The words pronounced by the Cheyenne chief produced a startling effect. Not so much upon him, who was transfixed under the jet; though he heard them through the plashing water, that fell sheeted over his ears.
For he well knew the purpose for which he had been so disposed, as well as the pain to be endured; and he was already in a state of mind past the possibility of being further terrified.
It was not he, but others, who heard them with increased fear; others who knew them to be words of dread import.
Snively started as they fell upon his ear; and so to Clara Blackadder. She looked up with a strange puzzled expression upon her countenance.
Give him a double dose!
What could it mean? Snively had heard the order before—remembered a day on which he was commanded to execute it!
And the words, too, came from the mouth of an Indian chief—a painted savage—more than a thousand miles from the scene that recalled them. Even among the blacks, huddled up in the rocky embayment, there were faces that expressed surprise, some the ashy pallor of fear, as if from a stricken conscience.
“Give him a double dose! Gollamity!” exclaimed one. “What do de Indyin mean? Dat’s jess wha’ Massa Blount say five year ago, when dey wa’ gwine to pump on de head ob Blue Dick!”
More than one of the negroes remembered the cruel command, and some also recalled how cruelly they had sneered at him on whom the punishment was inflicted. A speech, so strangely recurring, could not help giving them a presentiment that something was nigh at hand to make them repent of their heartlessness.
They, too, as well as Snively, looked towards the chief for an explanation, and anxiously listened for what he might next say.