"Ah!" Black-deer exclaimed, pointing with a gesture of triumph to a mutilated and almost unrecognizable corpse, "the Sachems will be pleased, for Blue-fox is dead at last."
In truth, the formidable Chief lay on a pile of Comanche corpses; his body was literally covered with wounds, and his son, a poor lad scarce adolescent yet, was lying at his feet. Curiously enough, for the Indians only take the scalps of their enemies usually, a fresh cut-off head was fastened to the Chiefs girdle—it was that of Fray Antonio. The poor Monk, who had quitted the village a few days before Tranquil, had doubtless been surprised and massacred by the Apaches.
So soon as the carnage, for we cannot call it a battle, was over, the Indians prepared to pay the last rites to those of their friends who had found death in this sanguinary struggle. Deep graves were dug, and the bodies were thrown in without the usual funeral ceremonies, which circumstances prevented, still they were careful to bury their arms with them, and then stones were piled on the graves to defend them from wild beasts. As for the Apaches, they were left at the spot where they had fallen. After this, the war party, diminished by nearly one-half, started again sadly for Texas.
The victory of the Comanches was complete, it is true, but too dearly bought for the Indians to think of rejoicing at it. The massacre of the Apaches was far from compensating them for the death of forty Comanche warriors, without counting those who, in all probability, would perish on the journey from the wounds they had received.
[CHAPTER XXV.]
THE LAST HALT.
Now that we are approaching the last pages of our book, we cannot repress a feeling of regret on thinking of the scenes of blood and murder which, in order to be truthful, we were compelled to unfold before our readers. If this narrative had been a fable, and we had been able to arrange our subject at our pleasure, most assuredly many scenes would have been cut down and altered. Unhappily, we have been obliged to narrate facts just as they happened, although we have frequently been careful to tone down certain details whose naked truth would have scandalized the reader.
Were we to be reproached with the continual combats in which our heroes are engaged, we should reply; we describe the manners of a race which is daily diminishing in the convulsive grasp of the civilization against which it struggles in vain; this race is called upon by the fatal decree of fate to disappear ere long eternally from the face of the globe; its manners and customs will then pass into the condition of a legend and being preserved by tradition, will not fail to be falsified and become incomprehensible. It is therefore our duty, who have become the unworthy historian of this unhappy race, to make it known as it was, as it is still, for acting otherwise would have been a felonious deed on our part, of which our readers would have been justified in complaining.
Finishing this parenthesis, which is already too long, but which we believe to be not merely necessary but indispensable, we will resume our narrative at the point where we left it.