It was hard for me to answer; my heart bade me press my request, my common-sense forbade it. Winnetou understood the struggle within me, and said: “I will speak to Intschu-Tschuna, my father. My brother may wait here.”
“Don’t do anything foolish,” said Sam as he left us. “You don’t know how much may depend on this; maybe life itself.”
“Oh, that couldn’t be,” I said.
“Indeed it could easily. The red man so greatly despises any one who asks a favor on the strength of what has been done for him that we actually could not stay here if you did it; and if we left here we should surely fall into the hands of the Kiowas, and there’s no need of telling you what that means.”
Intschu-Tschuna and Winnetou talked earnestly together for a while, then they came to us, and the former said: “Had not Kleki-Petrah told me so much of your faith, I should feel you were a man to whom it was a disgrace to talk. But I can understand your wish perfectly; though if my warriors were to hear it they would never understand, and would only despise you.”
“It is not a question of my wish alone, but of Kleki-Petrah’s, of whom you speak,” I said.
“How is it a question of his desire?”
“He believed in this same faith which commands me to make this plea, and he died in it. His religion bade him forgive his enemies. Believe me, if he could speak he would not consent to his murderer dying such a death.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know it.”