“That cursed moon will never go down,” said he, “and it seems to me that I hear something like the noise of feet in the water; the buffaloes do not come down to drink at this time of night.”
So saying, he rose and leaning right and left, looked up and down the stream, but on each side extended an impenetrable veil of fog. The coolness of the American nights which succeeds the burning heat of the day, condenses thus in thick clouds the exhalations of the ground, and of the waters heated by the sun.
“I can see nothing but fog,” said he.
Little by little the vague sounds died away, and the air recovered its habitual cairn and silence. The moon was fast going down, and all nature seemed sleeping, when the occupants of the island started up in terror.
From both sides of the river rose shouts so piercing that the banks echoed them long after the mouths that uttered them were closed. Henceforth flight was impossible; the Indians had encompassed the island.
“The moon may go down now,” cried Pepé with rage. “Ah! with reason I feared the two absent men, and the noises that I heard; it was the Indians who were gaining the opposite bank. Who knows how many enemies we have around us now?”
“What matter,” replied Bois-Rose gloomily, “whether there are one hundred vultures to tear our bodies, or a hundred Indians to howl round us when we are dead?”
“It is true that the number matters little in such circumstances, but it will be a day of triumph for them.”
“Are you going to sing your death-song like them, who, when tied to the stake, recall the number of scalps they have taken?”
“And why not? it is a very good custom, it helps one to die like a hero, and to remember that you have lived like a man.”