Nature had done much toward enabling him to become the living lie he was. In youth his figure had been fine and his face attractive; and though years had told upon the one, rendering it somewhat coarse, and evil thoughts had plowed unmistakable furrows upon the other, enough of early grace and manly beauty remained to enforce the iniquity of his doctrines.
With great unction and show of reverence his discourse was delivered; the sweet strains of the evening hymns rolled forth, echoed by the rocky reverberations of the grand old hills afar off; the smouldering fires were extinguished; the guards placed, and silence settled down upon the shores of the Sweet Water.
But Elelu Thomas—for so the prophet was named—had no inclination for sleep. His tent had been pitched apart from the others, and with little difficulty and no fear of observation he could make his way from the corral into the open prairie.
Alone, if one filled with evil thoughts can ever be alone, he sat for a long time. No sweet memories gathered around his heart and thronged the mystic cells of the brain. No tender recollections flashed, fairy-footed, through the halls of thought, but unholy fancies alone had power with him.
“Yes,” he muttered, between his closely compressed lips; “Yes. The plan will work to a charm. Never yet has a human soul escaped me. This shall be the master-stroke of my life. Hark! No, no, it is not what I long to hear. It is but the half-suppressed song with which the sentinel cheats the long hours. But it is so near midnight—the poor fools who have so blindly followed and given me their gold are asleep—dreaming, perhaps, of the bright valley I have so often told them of. What a waking there will be soon! Well, well, it is necessary to keep up the delusion, and I would be but a fool like them to kill the goose that lays my golden eggs.”
The man opened a trunk upon which he had been seated, took out some arms, and cautiously left the tent. He crept stealthily through the wagons, skirted along them, half hid by the shadows, and gained the woods unobserved.
“Rare sentinels these,” he thought. “To-morrow I will teach them a lesson that they will not soon forget. But here is the spot, and—”
A touch upon his arm caused his cowardly soul to leap to his lips, while a deep voice whispered in his ears:
“The pale chief watches not well the stars.”
“Ah! Black Eagle, is that you?”