CHAPTER XVII
A BOOTLESS SACRIFICE
For what I now tell I offer no excuse. I would but record whatsavagery meant. Then may you who are descended from the New Worldpioneers know that your lineage is from men as heroic as thosecrusaders who rescued our Saviour's grave from the pagans; forcrusaders of Old World and New carried the sword of destruction in onehand, but in the other, a cross that was light in darkness. Then mayyou, my lady-fingered sentimentalist, who go to bed of a winter nightwith a warming-pan and champion the rights of the savage from your softplace among cushions, realize what a fine hero your redman was, andrealize, too, what were the powers that the white-man crushed!
For what I do not tell I offer no excuse. It is not permitted torelate _all_ that savage warfare meant. Once I marvelled that a justGod could order his chosen people to exterminate any race. Now Imarvel that a just God hath not exterminated many races long ago.
We reached the crest of a swelling upland as the first sun-rays camethrough the frost mist in shafts of fire. A quick halt was called.One white-garbed scout went crawling stealthily down the snow-slopelike a mountain-cat. Then the frost thinned to the rising sun andvague outlines of tepee lodges could be descried in the clouded valley.
An arrow whistled through the air glancing into snow with a softwhirr at our feet. It was the signal. As with one thought, thewarriors charged down the hill, leaping from side to side in afrenzy, dancing in a madness of slaughter, shrieking their long,shrill--"Ah--oh!--Ah--oh!"--yelping, howling, screaming theirwar-cry--"Ah--oh!--Ah--oh!--Ah--oh!"--like demons incarnate. Themedicine-man had stripped himself naked and was tossing his arms withmaniacal fury, leaping up and down, yelling the war-cry, beating thetom-tom, rattling the death-gourd. Some of the warriors went down onhands and feet, sidling forward through the mist like the stealthybeasts of prey that they were.
Godefroy, Jack Battle, and I were carried before the charge helpless asleaves in a hurricane. All slid down the hillside to the bottom of aravine. With the long bound of a tiger-spring, Le Borgne plungedthrough the frost cloud.
The lodges of the victims were about us. We had evidently come uponthe tribe when all were asleep.
Then that dark under-world of which men dream in wild delirium becamereality. Pandemonium broke its bounds.
* * * * * *
And had I once thought that Eli Kirke's fanatic faith painted too lurida hell? God knows if the realm of darkness be half as hideous as thedeeds of this life, 'tis blacker than prophet may portray.
Day or night, after fifty years, do I close my eyes to shut the memoryout! But the shafts are still hurtling through the gray gloom. Arrowsrip against the skin shields. Running fugitives fall pierced. Menrush from their lodges in the daze of sleep and fight barehandedagainst musket and battle-axe and lance till the snows are red andscalps steaming from the belts of conquerors. Women fall to the feetof the victors, kneeling, crouching, dumbly pleading for mercy; and themercy is a spear-thrust that pinions the living body to earth. Maimed,helpless and living victims are thrown aside to await slow death.Children are torn from their mothers' arms--but there--memory revoltsand the pen fails!
It was in vain for us to flee. Turn where we would, pursued andpursuer were there.
"Don't flinch! Don't flinch!" Godefroy kept shouting. "They'll takeit for fear! They'll kill you by torture!"
Almost on the words a bowstring twanged to the fore and a young girlstumbled across Jack Battle's feet with a scream that rings, and rings,and rings in memory like the tocsin of a horrible dream. She waswounded in the shoulder. Getting to her knees she threw her arms roundJack with such a terrified look of helpless pleading in her great eyesas would have moved stone.
"Don't touch her! Don't touch her! Don't touch her!" screamedGodefroy, jerking to pull Jack free. "It will do no good! Don't helpher! They'll kill you both--"
"Great God!" sobbed Jack, with shivering horror, "I can't help helpingher--"
But there leaped from the mist a figure with uplifted spear.
May God forgive it, but I struck that man dead!
It was a bootless sacrifice at the risk of three lives. But so wasChrist's a bootless sacrifice at the time, if you measure deeds bygain. And so has every sacrifice worthy of the name been a bootlesssacrifice, if you stop to weigh life in a goldsmith's scale!
Justice is blind; but praise be to God, so is mercy!
And, indeed, I have but quoted our Lord and Saviour, not as an example,but as a precedent. For the act I merited no credit. Like Jack, Icould not have helped helping her. The act was out before the thought.
Then we were back to back fighting a horde of demons.
Godefroy fought cursing our souls to all eternity for embroiling him inperil. Jack Battle fought mumbling feverishly, deliriously,unconscious of how he shot or what he said--"Might as well die here aselsewhere! Might as well die here as elsewhere! Damn that Indian!Give it to him, Ramsay! You shoot while I prime! Might as well diehere as elsewhere----"
And all fought resolute to die hard, when, where, or how the dying came!
To that desperate game there was but one possible end. It is only instory-books writ for sentimental maids that the good who are weakdefeat the wicked who are strong. We shattered many an assailantbefore the last stake was dared, but in the end they shattered mysword-arm, which left me helpless as a hull at ebb-tide. ThenGodefroy, the craven rascal, must throw up his arms for surrender,which gave Le Borgne opening to bring down the butt of his gun onJack's crown.
The poor sailor went bundling over the snow like a shot rabbit.
When the frost smoke cleared, there was such a scene as I may notpaint; for you must know that your Indian hero is not content to kill.Like the ghoul, he must mutilate. Of all the Indian band attacked byour forces, not one escaped except the girl, whose form I could descrynowhere on the stained snow.
Jack Battle presently regained his senses and staggered up to have hisarms thonged behind his back. The thongs on my arms they tightenedwith a stick through the loop to extort cry of pain as the sinew cutinto the shattered wrist. An the smile had cost my last breath, Iwould have defied their tortures with a laugh. They got no cry fromme. Godefroy, the trader, cursed us in one breath and in the nextthreatened that the Indians would keep us for torture.
"You are the only man who can speak their language," I retorted. "Stopwhimpering and warn these brutes what Radisson will do if they harm us!He will neither take their furs nor give them muskets! He will armtheir enemies to destroy them! Tell them that!"
But as well talk to tigers. Le Borgne alone listened, his foxy glancefastened on my face with a strange, watchful look, neither hostile norfriendly. To Godefroy's threats the Indian answered that "white-mantalk--not true--of all," pointing to Jack Battle, "him no friend greatwhite chief--him captive----"
Then Godefroy burst out with the unworthiest answer that ever passedman's lips.
"Of course he's a captive," screamed the trader, "then take him andtorture him and let us go! 'Twas him stopped the Indian getting thegirl!"
"Le Borgne," I cut in sharply, "Le Borgne, it was I who stopped theIndian killing the girl! You need not torture the little white-man.He is a good man. He is the friend of the great white chief."
But Le Borgne showed no interest. While the others stripped the deadand wreaked their ghoulish work, Le Borgne gathered up the furs of theLittle Sticks and with two or three young men stole away over the crestof the hill.
Then the hostiles left the dead and the half-dead for the wolves.
Prodded forward by lance-thrusts, we began the weary march back to thelodges. The sun sank on the snowy wastes red as a shield of blood; andwith the early dusk of the northern night purpling the shadowy fieldsin mist came a south wind that filled the desolate silence withrestless waitings as of lament for eternal wrong, moaning and sighingand rustling past like invisible spirits that find no peace.
Som
e of the Indians laid hands to thin lips with a low "Hs-s-h," andthe whole band quickened pace. Before twilight had deepened to thedark that precedes the silver glow of the moon and stars and northernlights, we were back where Le Borgne had killed the old man. The verysnow had been picked clean, and through the purple gloom far backprowled vague forms.
Jack Battle and I looked at each other, but the Indian fellow, who wasour guard, emitted a harsh, rasping laugh. As for Godefroy, he wasmarching abreast of the braves gabbling a mumble-jumble of pleadingsand threats, which, I know very well, ignored poor Jack. Godefroywould make a scapegoat of the weak to save his own neck, and small goodhis cowardice did him!
The moon was high in mid-heaven flooding a white world when we reachedthe lodges. We three were placed under guards, while the warriorsfeasted their triumph and danced the scalp-dance to drive away thespirits of the dead. To beat of tom-tom and shriek of gourd-rattles,the whole terrible scene was re-enacted. Stripping himself naked, butfor his moccasins, the old wizard pranced up and down like a fiend inthe midst of the circling dancers. Flaming torches smoked from polesin front of the lodges, or were waved and tossed by the braves.Flaunting fresh scalps from lance-heads, with tomahawk in the otherhand, each warrior went through all the fiendish moves and feints ofattack--prowling on knees, uttering the yelping, wolfish yells,crouching for the leap, springing through mid-air, brandishing thebattle-axe, stamping upon the imaginary prostrate foe, stooping with aglint of the scalping knife, then up, with a shout of triumph and thescalp waving from the lance, all in time to the dull thum--thum--thumof the tom-tom and the screaming chant of the wizard. Still the southwind moaned about the lodges; and the dancers shouted the louder todrown those ghost-cries of the dead. Faster and faster beat the drum.Swifter and swifter darted the braves, hacking their own flesh in afrenzy of fear till their shrieks out-screamed the wind.
Then the spirits were deemed appeased.
The mad orgy of horrors was over, but the dancers were too exhaustedfor the torture of prisoners. The older men came to the lodge where wewere guarded and Godefroy again began his importunings.
Setting Jack Battle aside, they bade the trader and me come out.
"Better one be tortured than three," heartlessly muttered Godefroy toJack. "Now they'll set us free for fear of M. Radisson, and we'll comeback for you."
But Godefroy had miscalculated the effects of his threats. At the doorstood a score of warriors who had not been to the massacre. If wehoped to escape torture the wizard bade us follow these men. They ledus away with a sinister silence. When we reached the crest of thehill, half-way between the lodges and the massacre, Godefroy tookalarm. This was not the direction of our fort. The trader shouted outthat M. Radisson would punish them well if they did us harm. At thatone of the taciturn fellows turned. They would take care to do us noharm, he said, with an evil laugh. On the ridge of the hill theypaused, as if seeking a mark. Two spindly wind-stripped trees stoodstraight as mast-poles above the snow. The leader went forward toexamine the bark for Indian signal, motioning Godefroy and me closer ashe examined the trees.
With the whistle of a whip-lash through air the thongs were about us,round and round ankle, neck, and arms, binding us fast. Godefroyshouted out a blasphemous oath and struggled till the deer sinew cuthis buckskin. I had only succeeded in wheeling to face our treacheroustormentors when the strands tightened. In the struggle the trader hadsomehow got his face to the bark. The coils circled round him. Thethongs drew close. The Indians stood back. They had done what theycame to do. They would not harm us, they taunted, pointing to thefrost-silvered valley, where lay the dead of their morning crime.
Then with harsh gibes, the warriors ran down the hillside, leaving usbound.