“The great prophet teaches the queen,” she returned. “The Six Nations wish to break their treaty with the French. When they dance about the death-fire of the Governor’s wife, they will feel that they are repaid for many wrongs.”
“It shall not be!” cried the chief. “The pale-face shall be given to her husband.”
“Let Gi-en-gwa-tah save her then!”
He started forward, ready in his single bravery to attempt the fulfillment of her mocking words, but at a signal from Mahaska, he was surrounded by her guard. He dropped his bands and stood gazing upon his captors with a look of angry sorrow.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah sees that Mahaska commands here,” she said, slowly. “Let him go back to his place among the chiefs.”
Gi-en-gwa-tah leaped upon his horse and rode close to Adèle.
Every thing was by this time prepared for the departure; the insensible Adèle was placed upon a horse behind one of the guards, and the whole band started rapidly off through the forest.
Gi-en-gwa-tah rode in silence close by the white captive; his face was stern but sorrowful; the mortification he felt at the insult which he had received was light compared with the pain he endured at feeling the power of Mahaska’s hate.
They rode on through the darkness of the night, Mahaska giving way in her thoughts to the fierce joy which the capture of her innocent enemy had cast upon her soul. So great was her exultation, that she made her horse leap and prance through the darkness in the exuberance of her glee. This time there should be no escape; her own hands should deal the blow that terminated that guileless life, and she would send the scalp fringed with those golden tresses back to the agonized husband, with only these words: “Katharine is avenged!”
Adèle came to her senses, only to find herself borne swiftly away further and further from all hope of rescue. She looked back; the starlight showed the pallid, terrible face of the woman who had brought this misery upon her. She closed her eyes to shut out the awful vision of fiendish beauty, and allowed them to bear her on.