Here she said a few words rapidly in her own language to the old man. The effect was instantaneous. He sprang up—he seized his spear—his eyes suddenly assumed a fixed and stony stare—with raised head he strode forward with all the lightness and activity of youth. He muttered one name repeatedly. Then his expression changed to one of horrible exultation.
“I believe old man Jack was there,” said Mark. “Perhaps he threw the spear that hit me.”
“Dono,” said Wildduck; “might ha’ been. He’d have done it quick if he had, I know that.”
A spring cart with luncheon had been sent on at an early hour, and commanded to camp close by the deserted miamis, which had never been inhabited since the battle. Leaving their sable friends, with an invitation to come up and receive the fragments, they rode over to the spot indicated.
“Give me the hobbles,” said Mark to the lad who drove the spring cart. “You can lay the cloth and set the lunch.”
CHAPTER XI.
“The Phantom Knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o’er the fields he heaped with dead.“—Scott.
Jack had the privilege of lifting Maud from her horse, and then their three nags were unsaddled and hobbled. Rejoicing in this “constitutional freedom,” they availed themselves of it to the extent of drinking of the lake, rolling in the sand, and cropping with relish the long grass which only grew on the lake-side.
“Here is the very spot—how strange it seems!” said Mark, “that we should be drinking bottled ale and eating pâtés de foie gras just where spears were flying and guns volleying. It was night, however, when we made our charge. We had been tracking all day, and were guided by their fires latterly.”