Did any one smile at this address! Far from it! Singular, disconnected, and unsophisticated as it may seem to certain persons, it had one great merit that is not always discernible in the speeches of those who officiate at the most elaborate funeral rites. Guert was sincere, though he might not be either logical or very clear. This was apparent in his countenance, his voice, his whole manner. For myself, I will allow, I saw nothing particularly out of place, in this address, at the time, nor do I now regard it as either irreverent or unseasonable.
We left the grave of the hunter, in the depths of that interminable forest, as the ship passes away from the spot on the ocean where she has dropped her dead. At some future day, perhaps, the plough-share may turn up the bones, and the husbandman ruminate on the probable fate of the lonely man, whose remains will then again be brought to the light of day. As we left the spot, the Indian detained us a moment, to put us on our guard.
“Huron do that,” he said, meaningly—“No see difference, eh? Saw no hang up like Pete.”
“That is true enough, Susquesus,” Guert answered; for Guert, by his age, his greater familiarity with the woods, his high courage and his personal prowess, had now assumed, unresistingly on our part, a sort of chieftainship over us, “Can you tell us the reason, however?”
“Muss, you call him, back sore—that all. Know him well; don't love flog. No Injin love flog.”
“And you think, then, Jaap's prisoner has had a hand in this, and that the war-path is open to revenge as well as public service—that we are hunted less for our scalps than to put a plaster on the Huron's back?”
“Sartain. T'ree canoe go by on lake—t'at Muss, you call him—know him, well. He no want sleep till back get well. See how he use nigger! Hang him on tree—only kill pale-face and take away scalp.”
“Do you suppose that he made this difference in the treatment of his two captives, on account of the colour? That he was so cruel to Petrus because Jaap, another nigger, had flogged him?”
“Sartain—just so. Back feel better after t'at. Good for back to hang nigger. Jaap see, some time.”
I will do my fellow the justice to say, that in the way of courage, few men were his equals. As I have said before, he only feared spooks, or Dutch ghosts; for the awe he had of me was so blended with love, as not to deserve the name of fear. In general, unless the weather happened to be cold, his face was of a deep, glistening black; coffin-colour, as the boys sometimes called it; but, I observed, notwithstanding his nerve and his keen desire to be revenged for the cruel treatment bestowed on his companion and brother, that his skin now assumed a greyish hue, such as is seen only in hard frosts, as a rule, in the people of his race. It was evident that the Trackless' manner of speaking had produced an effect, and I have always thought the impresssion then made on Jaap was of infinite service to us, by setting in motion, and keeping in lively activity, every faculty of his mind and body. I had a specimen of this, as we moved off, Jaap walking for some distance close at my heels, in order to make me the repository of his griefs and solicitude.