The effort had been too great. He lay, throbbing with death agony, while a thin stream of blood trickled from the mouth and coursed slowly along a deep furrow of the chin.
'He passes,' muttered Antoine, hoarsely. 'It is time. On such a night was he born. So does he die, amid the north wind and biting cold. Swear, child, lest he die cursing you.'
A hollow exclamation ascended from the withered form. 'Swear!'
Then she placed the right hand on her father's head, and raising the other aloft, with stern voice and unflinching determination, took the oath which might not be broken.
The final flicker of strength darted into the exhausted frame, that sudden flash of energy which heralds the silence. 'Antoine,' he whispered, 'raise me to the light. So will I die cursing the white man.'
The Ancient raised the emaciated form in his shaking arms. For a few seconds, faint, yet intensely bitter words of condemnation and hatred fell from the blood-stained lips, before life faded away into the unseen. Menotah, still holding the hand, felt the shudder of the departing soul, and caught the distant echo of a voice—forced, as it seemed, from the cold body, after the passing of the Spirit, 'I go, daughter ... it is dark.'
The dreary death chant and low groaning of the women beat upon the night.
Half contemptuously Menotah turned from the still form, with passion unexpressed. Antoine lifted his slow, watering eyes from the withered remains, to gloat upon her hopeless aspect.
'You grieve not, daughter?'
'I have done with such things as joy or grief,' she said savagely. 'My destiny calls, and I leave the emotions for the sport of fools.'