Awa scowled.
"We shall see," he agreed.
Feathered lances bobbing overhead, our great escort of savage horsemen cantered out of a shallow gulley onto the bank of a sizeable river. A mile or so east and well back from high-water mark began a series of low, hump-backed mounds, which I took to be natural features of the terrain. But as we came nearer people popped out of them, and we perceived that they were houses, partly dug out of the ground and roofed and walled with sods, commodious dwellings, larger than the largest of teepees and invariably round in shape.
The people who met us were old men and women, with an occasional young child of toddling age or under. Awa barked a question to the first group, and one of the old men quavered an answer, gesturing down-river, where the sod-covered earth-houses reached as far as we could see. With a nod of acknowledgment, the chief heeled his horse to a gallop, and we rode on at speed along a rough trail that led betwixt houses and river-bank. Beyond the houses were simple gardens, and in rear of these horses grazed. Dogs ran out of many houses and barked at us. But nowhere did we see a man or woman in the prime of life or a half-grown child.
The mystery of the deserted village—or, rather, succession of villages—was settled after we had ridden another three miles, when an enormous crowd of savages appeared in an open space in the center of the largest collection of earth-houses. There must have been ten or twelve thousand people clustered together, men, women and children, all deeply interested in some proceeding which we could not see at first. But the thudding of the hoofs of Awa's band attracted their attention, and they opened their ranks for us, so that our column passed through the outskirts of the throng and came to a halt on the verge of a circle of hard-trodden clay, perhaps a hundred feet across.
In the center of this space stood a fire-charred stump of wood, and lashed to it with strips of green hide was the black-garbed figure of a man whose dead-white face brought a gasp of astonishment from my lips. 'Twas Black Robe, Père Hyacinthe, the Jesuit, whom we had last seen the day he insisted upon leaving us on the western bank of the Mississippi, striding alone into the unknown wastes ahead!
His ankles were hobbled loosely and bound to the base of the stump. His hands, knotted behind his back, were likewise fastened to it. He could move a foot or so in either direction, and six feet away from him a party of warriors were building a pile of light-wood, which had reached the height of his knees when our arrival distracted them from their labors.
His soutane was the same rusty, torn garment he had worn three years before. His sandals were patched and worn. His gaunt figure testified, as always, to the ceaseless toil and deprivation to which he subjected himself. His emaciated features shone with the radiation of some inward light, and his face, with eyes closed, was upturned in prayer. Certes, no man could have been in worse case, yet his racked body contrived to express an ecstasy of joy beyond all words. Indeed, his utter lack of fear, the otherworldliness of his devotion, had already sapped the savage energy of his would-be tormentors. They were not used to seeing a man face the prospect of torture without boasting or exultation, with no more than the calm disdain of a courage higher than any emotion they knew.
I was not alone in my surprise. Tawannears clicked his tongue. Peter muttered—
"Der Jesuit!"