"Go on: I am listening."
And the missionary settled himself on his bed to hear as comfortably as he could the confession the hunter wished to make to him.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE INTERVIEW.
At daybreak the next morning Curumilla started for Unicorn's village. At sunset he returned to the cavern, accompanied by the Comanche chief. The sachem entertained the most profound respect for Father Seraphin, whose noble character he could appreciate, and felt pained at the state in which he found him.
"Father," he said to him as he kissed his hand. "Who are the villains who thus wounded you, to whom the Master of Life has imparted the secret to make us happy? Whoever they may be, these men shall die."
"My son," the priest answered gently, "I will not pronounce before you the name of the unhappy man who, in a moment of madness, raised his hand against me. My God is a God of peace; He is merciful, and recommends His creatures to forget injuries, and requite good for evil."
The Indian looked at him in amazement. He did not understand the soft and touching sublimity of these precepts of love. Educated in the sanguinary principles of his race—persuaded, like all redskins, that a warrior's first duty is revenge—he only admitted that atrocious law of the prairies which commands, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth"—a terrible law, which we do not venture, however, utterly to condemn in these countries, where ambushes are permanent, and implacable death stands at every corner of the road.
"My son," Father Seraphin continued, "you are a great warrior. Many a time you have braved the atrocious tortures of the stake of blood, a thousand fold more terrible than death itself. Often have you, with a pleasure I excuse (for it is in your nature), thrown down your enemy, and planted your knee on his chest. Have you never pardoned anybody in fight?"