"Thanks, paleface," he said with an accent of profound gratitude. "You have done more for me than I ever could have expected from a man of your colour. To you I shall owe my escape from death, liberty, and the accomplishment of the vengeance I have so long been pursuing. My life belongs to you, henceforth you are the master of it. Remember that you have a brother among the Comanches; the redskins never forget an insult, and always retain the memory of a kindness. Now, I am certain that you are not a Yori. May the Wacondah protect and be ever favourable to you. You have caused my heart a sensation of happiness such as it has not felt for many years."
After uttering these words with all the emphasis natural to his race, the Indian chief crouched down facing the door, and awaited with feverish impatience the arrival of the gaoler. The Canadian laughed inwardly at the trick he was about to play the general. In his opinion, what he had done was quite fair; he had no consideration to maintain for individuals who had disregarded the law of nations in their treatment of him, and after threatening to hang him, cast him like a dog into a filthy dungeon. Besides, he had for the Indians generally that instinctive pity which strong men feel for those whom they believe intellectually inferior to them. And then, was not the Indian a prisoner like himself? He, therefore, regarded him as an ally, and in favouring his flight, he secured himself a valuable friend for the future in the event of his falling into the hands of the redskins.
The two men remained silent, for they had nothing more to say to each other. Several hours elapsed in this way. The redskin, calm, cold, and motionless, was watching for the arrival of the gaoler, as the jaguar of his forests does the prey that nourishes it, and the hunter, careless of what was going on around him, had wrapped himself in his zarapé, and was leaning half asleep against the wall. Probably, in the confusion of the festival, the man ordered to supply the prisoners with food let the hour pass, for the sun had long set, although the denizens of the dungeon could not perceive the fact, and nothing led to the supposition that they would be fed.
"The deuce," the Canadian at length said, shaking himself ill-temperedly, "do these gabachos of Spaniards intend to keep us without supper? I am dying of hunger, caray! And you, chief, do you not feel the want of some food, were it only a lump of hard bread?"
"The redskins are not greedy squaws. They can endure hunger without complaining."
"All that is very fine, but I am not an Indian, and when I have nothing to eat, deuce take me if I do not become ferocious."
"Silence," the Indian said as he listened attentively, "my brother will soon eat. I hear footsteps approaching."
The adventurer held his tongue. For a moment he forgot his hunger to witness the scene that was about to take place. A considerable period of time elapsed ere the noise which had struck the practised ear of the savage was perceptible to the hunter. At length he heard the sound of footsteps, which grew louder and louder. A key turned in the lock, the bolts were drawn, the door swung back on its rusty hinges, and a man entered, holding a lantern in one hand and a basket in the other.
At the moment when this individual appeared in the doorway, the Indian leapt on him with a tiger's bound, threw him down and seized him by the throat; before the poor fellow so unexpectedly attacked had time to utter a cry or make the slightest effort in his defence, he was bound and gagged. The Comanche, leaping over his body, ran down the passage and disappeared with extraordinary rapidity. All this took place so hurriedly, that the hunter guessed rather than saw what had occurred. The gaoler still lay motionless, with half his body inside, the other half outside, the dungeon. When the Indian had disappeared, the hunter rose and went up to the gaoler.
"What the deuce are you doing there?" he said, as he bent over him and freed him with studied slowness from the bonds and the gag which the chief had driven in so conscientiously that he almost choked his man. When the gaoler was liberated, and put on his legs again by his prisoner, he looked around him in alarm, breathed forcibly two or three times, and then, uttering an exclamation of rage, he dashed down the passage with shouts and oaths, forgetting in his hurry to lock the cell door.