And amid the many voices shouting for wife, sister, or sweetheart, none so loud, or sad, as that of Colonel Armstrong calling for his daughters.
Chapter Fifty Four.
Riding double.
With Colonel Armstrong’s voice in tone of heartrending anguish, goes up that of Dupré calling the names “Helen! Jessie!”
Neither gets response. They on whom they call cannot hear. They are too far off; though nearer, it would be all the same; for both are at the moment hooded like hawks. The serapes thrown over their heads are still on them, corded around their necks, so closely as to hinder hearing, almost stifle their breathing.
Since their seizure nearly an hour has elapsed, and they are scarce yet recovered from the first shock of surprise, so terrible as to have stupified them. No wonder! What they saw before being blinded, with the rough treatment received, were enough to deprive them of their senses.
From the chaos of thought, as from a dread dream, both are now gradually recovering. But, alas! only to reflect on new fears—on the dark future before them. Captive to such captors—red ruthless savages, whose naked arms, already around, have held them in brawny embrace—carried away from home, from all they hold dear, into a captivity seeming hopeless as horrid—to the western woman especially repulsive, by songs sung over her cradle, and tales told throughout her years of childhood—tales of Indian atrocity.
The memory of these now recurring, with the reality itself, not strange that for a time their thoughts, as their senses, are almost paralysed.