THE DOCTOR.
Whilst these terrible events were being accomplished, the doctor was quietly herbalizing. The worthy savant, enraptured by the rich flora he had beneath his eyes, had forgotten everything but the thoughts of the ample harvest he could make. He proceeded with his body bent towards the ground, stopping for a long time before every plant he admired, ere he resolved to pull it up.
When he had loaded himself with an infinite number of plants and herbs exceedingly valuable to him, he resolved at length to seat himself quietly at the foot of a tree, and classify them at his ease, with all the care that celebrated professors are accustomed to bring to this delicate operation, mumbling in the meantime, some morsels of biscuit which he drew from his bag.
He remained a long time absorbed in this occupation, which procured him one of those extreme delights which the learned alone can enjoy, and which are unknown to the vulgar. He would probably have forgotten himself in this labour until night had surprised him, and forced him to seek shelter, had not a dark shadow come between him and the sun, and projected its reflection upon the plants he had classified with so much care.
He mechanically raised his head.
A man, leaning on a long rifle, had stopped before him, and was contemplating him with a kind of laughing attention. This man was Black Elk.
"He! he!" he said to the doctor, "what are you doing there, my good sir? Seeing the grass moved about so, I thought there was a doe in the thicket, and, devil take me! if I was not on the point of sending a bullet at you."
"The deuce!" the doctor cried, eyeing him with an expression of terror, "you should be careful; do you know you might have killed me?"
"Well, I might," the trapper replied, laughing; "but don't be afraid! I perceived my error in time."
"God be praised!"
And the doctor, who had just perceived a rare plant stooped eagerly to seize it.
"Then you won't tell me what you are doing?" the hunter continued.
"Why, can't you see, my friend?"
"Who, I? Yes; I see you are amusing yourself with pulling up the weeds of the prairie, that is all; and I should like to know what for?"
"Oh! ignorance!" the savant murmured, and then added aloud with that tone of doctorial condescension peculiar to the disciples of Æsculapius: "my friend, I am gathering simples, which I collect, in order to classify them in my herbal; the flora of these prairies is magnificent; I am convinced that I have discovered at least three new species of the Chirostemon pentadactylon, of which the genus belongs to the Flora Mexicana."
"Ah!" said the hunter, staring with all his eyes, and making strong efforts to refrain from laughing in the doctor's face. "You think you have really found three new species of—"
"Chirostemon pentadactylon, my friend," said the doctor, patronizingly.
"Ah! bah!"
"At least; perhaps there may be a fourth!"
"Oh! oh! there is some use in it, then?"
"Some use in it, indeed!" the doctor cried, much scandalized.
"Well, don't be angry, I know nothing about it."
"That is true!" said the savant, softened by the tone of Black Elk; "You cannot comprehend the importance of these labours, which advance science at an immense speed."
"Well, only to think! And it was only for the purpose of pulling up herbs in this manner that you came into the prairie?"
"For nothing else."
Black Elk looked at him with the admiration created by the sight of an inexplicable phenomenon; the hunter could not succeed in comprehending how a sensible man should resolve willingly to endure a life of privation and perils for the, to him, unintelligible object of pulling up useless plants; therefore he soon came to a conviction that he must be mad. He cast upon him a look of commiseration; shaking his head, and shouldering his rifle, he prepared to go on his way.
"Well! well!" he said, in the tone usually employed towards children, and idiots; "you are right, my good sir; pull away! pull away! you do nobody any harm, and there will always be plenty left. I wish you good sport; such as it is. I shall see you again."
And, whistling his dogs, he proceeded a few steps, but almost immediately returned.
"One word more," he said, addressing the doctor, who had already forgotten him, and was again busied in the employment which the arrival of the hunter had forced him to interrupt.
"Speak!" he replied, raising his head.
"I hope that the young lady who came to visit my hatto yesterday, in company with her uncle, is well? Poor dear child, you cannot imagine how much I am interested in her, my good sir!"
The doctor rose up suddenly, striking his forehead.
"Fool that I am!" he cried, "I had completely forgotten it."
"Forgotten what?" the astonished hunter asked.
"This is always my way!" the savant muttered; "fortunately the mischief is not great; as you are here, it can easily be repaired."
"What mischief are you talking about?" said the trapper, beginning to feel uneasy.
"You may imagine," the doctor continued, quietly, "that if science absorbs me so completely as to make me often forget to eat and drink, I am likely sometimes not to remember the commissions I am charged with."
"To the point! to the point!" said the hunter impatiently.
"Oh! good Lord, it's very simple. I left the camp at daybreak to come to your hatto; but when I arrived here, I was so charmed with the innumerable rare plants that my horse trod under foot, that without thinking of pursuing my route, I stopped at first to pull up one plant, then I perceived another that was not in my herbal, and another after that, and so on.—In short, I thought no more of coming to you, and was, indeed, so absorbed by my researches, that even your unexpected presence, just now, did not recall to my mind the commission I had to you."
"And did you leave the camp at daybreak?"
"Good Heavens, yes!"
"And do you know what o'clock it is now?"
The savant looked at the sun.
"Almost three!" he said, "but I repeat that it is of little consequence. You being here, I can report to you what Doña Luz charged me to tell you, and all will be right, no doubt."
"God grant that your negligence may not prove the cause of a great misfortune," said the hunter, with a sigh.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You will soon know. I hope I may be deceived. Speak, I am listening to you."
"This is what Doña Luz begged me to repeat to you——"
"Was it Doña Luz that sent you to me?"
"Herself!"
"Has anything serious taken place at the camp, then?"
"Ah! why, yes; and that, perhaps, may make it more important than I at first imagined. This is what has happened: Last night one of our guides——"
"The Babbler?"
"The same. Do you know him?"
"Yes. Go on."
"Well! It appears that the man was plotting with another bandit of his own sort, to deliver up the camp to the Indians. Doña Luz, most probably by chance, overheard the conversation of these fellows, and, at the moment they were passing her, she fired two pistols at them, quite close."
"Did she kill them?"
"Unfortunately, no. One of them, although no doubt grievously wounded, was able to escape."
"Which of them?"
"The Babbler."
"Well, and then?"
"Why, then Doña Luz made me swear to come to you, and say stop a bit," said the savant, trying to recollect the words.
"Black Elk, the hour is come!" the hunter, impetuously interrupted.
"That's it! that's it!" said the savant, rubbing his hands for joy, "I had it at the tip of my tongue. I must confess it appeared rather obscure to me, I could not fancy what it meant; but you will explain it, will you not?"
The hunter seized him vigorously by the arm, and drawing his face close to his own, he said, with an inflamed look and features contracted by anger,—
"Wretched madman! why do you not come to me as quickly as possible, instead of wasting your time like an idiot? Your delay will, perhaps, cause the death of all your friends!"
"Is it possible!" cried the chapfallen doctor, without noticing the somewhat rough manner in which the hunter shook him.
"You were charged with a message of life and death, fool that you are! Now, what is to be done? Perhaps it is too late!"
"Oh! do not say so," said the savant, in great agitation, "I should die with despair if it were so."
The poor man burst into tears, and gave unequivocal proofs of the greatest grief.
Black Elk was obliged to console him.
"Come, come, courage, my good sir!" he said, softening a little. "What the devil, perhaps all is not lost?"
"Oh! if I were the cause of such a misfortune, I should never survive it!"
"Well, what is done, is done; we must act accordingly," said the trapper philosophically. "I will think how they are to be assisted. Thanks be to God, I am not so much alone as might be supposed—I hope within two hours to have got together thirty of the best rifles in the prairies."
"You will save them, will you not?"
"At least, I will do all that can be done, and, if it please God, I shall succeed."
"May Heaven hear you!"
"Amen!" said the hunter, crossing himself devoutly. "Now, listen to me; you must return to the camp."
"Immediately!"
"But no more gathering of flowers, or pulling up of grass, if you please."
"Oh, I swear I will not. Cursed be the hour in which I set myself to herbalize!" said the doctor, with comic despair.
"Very well, that's agreed. You must comfort the young lady as well as her uncle; you must recommend them to keep good guard, and, in case of an attack, to make a vigorous resistance; and tell them they shall soon see friends come to their assistance."
"I will tell them all that."
"To horse, then, and gallop all the way to the camp."
"Be satisfied, I will; but you, what are you going to do?"
"Oh! don't trouble yourself about me. I shall not be idle; all you have to do is to rejoin your friends as soon as possible."
"Within an hour I shall be with them."
"Courage and good luck, then! Above all, don't despair."
Black Elk let go the bridle which he had seized, and the doctor set off at a gallop, a pace to which the good man was so little accustomed, that he had great trouble to preserve his equilibrium.
The trapper watched his departure for an instant, then, turning round, he strode with hasty steps into the forest.
He had scarcely walked ten minutes when he met Nô Eusebio, who was conveying the mother of Loyal Heart across his saddle, in a fainting state.
This meeting was for the trapper a piece of good fortune, of which he took advantage to obtain from the old Spaniard some positive information about the hunter—information which Eusebio hastened to give him.
The two men then repaired to the hatto of the trapper, from which they were but a short distance, and in which they wished to place the mother of their friend for the present.