Part 50 (2/2)
She turns her face from him, and crouches down, hugging the knees of the priest!
”She knows me not! Oh, G.o.d! my child! my child!”
Again Seguin speaks in the Indian tongue, and with imploring accents--
”Adele! Adele! I am your father!”
”You! Who are you? The white men; our foes! Touch me not! Away, white men! away!”
”Dear, dearest Adele! do not repel me--me, your father! You remember--”
”My father! My father was a great chief. He is dead. This is my father now. The Sun is my father. I am a daughter of Montezuma! I am a queen of the Navajoes!”
As she utters these words, a change seems to come over her spirit. She crouches no longer. She rises to her feet. Her screaming has ended, and she stands in an att.i.tude of pride and indignation.
”Oh, Adele!” continues Seguin, more earnest than ever, ”look at me!
look! Do you not remember? Look in my face! Oh, Heaven! Here, see!
Here is your mother, Adele! See! this is her picture: your angel mother. Look at it! Look, oh, Adele!”
Seguin, while he is speaking, draws a miniature from his bosom, and holds it before the eyes of the girl. It arrests her attention. She looks upon it, but without any signs of recognition. It is to her only a curious object.
She seems struck with his manner, frantic but intreating. She seems to regard him with wonder. Still she repels him. It is evident she knows him not. She has lost every recollection of him and his. She has forgotten the language of her childhood; she has forgotten her father, her mother: she has forgotten all!
I could not restrain my tears as I looked upon the face of my friend, for I had grown to consider him such. Like one who has received a mortal wound, yet still lives, he stood in the centre of the group, silent and crushed. His head had fallen upon his breast, his cheek was blanched and bloodless; and his eye wandered with an expression of imbecility painful to behold. I could imagine the terrible conflict that was raging within.
He made no further efforts to intreat the girl. He no longer offered to approach her; but stood for some moments in the same att.i.tude without speaking a word.
”Bring her away!” he muttered, at length, in a voice husky and broken; ”bring her away! Perhaps, in G.o.d's mercy, she may yet remember.”
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.
THE WHITE SCALP.
We repa.s.sed the horrid chamber, and emerged upon the lowermost terrace of the temple. As I walked forward to the parapet, there was a scene below that filled me with apprehension. A cloud seemed to fall over my heart.
In front of the temple were the women of the village--girls, women, and children; in all, about two hundred. They were variously attired: some were wrapped in their striped blankets; some wore tilmas, and tunics of embroidered fawn-skin, plumed and painted with dyes of vivid colour; some were dressed in the garb of civilised life--in rich satins, that had been worn by the dames of the Del Norte; in flounces that had fluttered in the dance around the ankles of some gay maja.
Not a few in the crowd were entirely nude. They were all Indians, but of lighter and darker shades; differing in colour as in expression of face. Some were old, wrinkled, and coa.r.s.e; but there were many of them young, n.o.ble-like, and altogether beautiful.
They were grouped together in various att.i.tudes. They had ceased their screaming, but murmured among themselves in low and plaintive exclamations.
As I looked, I saw blood running from their ears! It had dappled their throats and spurted over their garments.
A glance satisfied me as to the cause of this. They had been rudely robbed of their golden hangings.
Near and around them stood the scalp-hunters, in groups and afoot. They were talking in whispers and low mutterings. There were objects about their persons that attracted my eye. Curious articles of ornament or use peeped out from their pouches and haversacks--bead-strings and pieces of s.h.i.+ning metal--gold it was--hung around their necks and over their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. These were the plundered bijouterie of the savage maidens.
<script>