Part 41 (1/2)

”I must, for am I not your slave?”

She smiled proudly.

”Take care, Nina! I know not what has happened between this girl and yourself, but I am conscious that vengeance often produces very bitter fruits, Perhaps you will repent hereafter what you do today?”

”What matter? I shall be avenged. That thought will render me strong, and give me the courage to suffer.”

”Then, you are quite resolved?”

”Irrevocably.”

”I will obey.”

”Thanks, my kind father,” she said, eagerly; ”thanks for your devotion.”

”Do not thank me,” the Pirate said, sadly; ”perhaps you will curse me some day.”

”Oh, never!”

”May Heaven grant it!”

With these words, the accomplices separated.

Pedro re-entered the tent allotted to him, while the Gazelle rejoined Ellen, who was still sleeping her untroubled sleep, smiling at the pleasant dreams that lulled her.

Curumilla lay down again at the entrance of the lodge.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SHAW.

We have said that Dona Clara had disappeared.

At the moment when the struggle was most obstinate, Valentine, taking Dona Clara in his arms, leaped from the top of the lodge on which he had hitherto been fighting, intrusted the maiden to Shaw, and rushed back into the fight at the head of the Comanches, who, recovering from the terror caused by the unforeseen attack of their implacable foes the Apaches, gradually a.s.sembled to the powerful war cry of their chief, Pethonista.

”Watch over her,” Valentine said to Red Cedar's son; ”watch over her, and, whatever may happen, save her.”

Shaw took the maiden in his powerful arms, threw her over his shoulder, and with flas.h.i.+ng eye and quivering lip, he brandished his axe, that fearful squatter's instrument he never laid aside, and rushed head foremost among the Apaches, resolved to die or break the human barrier that rose menacingly before him.

Like a boar at bay, he dashed madly forward, felling and trampling mercilessly on all who attempted to bar his progress. A living catapult, he advanced step by step over a pile of corpses, incessantly dropping his axe, which he raised again dripping with blood. He had only one thought left--to save Dona Clara or die!

In vain did the Apaches collect around him; like an implacable reaper, he cut them down as ripe corn, while laughing that dry and hoa.r.s.e grin, a nervous contraction which affects a man who has reached the last stage of rage or madness.

In fact, at this moment, Shaw was no longer a man, but a demon.

Trampling over the quivering bodies that fell beneath the terrible blows of his axe, feeling the body of her for whose safety he fought trembling on his shoulder, he struggled without stopping in his impossible task, but resolved to cut a hole, at all risks, through the human wall constantly arising before him.

Shaw was a man of tried courage, long habituated to fighting, and pitiless to the redskins. But alone, on this night, only illumined by the blood-red hue of the fire, and confined in a fatal circle, he felt a great fear involuntarily coming over him; he breathed with difficulty, his teeth were clenched, an icy perspiration ran down his body, and he felt on the point of succ.u.mbing.