“Dead! dead!” shrieked Swamp Oak echoing the girl’s words with a voice that was a wail; and while the accents still quivered on his pale lips, he staggered back and dropped Ulalah upon the couch again.
“He’s mad!” muttered Kate Blount, involuntarily shrinking from the intense glare of the frenzied Indian’s eyes. “This deed of blood has sent reason from its throne. What is to follow God knows. Heaven protect me!”
The Peoria approached with an unnatural smile.
“Yes, the good spirits have taken Ulalah to their lodges,” he said, “and left the Lone Dove to be poor Swamp Oak’s squaw. Swamp Oak loved Ulalah; but when the winged spirits came for her, he kissed her, and let her go. Ha! ha! ha! the Lone Dove will be lone no longer. Why does she not greet the Swamp Oak? Come, we’ll strew the bridal-couch with flowers.”
But, with a shudder, Kate continued to retreat, and when at last, unable to retreat further, the demented Indian’s hand griped her arm, a fiendishly triumphant laugh came from a distant portion of the cave.
Instantly Swamp Oak dropped her arm, and wheeled with a crazy cry.
He turned in time to see a giantess burst from one of the corridors, leading from the further end of the chamber, and Kate Blount echoed the Indian’s cry of horror.
She at once recognized in the red ogress, the person of Coleola the prophetess of the Delawares, for around her neck writhed three snakes, pictures of horror.
Several warriors followed the red queen, and she threw a furtive glance upon Ulalah’s corpse as she sprung forward.
“Ha! ha! ha!” she laughed again, more discordantly than ever, pausing within a few feet of Swamp Oak, who regarded her with an expression utterly indescribable. “At last Coleola has tracked the child-stealer to his den. At last she has found her child—found her to punish her for following the Peoria dog into the woods. See!” and a knife flashed from beneath her tunic, “this blade is red with the blood of the ungrateful girl, and soon it shall drink the heart-gore of the red hound. For five sleeps we have waited for Swamp Oak, the traitor. Coleola led her braves from the Delaware village, saying: ‘We dye our knives in the hearts of the runaways or never return.’ Ha! ha! in the forest we saw a pair of eyes peeping from a tree! Ulalah watched for her red dog, and Coleola came instead of he.”