At this moment the darkness began to be dispelled, and though the sun had not yet risen above the horizon, large bands of russet which tinged the sky, and covered it with extreme rapidity, proved that day would soon break. The Stag rose, bowed respectfully to the members of the council, and left the lodge. Hastily crossing the village square, on which some squaws were already to be seen, he entered the calli of his father, Running Water, and let the frame of intertwined lianas, lined with a buffalo hide, which served as a door, fall behind him. A few moments after and the Stag reappeared.
Assuredly, in this Indian, armed and painted for war, no one would have recognized Sotavento, the majordomo, the man in whom Don Aníbal de Saldibar placed such unbounded confidence, and on whose devotion he thought he had such reasons to count. The Stag had entirely doffed his European clothing, and put on the grand war dress of the Comanche chiefs. In his left hand he held a long, sharp pointed javelin, and his gun in his right. He went up to the ark of the first man, a species of enclosure of planks, of a conical shape, situated in the centre of the square, before which stood a sumach, whose faded leaves were already beginning to fall.
After walking thrice round the sumach the chief stopped, bowed twice to the rising sun, and balancing his javelin, while he raised his gun above his head, he commenced a characteristic dance round the tree, accompanied by a song, of which he doubtless improvised the words, and whose slow and monotonous rhythm marked the measure of the dance. At the end of each strophe the Stag struck the tree with his javelin without stopping.
Several Indians had left their callis and assembled round the chief, who continued his song. In a moment an Indian started after him, dancing and singing behind him. After him came another and then another, so that, at the end of half an hour, twenty warriors were dancing behind the Stag, and repeating after him the words he continued to improvise. As each Indian faced the circle of dancers, a woman left the group of spectators, and went to fetch his weapons from the calli. In the meanwhile the dance, which had begun to a slow and monotonous rhythm, had grown animated. The Indians, bathed in perspiration, twirled round the tree, to which they dealt repeated blows, while uttering hoarse, inarticulate cries, and brandishing their weapons furiously. The squaws and children, collected round the braves, mingled their cries and yells with theirs, and added by their imprecations and disorderly gestures to the sinister horror of this scene, to which was imparted all the savage majesty of the Indian war dance.
The tree, struck by the axes, sagaies, knives, and lances of the Indians, lost its branches, and was completely stripped of its bark, which was piled on the ground; but the ardour of the warriors, far from being checked, seemed, on the contrary, momentarily to increase. Suddenly the Stag gave a signal. All halted, as if by magic, and a deep silence instantaneously succeeded the deafening concert performed by all these men who had reached a paroxysm of fury. The chief gazed with satisfaction at the young, powerful, and haughty men who surrounded him.
"Will twenty warriors follow the Stag on the war trail?" he asked.
"Yes, they will follow him!" the redskins replied unanimously.
"Good; they are great braves! The Stag knows them. The warriors will put on their war moccasins, take their weapons, and choose their best horses. When the sun is level with the topmost branches of the trees, the Stag will be at the foot of the ark of the first man, mounted and waiting for his brothers. Now the Comanche squaws will proceed to cut down the sumach; no trace of the enemies of the Red Buffaloes must remain. The warriors kill their foes, but women torture them. I have spoken."
The warriors dispersed. The squaws, following the permission granted them, at once rushed yelling on the unhappy tree, the last fragments of which disappeared within ten minutes beneath the blows of these savage Megæras. The Stag returned to his father's lodge, where the latter soon joined him. They had a confidential conversation together, which lasted more than two hours, at the end of which Running Water retired, apparently much satisfied with the explanation his son had given him. At the hour appointed by the Stag to depart, all the warriors were drawn up in front of the ark of the first man, impatient to set out and begin their mysterious expedition.