With this prayer she went away, and I watched her through the open door. Then I threw myself on the bed and waited, long, anxious hours, till mid-day. At last I heard the tramp of many feet, and Winnetou entered, followed by five Apaches. He looked at me long and searchingly. “Do you remember when you were to see me again?” he asked.
“On the day of my death.”
“You have said it. That day has come. Rise; you must be bound.”
It would have been madness to attempt resistance, for there were six Indians against me. I rose and they tied my hands together. Then two thongs were put around my ankles, so that I could take short steps, but could not jump or run. I was then led out to the platform which ran around the pueblo house, and from which a ladder led to the ground. We descended slowly from round to round, three Indians ahead, three behind, I in the middle. On every platform stood women and children, who gazed at me in silence and then came down and fell in behind us. All the Indians of the village, numbering several hundred, were gathering to see us die.
CHAPTER XIV.
ON TRIAL FOR LIFE.
The procession which was escorting me to torture passed on in silence, its numbers augmenting as we went. I saw that the pueblo lay in a hollow at one side of the broad valley of the Rio Pecos, into which we turned. The Indians formed a half-circle, inside of which, next the children, sat the women and maidens, among whom I saw Nscho-Tschi, whose eyes rarely wandered from my face through the following trial. My three comrades were already on the scene when I arrived, and showed that they had been well cared for during our imprisonment. The expression of faithful, loving old Sam’s face was divided between irrepressible joy at seeing me again, and sorrow at the horrible circumstances in which we met to part forever.
“Ah, my dear boy,” he cried, “here you come, too. It’s a dreadful, very dreadful operation we’re to undergo; I don’t believe we can stand it. Very few live through the torture, but if we do I imagine we’re to be burned.”
“Have you no hope of deliverance, Sam?”
“I don’t see where it’s to come from. I have been racking my brains for a week, but I haven’t found the least suggestion. We’ve been stuck in a dark stone hole of a room, tied fast and well guarded—no earthly chance to get away. How have you fared?”