All this time the Indians were rapidly loading and firing at the two unfortunate men, and, to Bart’s horror, he could hear bullet after bullet strike them, the others hitting the rocky face of the mountain with a sharp pat, and in the interval of silence that followed those in hiding could hear some of the bullets afterwards fall.
Every time the savages thought they had hit their white prisoners they uttered a yell of triumph, and Dr Lascelles knew that this terrible scene was only the prologue to one of a far more hideous nature, when, with a fiendish cruelty peculiar to their nature, they would fall upon their victims with their knives, to flay off their scalps and beards, leaving the terribly mutilated bodies to the birds and beasts of the plains.
“I could hit several of them, I’m sure,” panted Bart, eagerly. “Pray, sir, let’s fire upon them, and kill some of the wretches. I never felt like this before, but now it seems as if I must do something to punish those horrible fiends.”
“We could all fire and bring down some of them, Bart,” whispered the Doctor; “but there are fully a hundred there, my boy, and we must be the losers in the end. They would never leave till they had killed us every one.”
Bart hung his head, and stood there resting upon his rifle, wishing that his ears could be deaf to the hideous yelling and firing that kept going on, as the Indians went on with their puerile sport of wreaking their empty vengeance upon the bodies of the two men whom they had slain.
Twenty times over the Doctor raised his rifle, and as often let it fall, as he knew what the consequences of his firing would be, while, when encouraged by this act on the part of his elder, Bart did likewise, it was for the Beaver to press the barrel down with his brown hand, shaking his head and smiling gravely the while.
“The Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth,” said the interpreter, “says that the young chief must wait till the Indian dogs are not so many; then he shall kill all he will, and take all their scalps.”
“Ugh!” shuddered Bart, “as if I wanted to take scalps! I could feel pleased though if they killed and took the scalps of all these wretches. No, I don’t want that,” he muttered, “but it is very horrible, and it nearly drives me mad to see the cruel monsters shooting at our two poor men. How they can—”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated the Doctor; “what’s that?”
They were all gazing intently at the great post where the firing was going on, and beyond it at the group of Indians calmly loading and firing, with a soft film of smoke floating away above their heads, when all at once, just in their midst, there was a vivid flash of light, and the air seemed to be full of blocks of stone, which were driven up with a dense cloud of smoke. Then there was a deafening report, which echoed back from the side of the mountain; a trembling of the ground, as if there had been an earthquake; the great pieces of stone fell here and there; and then, as the smoke spread, a few Indians could be seen rushing hard towards where their companions were gathered with their horses, while about the spot where the earth had seemed to vomit forth flame, rocks and stones were piled-up in hideous confusion, mingled with quite a score of the bodies of Indians.