The Indian regarded this group with a tiger's glance, and for some two or three minutes, involuntarily fascinated by this picture, whose innocence and candour no artist would be able to depict, he stood gloomy and thoughtful, perhaps hesitating in the accomplishment of the infernal work he had meditated so long, and to execute which he had treacherously entered the hacienda. But Satan, conquered for a second, regained his ascendancy in the redskin's heart.
"It is well," he muttered in a hollow voice. "The babe will die. The death of the child kills doubly father and mother."
And he smiled once again that terrible and silent laugh which would have caused anyone who saw it to shudder, and which was habitual to him. He fell back a step, and with a look around him he explored the neighbourhood in its most hidden corners. Assured at length that no one could see him he fell back till he reached the hole in one of the orange trees from which the hammock was hung, and which was exactly opposite the nurse; then he carefully concealed himself behind a tree, and laid his bag on the ground. This bag was of tapir hide, and fastened up with the greatest care.
The Indian stood motionless for a second, then drawing his dagger he did not take the trouble to cut the leather thongs that closed the bag; on the contrary, throwing himself back as if afraid of the consequences of the deed he was about to do, he ripped up the bag its entire length, and at once disappeared behind the trunk of a tree. The body of a cascabel, or rattlesnake; appeared in the gaping orifice of the bag. Indian manners brand as infamous any man who, excepting in Combat, strikes and kills a child at the breast. Hatred is intelligent, and Running Water had found the means to satisfy his upon the poor little creature without breaking the rules of his tribe. He had gone in search of a snake, which was not difficult to find. He enclosed it in a bag of tapir hide so that it could not escape, and kept it for several days without food so as to restore to the animal, which he had surprised while digesting a gorge, all its original ferocity. When the redskin supposed that the snake was in proper condition, he entered the garden as we have seen.
The snake, suddenly liberated from the dark and narrow prison in which it had been so long confined, began unrolling on the ground its monstrous coils. At first half asleep and dazed by the bright light of day it remained for a moment in a state of stupor, balancing itself to the right and left hesitatingly on its enormous tail, throwing its head back and opening its hideous mouth till it displayed its awful fangs. But gradually its eye grew brighter, and breathing a strangled hiss it rushed with undulating bounds towards poor Rita.
The Indian, with his body bent forward, heaving chest, and eyes enormously dilated, looked after it eagerly; at length he held his vengeance in his grasp, and no human power could take it from him. But a strange thing happened, which filled the Indian himself with horror. Upon reaching the nurse the snake, after a moment's hesitation, gave a soft melodious hiss, apparently indicating pleasure; and rising on its tail with a movement full of grace and suppleness, enwrithed the nurse's body in its huge folds, gently pushed the sleeping babe aside without doing it the slightest injury, and seizing the nipple the little creature had let go, glued its hideous mouth to it.
Running Water uttered a cry of rage, and stamped his foot in desperation. He had forgotten the frenzied passion snakes have for milk, especially that of women. This time again the Indian's calculations were thrown out, and his vengeance slipped from him. What should he do? To try and tear the snake from the prey it had seized would be incurring certain death; and then, fascinated by the horrible spectacle he had before him, the redskin felt incapable of collecting his ideas. He looked on, suffering from a frightful nightmare, and awaiting with the most lively anxiety the conclusion of this frightful scene. Rita still slept on, and the child even had not noticed its changed position, so gentle and measured had the snake's movements been, and was still slumbering. The cascabel, however, drank with such ardour the quadroon's milk that the blood poured down her breast, and she was aroused by the pain from her deep sleep. She opened her eyes, and perceived the horrible animal.
Rita endured a second of indescribable agony and despair, for she felt that she was hopelessly lost. Then, wondrous to relate, this half-sleeping woman, seeing herself through a mist of blood in the power of the monster, suddenly formed an heroic resolution. She recognized with remarkable lucidity her fearful situation, and completely forgetting herself had but one thought, that of saving the child.[2] A woman is a mother before all. God has placed in her heart a flame Which nothing can extinguish.
With her features distorted by terror, her temples inundated with cold perspiration, and her hair standing on end, she had the immense courage not to tremble or stir, and held back in her parched throat the cry of horror ready to burst from it: in a word, she remained in the same position as if she were still asleep.
The Indian himself, struck with admiration at this sublime emotion, felt his iron heart melt, and he almost regretted being the cause of this fearful catastrophe. The snake still enjoyed its horrible repast, and gorged itself with the milk mingled with blood which it drew from the breast of its hapless victim. At length its coils relaxed, its eye gradually lost its fascinating lustre, and with an almost insensible undulation it left the prey to which it was clinging. Completely gorged with milk, it rolled off to the ground, and crawled away in the direction of the shrubs. The mulatto then seized the child in her clenched hands, sat up straight as a statue, and uttered a fearful cry.