“No? we cannot hear it; you are mocking us,” I rejoined, addressing myself to the brown-skinned, sibyl. “Ha! ha! ha! It is it that is mocking you. It mocks you, and yet it is not the mocking-bird. It is not the dove cooing gently to his mate, nor the screaming of the owl. It is the cuckoo that mocks you! ha! ha! the cuckoo! Now, do you hear it, White Eagle? Do you hear it, proud slayer of red panthers? Ha! it mocks you both!”
“Oh! bother, girl!” exclaimed. Wingrove in a vexed tone; “ye’re a talkin’ nonsense.”
“Truth, White Eagle—truth! the black snake has been in your nest; and yours too, slayer of panthers! He has wound himself around your pretty birds, and borne them away in his coils—away over the great desert plains—away to the Big Lake! Ha, ha, ha! In the desert, he will defile them. In the waters of the lake, he will drown them—ha, ha, ha!”
“Them’s yur words o’ comfort, air they?” cried Wingrove, exasperated to a pitch of fury. “Durned if I’ll bar sech talk! I won’t stan’ it any longer. Clar out now! We want no croakin’ raven hyar. Clar out! or—”
He was not permitted to finish the threat. I saw the girl suddenly drop down from her position on the fence, and glide behind the trunk of a tree. Almost at the same instant a light gleamed along the bank—which might have been mistaken for a flash of lightning, had it not been followed instantaneously by a quick crack—easily recognisable as the report of a pistol! I waited not to witness the effect; but rushed towards the tree—with the design of intercepting the Indian. The blue smoke lingering in the damp air, hindered me from seeing the movements of the girl; but, hurrying onward, I clambered over the fence. Once on the other side, I was beyond the cloud, and could command a view for a score of yards or so around me; but, in that circuit, no human form was to be seen! Beyond it, however, I heard the vengeful, scornful, laugh, pealing its unearthly echoes through the columned aisles of the forest!
Chapter Thirty Six.
The Horologe of the Dead Horse.
With inquiring eye and anxious heart, I turned towards the spot where I had left my companion. To my joy, he was still upon his feet, and coming towards me. I could see blood dripping from his fingers, and a crimson-stained rent in the sleeve of his buckskin shirt; but the careless air with which he was regarding it, at once set my mind at rest. He was smiling: there could not be much danger in the wound? It proved so in effect. The bullet had passed through the muscular part of the left forearm—only tearing the flesh. The wound did not even require a surgeon. The haemorrhage once checked, the dressing which my experience enabled me to give it was sufficient; and kept slung a few days it would be certain to heal.