"Black-deer will come there."
The Chief then withdrew, laying his finger on his lip, and the hunters went off deep in thought.
[CHAPTER X.]
RETURN TO LIFE.
We are now compelled to go a little way back, and return to one of the principal actors of our story, whom we have too long neglected; we allude to White Scalper. The reader of the "Freebooters" will, doubtless, remember that the terrible combat on the deck of the brig, between Tranquil and the Scalper, was continued in the sea, into which the ferocious old man had been hurled by the negro who followed him.
Quoniam had been in too great a hurry in telling the Canadian of the death of his enemy; it is true, though, that the negro acted in good faith, and really believed he had killed him. The last dagger stab dealt by Quoniam was buried deep in the old man's chest; the wound was so serious that the Scalper immediately left off further resistance; his eyes closed, his nerves relaxed like broken springs; he loosed hold of his enemy, to whom he had hitherto clung, and remained an inert mass, tossed at the mercy of the waves.
The Negro, exhausted with fatigue and half suffocated, hastened back to the deck of the vessel, persuaded that his enemy was dead; but it was not so. The Scalper had merely lost his senses, and his inanimate body was picked up by a Mexican boat. But, when this boat reached the shore, the crew, on seeing the horrible wounds which covered the stranger's body, his pallor and corpse-like immobility, had, in their turn, fancied him dead, and taking no further trouble about him, threw him back into the sea. Fortunately for the Scalper, at the moment when the crew formed this determination the boat was close to land, so that his body, supported by the waves, was gently deposited on the sand, the lower part remaining submerged, while the head and chest were left dry by the retirement of the waves.
Either through the fresh night air or the oscillating movement the sea imparted to the lower part of his body, within an hour the old man gave a slight start; a sigh heaved his powerful chest, and a few instinctive attempts to change his position clearly showed that this vigorous organisation was struggling energetically against death, and compelling it to retire. At length the wounded man opened his eyes, but profound gloom still enveloped him like a winding sheet. On the other hand, the fatigue produced by the gigantic struggle he had sustained, and the enormous quantity of blood which had escaped through his wounds, caused him a general weakness, so great, both morally and physically, that it was impossible for the Scalper, not merely to find out where he was, but to remember the circumstances that had brought him there.
It was in vain that he tried to restore order in his ideas, or bring back his fugitive thoughts; the shock had been too rude; the commotion too strong; in spite of all his efforts he could not succeed in refastening the broken thread of his thoughts. He saw himself, alone, wounded, and abandoned on the seashore; he understood instinctively all the horror and desperation of his position; but no gleam of intelligence flashed across his brain to guide him in this fearful chaos. He was angry with himself at the impotence to which he found himself reduced and the impossibility of attempting anything to get only a few yards away from the sea, at the edge of which, he was lying, and which would infallibly swallow him up, if his weakness overcame his will and betrayed his courage.