Part 39 (1/2)

Ellen felt moved with pity at the sight of this young and lovely woman, who lay on the floor of the hut, and whom life seemed to have quitted forever. She felt for her, although she never remembered to have seen her before, a sympathy for which she could not account, and which instinctively attracted her.

Who was this woman? How had she, still so young, become mixed up in these scenes of murder and a.s.sociated with these savage prairie men, to whom every human being is an enemy, every valuable article a booty?

Whence arose this strange ascendancy which she exerted over outlaws, whom she made cry like children?

All these thoughts crossed Ellen's mind, and heightened, were that possible, the interest she felt in the stranger. And yet, in her heart, a vague fear, an undefinable presentiment warned her to be on her guard, and that this woman, gifted with, a strange character and fatal beauty, was an enemy, who would destroy her happiness forever.

As Ellen was one of those rare women for whom evil sentiments did not exist, and who made it a principle to obey, under all circ.u.mstances, the impulse of her heart, without reflecting on the consequences that might result from it, she silenced the feeling of revolt within her, and bent over White Gazelle.

And with that exquisite tact, innate in the female heart, she sat down by the side of the sufferer, laid her beautiful head on her knees, loosened her vest, and gave her that busy attention of which the other s.e.x alone possess the secret.

The two maidens, thus grouped on the uneven floor of a wretched Indian hut, offered an exquisite picture. Both deliciously lovely, though of different beauty--for Ellen had the most lovely golden locks ever seen, while the Gazelle, on the contrary, had the warm tint of the Spanish woman, and hair of a bluish black--presented the complete type, in two different races, of the beau-ideal of woman, that misunderstood and incomprehensible being, the fallen angel in whose heart G.o.d seems to have let fall a glorious beam of His divinity, and who retains a vague reminiscence of that Eden which she made us lose.

The American woman, that perfect whole, a composition of graces, volcanic and raging pa.s.sions, angel and demon, who loves and hates simultaneously, and who makes the man she prefers feel in the same second the joys of paradise and the nameless tortures of the Inferno!

Who could even a.n.a.lyze this impossible nature, in which virtue and vices, strangely amalgamated, seem to personify the terrible convulsions of the soil on which she lives, and which has created her?

For a long time, Ellen's cares were thrown away. White Gazelle remained pale and cold in her arms. The maiden began to grow alarmed. She knew not to what she should have recourse, when the stranger made a slight movement, and a faint ruddiness tinged her cheeks. She uttered a profound sigh, and her eyelids painfully rose. She looked round her in amazement, and then closed her eyes again.

After a moment, she opened them once more, raised her hand to her brow as if to dissipate the clouds that obscured her mind, fixed her eyes on the person who was attending to her, and then, with a frown and quivering lips, she, tore herself from the arms that entwined her, and, bounding like a panther, sought shelter in one of the corners of the hut, without ceasing to gaze fixedly at the young American, who was startled at this strange conduct, and could not understand it.

The two girls remained thus for a few seconds, face to face, devouring each other with their eyes, but not exchanging a syllable. No other sound could be heard in the hut, save the panting respiration of the two females.

”Why do you shun me?” Ellen at length asked in her harmonious voice, soft as the cooing of a dove. ”Do I frighten you?” she added, with a smile.

The Spaniard listened to her as if she did not catch her meaning, and shook her head so pa.s.sionately that she broke the ribbon confining her hair, which fell in thick ringlets over her white shoulders, and veiled them.

”Who are you?” she asked, impetuously, with an accent of menace and anger.

”Who am I?” Ellen replied, in a firm voice, in which a slight tinge of reproach was perceptible. ”I am the woman who has just saved your life.”

”And who told you I wished it to be saved?”

”In doing so, I only consulted my own heart.”

”Oh, yes, I understand,” the Gazelle said, ironically. ”You are one of those women called in your country Quakeresses, who spend their life in preaching.”

”I am nothing of the sort,” Ellen said, softly. ”I am a woman who suffers like yourself, and whom your misfortunes affect.”

”Yes, yes,” the Spaniard shrieked, as she writhed her hands despairingly, and burst into tears--”I suffer all the torments of h.e.l.l.”

Ellen regarded her for a moment with compa.s.sion, and walked towards her.

”Do not cry, poor girl!” she said to her, mistaking the cause that made her shed tears. ”You are in safety here. No one will do you any harm.”

The Spaniard threw up her head haughtily.

”Nay!” she said, impetuously. ”Do you fancy, then, that I am not in a condition to defend myself, were I insulted? What need have I of your protection?”

And, roughly seizing Ellen's arm, she shook her pa.s.sionately as she said:--

”Who are you? What are you doing here? Answer!”