," he said.
"Stay," Fray Ambrosio objected; "others may know it beside yourself."
"No," he answered, shaking his head; "only one man knows it beside myself, and his discovery cost him his life."
"That is reassuring."
"No hunter or trapper ever comes this way, for it is a precipice; if we were to take a few steps further in that direction, we should find ourselves suspended over an abyss of unknown depth, one of the sides of which this mountain forms. However, to quiet your fears, I will go down first."
Red Cedar threw into the gaping hollow a few pieces of candlewood he had procured; he put his rifle on his back, and, hanging by his hands, let himself down to the bottom of the tree, Sutter and the monk curiously watching him. The squatter struck a light, lit one of the torches, and waved it about his head; the monk then perceived that the old scalp hunter had spoken the truth. Red Cedar entered the cavern, in the floor of which he stuck his torch, so that the hollow was illumined, then came out and rejoined his friends by the aid of his lasso.
"Well," he said to them, "what do you think of that?"
"We shall be famous there," the monk answered.
Without further hesitation he slipped into the tree and disappeared in the grotto. Sutter followed his example, but remained at the bottom of the tree to help his sister down. The maiden appeared no longer conscious of what was going on around her. Kind and docile as ever, she acted with automatic precision, not trying to understand why she did one thing more than another; her father's words had struck her heart, and broken every spring of her will. When her father let her down the tree, she mechanically followed her brother into the cave.
When left alone, the squatter removed with minute care any traces which might have revealed to his enemies' sharp eyes the direction in which he had gone; and when he felt certain that nothing would denounce him, he entered the cave in his turn.
The bandits' first care was to inspect their domain, and they found it was immense. The cavern ran for a considerable distance under the mountain; it was divided into several branches and floors, some of which ran up to the top of the mountain, while others buried themselves in the ground; a subterranean lake, the reservoir of some nameless river, extended for an immense distance under a low arch, all black with bats.
The cavern had several issues in diametrically opposite directions; and they were so well hidden, that it was impossible to notice them outside. Only one thing alarmed the adventurers, and that was the chances of procuring food; but to that Red Cedar replied that nothing was easier than to set traps, or even hunt on the mountain.
Ellen had fallen into a broken sleep on a bed of furs her father had hastily prepared for her. The wretched girl had so suffered and endured such fatigue during the last few days, that she literally could not stand on her feet. When the three men had inspected the cave, they returned and sat down by her side; Red Cedar looked at her sleeping with an expression of infinite tenderness; he was too fond of his daughter not to pity her, and think with grief of the fearful destiny that awaited her by his side; unhappily, any remedy was impossible. Fray Ambrosio, whose mind was always busy, drew the squatter from his reverie.
"Well, gossip," he said, "I suppose we are condemned to spend some time here?"
"Until our pursuers, tired of seeking us in vain, at length determine to go off."
"They may be long; hence, for the greater secrecy, I propose one thing."
"What is it?"
"There are blocks of stone here which time has detached from the roof; before we go to sleep, I propose that we roll three or four of the largest into the hole by which we entered."
"Why so?" the squatter asked abruptly.
"In our present position two precautions are better than one; the Indians are such cunning demons, that they are capable of coming down the tree."
"The padre is right, old one," Sutter, who was half asleep, said; "it is no great task to roll the stones; but in that way we shall be easy in our minds."
"Do what you like," the squatter answered, still continuing to gaze on his daughter.
The two men, with their chief's approval, rose to carry out their plan, and half an hour later the hole was so artistically closed up, that no one would have suspected it had he not known it before.
"Now we can sleep, at any rate," said Fray Ambrosio.