“Smoholler, do not call up your evil-spirit!” he cried, deprecatingly.
The Prophet raised his right arm loftily. Cute recovered in a measure from the effects of the blow which had felled him, and which, fortunately for him, had been given with the blunt end of the tomahawk, and crawled to Percy Vere, who rested upon one knee beneath the Prophet’s protecting left arm.
“Are these captives mine?” demanded Smoholler.
A general murmur of affirmation was the response.
“That’s right, Smoholler; you’re a brick—just you stick to us, that’s a good fellow,” cried Cute, whose spirits were equal to any emergency. “I say, Percy, our top-knots are safe yet.”
This was whispered to his comrade. Percy said nothing; he was gazing in a bewildered manner upon the strange individual who had so unexpectedly spared his life. He was at a loss to account for this sudden clemency.
The Prophet’s face, by the aid of war-paint, was made to assume an expression frightful to look upon. He was tall in figure, and appeared to possess extraordinary activity and strength, as indeed he did. Percy thought him the best specimen he had yet seen of an Indian chief. His dress displayed his tall and sinewy form to great advantage. It seemed to have been chosen with the view of producing the greatest effect upon the eye of the beholder.
His moccasins and leggings were of buck-skin, stained black, and trimmed with red fringe. His hunting-shirt was of the same material and color, and trimmed in like manner, and upon its breast was painted in red a grinning fiend, similar to the one who had appeared upon the cliff. His head-dress was the skull of a buffalo, with the horns projecting on either side of his head, and he wore it in the fashion of a helmet.
These projecting, curved horns added to the ferocity of his face, the features of which were nearly indistinguishable beneath the paint with which it was daubed. You could see that he had deep, sunken eyes, with a wild glare to them, like the light of insanity, and a long, prominent nose, and that was all.
Upon his back he wore a mantle of deer-skin, which was curiously stained and colored, and covered with innumerable figures and characters. The prominent figures were a fiend and an angel, who appeared to be engaged in an interminable conflict.