IV.—THE SILHOUETTE.
“More than a month ago,” said the young officer, “I left the country of the Abnakis, accompanied by my father, a soldier, and an Indian guide. We were bearing very important dispatches to the governor of the colony. We travelled along through the forest for several days without any accident, when, one evening, overcome with fatigue, we lit a fire and camped for the night near an Indian cemetery. According to the custom of the savages, every corpse was wrapped in a shroud of coarse bark, and placed high above the ground on four stakes. Bows and arrows, tomahawks, and some ears of maize were hung against these rude graves, and shook and rattled as the wind passed over them. Our own savage was seated just in front of me, on the half-decayed trunk of a pine-tree that had fallen to the ground, and seemed half buried in profound meditation. The fitful flames of the fire threw a weird light over his gigantic frame. An Indian might readily have compared him to one of the superb maples of our forest, had he been able at the same time to have united with it the cunning of the serpent and the agility of the elk. His height was increased by a quantity of black, red, and white feathers tied with his hair on the top of his head. His ferocious features, piercing black eyes, his tomahawk and long knife, half concealed by the trophy of scalps which hung from his belt, gave him a wild and sanguinary appearance. The night was dark and bitter cold. The low and unequal arch formed by the interlacing branches of the trees, and illuminated by the flickering light of our pine-wood fire, seemed like a vast cavern, and the old trunks of the rotten trees, which were buried in the snow, looked like the corpses of giants strewn around. The birches, covered with their white bark, seemed like wandering phantoms in the midst of this débris, and the dull rumbling of the distant torrent, and the wind moaning and whistling through the leafless branches, completed the weird funereal aspect of the place. Any one slightly superstitious could easily believe he heard the sighing spirits of the Indian warriors who lay buried so near us. In spite of myself, a shiver of horror ran through my veins. Here, in the midst of all this grim rubbish, where every rock and tree was transformed by the shadows into as many spectres watching his movements; our audacious savage appeared as grave and tranquil as if he had been in his own cabin.
“‘Comrade,’ said I to him, ‘do you think we need fear any danger still from those Iroquois whose trail we discovered yesterday?’
“‘Has my brother already forgotten that we found it again this morning?’
“‘But there were only two,’ said I.
“‘ Yes; but an Iroquois can very quickly communicate with his comrades.’
“‘But these were not on the war-path; they were hunting an elk.’
“‘Yes; but the snow is deep, and they could soon kill him without much fatigue, and then—’
“‘Well!’
“‘And then, their hunger once satisfied—’
“‘Finish!’
“‘I say they might, perhaps, amuse themselves by hunting the whiteskins.’
“‘But the whites are at peace with the Iroquois.’
“‘The Iroquois never bury but half of the war-hatchet; and, besides, they have raised the tomahawk against the warriors of my tribe, and if they discover the track of an Abnakis among yours—’
“‘You think, then, that they might pursue us? Perhaps it would be more prudent to extinguish our fire.’
“‘Does not my brother hear the howling of the wolves? If he prefers being devoured by them to receiving the arrow of an Iroquois, he can extinguish it.’
“The words of our guide were not very reassuring, but I was so overcome with fatigue that, in spite of the evident danger to which we were exposed, I fell asleep. But my sleep was filled with the wildest dreams. The dark shadow of our guide, that I saw as I went to sleep, seemed to lengthen and rise behind him, black and threatening, like a spectre. The dead in the cemetery, shaking the snow from their shrouds of bark, descended from their sepulchres, and bent towards me. I fancied I heard the gritting of their teeth as the wind rushed through the trees and the dry branches cracked and snapped. I awoke with a start. Our guide, leaning against a post of one of the graves, was still before me, and from his heavy and regular breathing I knew that he slept profoundly. I fancied I saw just above him, peeping over the grave against which he was leaning, a dark form and two fixed and flaming eyes. My imagination is excited by my fantastic dreams, thought I, and tried to compose myself to sleep again. I remained a long time with my eyes half shut, in that state of semi-somnolence, half watching, half sleeping, my stupefied faculties scarcely able to discern the objects around. And yet the dark shadow seemed to move slightly, and to lean more and more towards our savage, who was still in a deep sleep. At that moment the fire suddenly blazed up, and I saw distinctly the figure of an Indian. He held a long knife between his teeth, and, with dilated eyes fixed on his enemy, he approached still nearer to assure himself that he slept. Then a diabolical smile lit up his face, and, seizing his knife, he brandished it an instant in aiming a blow at the heart of his victim. The blade flashed in the firelight. At the same moment a terrible cry rang out, and the two savages rolled together in the snow. The flash of the steel, in awakening our guide, had also betrayed his enemy. Thus my horrible nightmare terminated in a more horrible reality. I had hastily seized my gun, but dared not fire, lest I should kill or wound our guide. It was a death-fight between them. The snow, streaked with blood, blew up around them like a cloud of dust. A hatchet glittered in the air, then a dull, heavy sound, followed by the cracking of bones. The victory was decided. A gurgling sound escaped from the victim—it was the death-rattle! Holding in one hand a bloody scalp, the conqueror, with a smile, raised himself proudly. At that instant a shot was heard. A ball struck him in the breast, and our savage, for it was he, fell dead in front of the fire. Taking aim with my gun, and sending a ball in the direction whence the shot had come, and where I saw another shadow gliding among the trees, was for me the work of an instant. The Indian, with a terrible death-cry, described an arch in the air with his body, and fell dead to the ground. The tragedy was finished; our savage was avenged, but we had no longer a guide. I then thought of our conversation that evening, and how his apprehensions of the two savages whom we had tracked in the morning had been so fearfully realized.”