"Hark, hark!" exclaimed the chief. "He comes--he comes to claim you at last, as he has promised himself for many moons he would claim you. Hark, it is the great medicine man himself."
[CHAPTER XX]
THE GREAT MEDICINE CHIEF
"Hark," the Indian said again, "the great medicine chief comes to claim the white women."
Since they had offered us no violence, nor indeed had they exerted any towards their other prisoners after the fight was over and they were bound, Mary and I had scarcely changed our position from the time the fray ceased. I still sat on the floor with my darling's head upon my breast, Mary stood by Kinchella, his bound hands clasped in hers, and sometimes kissing him as, over and over again, I also kissed my lord's dear lips while attempting to staunch the flow of blood from his head. The other prisoners all bound together looked forth into the night, waiting to see what the great personage whose arrival was now welcomed might be like. On the floor O'Rourke still lay where he had fallen, and I feared that surely he must be dead. Yet when I thought of him and how bravely he had fought this night, I could not but hope, even though plunged in my own misery, that much of his past wickedness would be forgiven him in consequence of his repentance.
"The great medicine chief, eh?" said Buck to Lamb, not even troubling to lower his voice for fear it should offend our captor or any other of the Indians around us who might understand his words--and seeming as cool and reckless now as though he were one of the victors instead of the vanquished. "The great medicine chief, eh? I wonder what he's like, though we shall see soon enough. Some mean mountebank I'll bet a crown--if ever I get hold of one again--who finds hocus-pocussing these red devils a good deal easier than fighting alongside of 'em. Knows everything that happens on earth, does he? Ay! just as much as a gipsy in a booth can tell when a gentleman of the road is going to be hanged, or is able to prophecy that the mother of a dozen shall never have a child. How they howl for him, though, rot 'em, if they had any sense they'd see he had enough of his own to keep out of the way while the bustle was going on."
"He comes. He comes," again exclaimed the chief, and, even in my trouble, I could not but marvel much at seeing so powerful looking a warrior prostrate himself with such great humility upon the floor, while all the other Indians did the same.
For now, escorted by several savages who marched in front of him, and a like number behind him, this person strode into the room and stood before us. His face was not visible, excepting only the eyes which twinkled behind the light silken cloth he wore around it, but his form presented the appearance of litheness and activity, and gave the idea that, however wonderful his arts might be, he had at least acquired them young, since he was undoubtedly not even yet arrived at middle age. He was clad in a tight-fitting tunic of tanned deer skin, over which fell the long Indian blanket with devices worked on it of skulls and snakes as well as of a flaming sun and many stars, and his leggings and moccasins were stained red. His head-dress was the ordinary Indian cap, or coronet, into which was thrust a number of eagles' feathers, while on his breast he bore, hanging on to a chain of shells, a human hand dried and mummified so that the tips of the finger-bones could be seen protruding through the shrivelled flesh, and, equally dreadful sight, some ears strung together!
Those twinkling eyes wandered round the wrecked saloon, taking in at one glance, as it seemed to me, the dead forms of Indians and white men, the broken furniture and the prostrate figures of the other Indians who knelt before him; and then they fixed themselves on Mary and me, while from behind the silken mask--for such indeed it was--there came a cruel, gurgling laugh. And I, driven to desperation by that sound, which augured even worse for me than what I had yet endured, softly placed my dear one's head upon the floor and, leaving him there, cast myself before the medicine chief and, at his knees and with my hands uplifted, besought his mercy.
"Oh!" I cried between my sobs, "if you can speak my tongue, as so many of your race are able to do, hear my prayer, I beseech you; the prayer of a broken-hearted, ruined woman who has never injured you or yours till driven to it in self-defence; a woman at whose people's hearths you and yours have warmed yourselves and been welcome, at whose table you and yours were once fed and treated well. Oh! what have I, a defenceless girl, done that this my home should be sacked by your warriors, my loved one slain? See, see! he who lies there was to have been my husband--these brave men around me, living and dead, would have done nought to you had you left us in peace. What, what," I continued, "have I done that you come as a conqueror to my house--what?----"