“Hawkins says this only to save himself.”
“No, it is the truth.”
“Your tongue lieth. Everything you have said to escape torture convinces us that you were even a greater enemy to us than the Kiowa dogs. You spied upon us and betrayed us. Had you been our friend you would have warned us of the Kiowas’ coming. Your excuses any child could see through. Do you think Intschu-Tschuna and Winnetou are more stupid than children?”
“I think nothing of the sort. Old Shatterhand is unconscious again, or he could tell you that I have spoken the truth.”
“Yes, he would lie as you do. The pale-faces are all liars and traitors. I have known but one white man in whom truth dwelt, and that was Kleki-Petrah, whom you murdered. I was almost deceived in Old Shatterhand. I observed his daring and his bodily strength, and wondered at it. Uprightness seemed seated in his eyes, and I thought I could love him. But he was a land-thief, like the rest; he did not prevent you from entrapping us, and twice he knocked me in the head with his fist. Why does the Great Spirit make such a man, and give him so false a heart?”
I wanted to look at him as he spoke, but my muscles would not obey my will. Yet as I heard these last words my eyelids lifted, and I saw him standing before me clad in a light linen garment and unarmed.
“He has opened his eyes again,” cried Sam, and Winnetou bent over me, looking long and steadily into my eyes.
At last he said: “Can you speak?” I shook my head.
“Have you any pain?” I made the same reply.
“Be honest with me! When a man comes back from death he surely must speak the truth. Did you four men really want to free us?”