Part 22 (1/2)
”I have heard everything,” she quickly retorted. ”I know the odious propositions these men have dared to make, and the condition they had audacity to insist on.”
”Well, why then does my sister wish to stop me?”
”Because,” the maiden energetically exclaimed, ”I will not accept that condition.”
”By Heavens! That is fine,” Valentine said joyfully; ”that is what I call speaking.”
”Yes,” the young lady continued, ”in my father's name I order you not to leave this island, chief--in my father's name, who, were he here, would order you as I do.”
”I answer for that,” Don Pablo said; ”my father has too n.o.ble a heart to a.s.sent to an act of cowardice.”
The maiden turned to the Indian chief, who had been stoically witnessing the scene.
”Begone, redskins,” she went on with a majestic accent, impossible to render, ”you see that all your victims escape you.”
”Honour bids me go,” the warrior murmured feebly.
Dona Clara took his hand between hers, and looked at him softly.
”Moukapec!” she said to him, in her melodious and pure voice, ”do you not know that yours would be a useless sacrifice? The Apaches are only striving to deprive us of our most devoted defender, that they may make an easier conquest of us. They are very treacherous Indians; remain with us.”
Eagle-wing hesitated for a moment, and the two chiefs tried in vain to read on his face the feelings that affected him. During several seconds, a leaden silence weighed on this group of men, whose hearts could be heard beating. At length the Coras raised his head, and answered with an effort--
”You insist; I remain here.”
Then he turned to the chief, who was waiting anxiously.
”Go,” he said to them in a firm voice, ”return to the tents of your tribe. Tell your brothers, who were never mine, but who at times have granted me a cordial hospitality, that Moukapec, the great Sachem of the Coras of the lakes, takes back his liberty: he gives up all claim to fire and water in their villages; he wishes to have nothing more in common with them; and if the Apache dogs prowl round him, and seek him, they will find him ever ready to meet them face to face on the warpath.
I have spoken.”
The Buffalo chiefs had listened to these words with that calmness which never abandons the Indians; not a feature on their faces had quivered.
When the Coras warrior finished speaking, Black Cat looked at him fixedly, and replied to him with a cold and cutting accent--
”I have heard a crow, the Coras are cowardly squaws, to whom the Apache warriors will give petticoats. Moukapec is a prairie dog, the sunbeams hurt his eyes, he will make his lair with the paleface hares, my nation no longer knows him.”
”Much good may it do him,” Valentine remarked with a smile, while Eagle-wing shrugged his shoulders at this outburst of insults.
”I retire,” Black Cat continued; ”ere the owl has twice saluted the sun, the scalps of the palefaces will be fastened to my girdle.”
”And,” the second chief added, ”the young men of my tribe will make war whistles of the white thieves' bones.”
”Very good,” Valentine replied, with a crafty smile; ”try it, we are ready to receive you, and our rifles carry a long distance.”
”The palefaces are boasting and yelping dogs,” Black Cat said again. ”I shall soon return.”
”All the better,” said Valentine; ”but in the meanwhile, as I suppose you have nothing more to say to us, I fancy it is time for you to rejoin your friends, who must be growing impatient at your absence.”