“So you no more believe Tangua, the liar, but me?”
Again he looked at me long and searchingly as before, extended his hand, and said: “Your eyes are good eyes, and there is no dishonesty in your face. I believe you.”
I had resumed my discarded clothing, and took my tin box from the pocket of my hunting-jacket, and said: “Therein has my brother Winnetou done me justice; I will prove it to him. Perhaps he may know what this is.”
I unrolled the lock of hair, and held it up before him. He put out his hand to take it, stopped short, and stepped back, completely amazed, crying: “It is my own hair. Who gave you this?”
“Intschu-Tschuna said this morning in his address that the Great Spirit had sent you an unknown deliverer when you were a prisoner in the hands of the Kiowas. Yes, he was unknown, for he dared not let the Kiowas see him; but now there is no longer need of his concealing himself. You may truly believe that I was not your foe, but your friend.”
“You—you—it is you who freed us?” he gasped, more and more overcome, he who never betrayed surprise. “Then we owe you not only our freedom but our lives.”
He took me by the hand, and drew me to the place where his sister stood watching us intently. He led me before her, and said: “Nscho-Tschi, see here the brave warrior who secretly freed our father and me when we were bound to the trees by the Kiowas. Let us thank him.”
With these words he drew me to him, and kissed me on each cheek. She held out her hand to me, saying only: “Forgive.”
She was to thank me, but instead begged for forgiveness. But I understood her; she had been secretly unjust to me; as my nurse she should have known me better than the others, yet she, too, had doubted me, and taken me for a miserable coward. She felt that it was more important to make this right than to thank me as Winnetou wished.
I pressed her hand and said: “Nscho-Tschi will remember all I said to her; now it is fulfilled. Will my sister believe me now?”