"As he now is, even so shall he be found."
With his greatest speed the old trickster departed, and returned after the lapse of a few minutes with the desired article. But, long before, the white man had opened the coveted chest and secured several small bottles and other things about him—things valuable in chemistry and scientific experiments, but far beyond the comprehension of the nomadic children of the wilderness. Time also had been given him to somewhat arrange the plan he intended to follow, and when the Indian entered with the grinning skull, he held it for a few moments, then placed it at the further end of the wigwam, and drew the curtains so as to secure almost total darkness.
"Now," he continued, "let the Medicine of the Sioux look and ask what he would know."
The Indian turned his eyes upon the skull and shrunk back with a groan of horror and intense alarm—shrunk back, and had not the white man held him, would have fled shrieking, for never had his superstitious mind dreamed of any thing one half as horrible.
Around the fleshless lips—from the long, yellow, rattling teeth—from the cavernous sockets of the eyes—dropping from the threads of hair that still clung to the moldering bone, pale blue flames appeared to creep and dance and drip, and sulphurous fumes to fill the air! And even as he gazed in terror, out from the hollow skull resounded the words in echo to those of the white man:
"Let the Medicine speak."
The result would have been just the same if a stone had been commanded to give utterance to words, for the trickster was beaten, awed, incapable of either motion or sound. He could not do any thing more than gasp.
The affrighted victim motioned to his companion to do so for him, and the physician asked:
"What would the dead?"
"In the dark caverns of the earth where the worm crawls, and the spotted toad breeds, where bones molder, and the scaly serpent distills poison—in the far-away country of souls the wish of the red-man was heard, and we have come at his bidding. Let him answer!" came in still more startling tones from within the flaming skull.