"They say lies," answered Tawannears with passion. "You shall not have her alive. She is holy."
Awa's reply was a gesture with his hand and a shouted order in his own language. A hundred warriors slipped from their horses in the first rank of the array outside the circle, dropped lances, shields and bows and ran toward us.
Tawannears, his face a mask of fury, ripped an arrow from his quiver and drove it at Awa's chest; but the chief on the white horse calmly interposed his shield and stopped it neatly, and the charge of warriors on foot compelled the Seneca to run back to us. We, who had understood practically nothing of the dialogue which had passed, were uncertain what the situation meant. Tawannears, himself, was at a loss.
"Fight," he shouted hoarsely. "We must not be captured."
We loosed arrows as rapidly as we could draw from quivers and notch them. 'Twas impossible to miss at that point-blank range, and we killed a dozen men before they came to hand-grips. Then we used knife and hatchet, Kachina as remorselessly as the rest of us, our assailants, evidently under Awa's orders, scrupulously refraining from drawing a weapon, lest they harm the girl who was destined for the sacrifice.
Back to back, striving to protect Kachina, we fought like wolves in famine-time, our arms aching from slaughter, but the Pawnee would not give in. They dived betwixt the legs of their comrades who were grappling barehanded against our knives, and so pulled us down. Peter was last to go, a dozen men clinging to his limbs. Kachina, biting at her captors, was led struggling from the heap of bodies. We others were jerked to our feet, arms pinioned and dragged after her.
The Pawnee horsemen crowded around us and the men we had killed. The chief on the white horse stared with satisfaction at Kachina's lithe body, hardly covered by the rags of her garments, and grinned amusement when she spat at him, trying to plant her teeth in the arm of one of the men who restrained her. He turned from her to the panting, bleeding warriors who held us, and to the pile of dead around the arrow Kachina had shot into the air. It stood there yet, hub of an ill-omened wheel of corpses, its feathers ruffling in the breeze. It seemed to fascinate him. His grin became a frown.
"You have made me pay a price for the girl," he said to Tawannears. "That is well. The Pawnee are not afraid to pay what Tirawa asks. But you shall pay now a price to me."
He drew his own bow from its case, and selected a shaft from the quiver at his side, notched it and aimed it at my chest.
"Awa will shoot you, one by one," he announced. "Afterward your hearts shall be cut out, and we will make strong medicine with them. This white man shall die first."