“Or again,” he continued, “who knows if it was not he himself who had me kidnapped, to avoid fulfilling some promise made to his victim, some engagement contracted towards her? Ah! if it were so, I should remain in this country. Without seeking to make myself known, I would go into service with the danneman; by my industry, my devotion, I would certainly gain his respect, and perhaps the love of this family to which I belong, and then I could try and bring back this poor seeress, if not to her right mind, at least to a state of tranquillity, as I succeeded formerly in calming the frenzy of my dear Sophia Goffredi. What a strange destiny is mine! To be thus condemned to have two mothers driven mad by despair! No matter; undeserved as this punishment is, it gives me a duty to perform, and, in fulfilling it, I may be led to some mysterious recompense. I accept the obligation imposed upon me. Karine Bœtsoi may not remember that she has lost her child, but she shall receive, from this time, the care and protection of a son.”
At this moment Christian thought he heard some one call. He looked around, and on every side, but saw no one. The danneman had told him to wait; he was to return for him: Christian hesitated, but, after a second, a cry of distress made him start up, seize his weapons, and rush forward in the direction of the voice.
Scaling with wonderful agility the overthrown trees and fragments of debris hardened by the ice and interlocked by enormous roots, Christian, without knowing it, came out at twenty steps from the bear’s den. The terrible animal was on the ground between him and this cave, licking up the blood which stained the snow around her bleeding flanks. The danneman was at the opening of the den, pale, his hair blown by the wind and as it were standing on end, and without any weapon at all in his hands. His boar-spear, broken in the side of the bear, was lying near the animal, and, instead of thinking of taking his gun from his shoulder-belt to finish his work, Bœtsoi seemed fascinated by some mysterious terror, or enchained by some inexplicable prudence.
As soon as he saw Christian he made signs to him, which the latter did not comprehend; he guessed, however, that he was not to speak, and took aim at the bear. Luckily, before pulling the trigger, he looked again at Joë Bœtsoi, who ordered him, with a despairing gesture, to stop. Christian, imitating his pantomime, asked whether he was to cut the creature’s throat, in silence; and, on receiving a sign in the affirmative, he marched straight up to the bear, who, upon her side, arose erect and growling, to receive him.
“Quick! quick! or we are lost!” cried the danneman, who had taken the gun, and seemed to be watching some invisible object at the bottom of the den.
Christian did not wait to be told twice. Presenting his left arm, wrapped in a cord, to the rather feeble embrace of the wounded bear, he ripped her open in proper style, but without thinking that she might fall forward, and that he ought to jump quickly aside, to give her room. Luckily, the bear fell to one side, dragging Christian with her to the ground; but her formidable claws, contracted in the death agony, could do nothing now but clutch at the skirt of his coat. Buried in the snow, and nailed down, as it were, by the weight and claws of the wicked one, laid upon and thrust into the edge of his garment, Christian had some difficulty in getting free, and he left behind him a considerable portion of the major’s reindeer-skin coat, but he scarcely thought of that now. The danneman was struggling with other enemies. He had just fired into the dark cave, and another bear, black, and of quite a good size, although young, had come forward to meet him, with a threatening air; while two cubs, about the size of two strong whelps, threw themselves between his legs, with no other intention, it is true, than that of flying, but in such a way as to make it difficult for him to maintain his equilibrium. The danneman, resolved to perish rather than make room for his triple prey to pass, supported himself against the trees, whose trunks formed a sort of naturally arched entrance to the cave, and awaited the attack of the young bear, who had been wounded by his shot; but, shaken in spite of himself by the young ones, he had just fallen, and the wounded and furious animal was throwing himself upon him, when Christian, sure of his eye and his coolness, put a ball into the animal’s head, at a foot above that of the man.
“Very well done!” said the danneman, springing up with agility.
In the meanwhile the cubs had run over his body, and, for the moment, his only thought was to prevent them from escaping.
“Stay! stay!” said Christian, following the two fugitives with his eye; “see what they are about!”
In fact the two cubs had rushed up to their dead mother, and had glided, cowering, under her bleeding sides.