“I had fought Tangua,” I resumed, “to save Intschu-Tschuna when Winnetou came up. I did not see him, and he gave me a blow with his gun, fortunately not on the head, but on the shoulder. He then wounded me through the tongue, and I could not speak, or I would have told him that I would be his friend and brother, for I loved him. I was badly hurt, and my arm lamed, but I fought him, and he lay unconscious before me like Tangua and Intschu-Tschuna. I could have killed both the Apache chiefs; did I do so?”
“You would have done so, but an Apache came up and struck you down with a tomahawk,” answered Intschu-Tschuna. “I admit there is something in your words that almost awakens faith in them, but when you first knocked down my son Winnetou you were not forced to do so.”
“Indeed I was. We wanted to save you and him. You are brave men, and would have defended yourselves from the Kiowas, and you would have been wounded or killed. We wanted to prevent this, so I knocked Winnetou down, and you were overpowered by my friends.”
“Lies, nothing but lies,” cried Tangua. “I came up as he knocked you down; it was he, not I, that would have taken your scalp. I would have stopped him, but he struck me with that hand in which a great, wicked spirit dwells and nothing can stand against it.”
I turned on him, and said threateningly: “I spared you, because I want to shed no man’s blood; but if ever I fight you again, it will be with weapons and not my fist, and you shall not get off so easily; mark that.”
“You fight me!” he jeered. “We will burn you, and scatter your ashes to the four winds.”
“I think not; I shall be free sooner than you think, and demand a reckoning from you.”
“You shall have it, I promise you; and I wish your words might be fulfilled that I might crush you.”
Intschu-Tschuna put an end to this little interlude by saying to me: “Old Shatterhand is very bold if he thinks to be free. He has only made statements, but has not proved them. Have you anything more to say?”
“Perhaps later; not now.”