The Queen of the Savannah: A Story of the Mexican War

CHAPTER XXXIX.
RUNNING WATER

Although the Indians, if judged by the standard of our advanced civilization, are still plunged in the deepest barbarism, they are far from being so ferocious at the present day as they were fifty or sixty years ago. In spite of themselves, their continued contact with the white men has gradually modified their manners, and their native cruelty is beginning to yield to gentler feelings and less cruel customs. The usage of torturing the enemies whom fate has thrown into their hands is beginning to die out, and it is only under exceptional circumstances that prisoners are still attached to the stake.

The honour of this progress is entirely due to the missionaries, those sublime pioneers of civilization who, at the peril of their life, disdaining fatigue and danger to win over a soul to our holy religion, constantly traverse the desert in all directions, preaching to the Indians and gradually initiating them in the comforts of civilization. The Comanches especially, that indomitable and haughty race, the undegenerated descendants of the first owners of the soil, no longer torture their prisoners, save under extraordinary circumstances.

The tribe of the Red Buffaloes had, at a certain period, tried to enter the great family of civilized nations; and certainly, if it fell back into barbarism, the blame cannot be fairly laid on the redskins. The sachems and aged men remembered, with sighs of regret, the long and quiet years they had passed on the Mexican territory, tilling the soil, breeding cattle, and protected from insults and depredations. Hence they kept up an implacable hatred of the man who had ruined their lodges, burnt their crops, killed their horses, and forced them to resume their nomadic life by driving them back like wild beasts into the desert. The most persistent feeling in the heart of the Indians is hatred; they only live in the hope of vengeance.

After long years of expectation the Red Buffaloes at length saw their desires satisfied. The wife and daughter of the man who was the cause of all their woes had fallen into their hands, and frightful reprisals were preparing, the more so, because one of these ladies was that terrible Queen of the Savannah before whom they had so long trembled. On the morning of the day appointed for the holiday – for such the death of the captives was to the Indians – the sun rose radiantly in a golden mist. The whole tribe had been assembled to witness the punishment of the Queen of the Savannah. On the plain, about a musket shot from the teocali, and in a spacious forest clearing, two stakes had been planted in the ground, and round them was piled up the wood destined to burn mother and daughter alive. The wood had been chosen in a green state in order that it might burn with difficulty and produce a dense smoke. It was an ingenious mode of making the torture last longer by rendering it more atrocious.

The women and children, more ferocious than the warriors, had been busy since daybreak in cutting small pointed splints of larch wood, which were to be thrust under the nails of the victims. Scalping knives were ground, and the points of the lances sharpened. Warriors were preparing sulphur matches, while others were heating iron nails, to be thrust into the bleeding wounds inflicted by their comrades. In a word, all, men, women, and children, were expending their ingenuity in inventing instruments of torture, and rendering the frightful punishment more cruel still.

The two ladies had spent the night in prayer. They only hoped now in God, in whom they placed entire confidence. Calm and resigned they awaited their executioners. The glad shouts of the Indians and the noise of their horrible preparations reached their ears. At times they shuddered; but mother and daughter then exchanged a look full of tenderness, and their clasped hands were furtively pressed. The captives passed the whole morning in a state of moral agony impossible to describe. Their torture had already begun. The Indians, with a refinement of cruelty perfectly in accordance with their manners, took a delight in thus heightening their suffering by a continued succession of fears and apprehensions.

The chiefs had decided that the punishment should not begin till the great heat of the day had passed. At length, about one o'clock, a sound of footsteps was heard, and the majordomo entered the prison of his captives. His manner was rough and abrupt, and his hollow eyes seemed to flash fire. He tried in vain to hide a terrible emotion which overpowered him.

"I have come for your answer," he said in a metallic voice.

"We are ready to die," they replied impetuously; and they rose and walked towards him.

"You are mad," he exclaimed with a bitter laugh. "Who says anything about death, you weak creatures? Impelled by a nervous excitement which will soon abandon you, you try in vain to deceive me by deceiving yourselves. Death is nothing, but suffering is everything."

"Heaven will give us the necessary strength to support it," Doña Emilia answered.

"Unhappy woman! Even supposing you can endure a slow death of several hours, will you expose your daughter to it?"

The Indian had hit the mark. Doña Emilia felt all her courage abandon her. She hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears.

"Villain!" the young lady exclaimed passionately, "Even if my mother, blinded by her tenderness for me, were so weak as to consent to the odious compact which you proposed to us, I would prefer death, and would kill myself with my own hand, sooner than belong to you."

The Indian burst into the yell of a wild beast. "It is too much, proud Spanish girl!" he shouted furiously. "Your fate is decided. Follow me!"

"Show me the way," the noble maiden said proudly. "The hangman should go before his victims. Come, mother, lean on my arm. I am strong, for I already feel as if I no longer belonged to this world. Dry your tears and raise your head, mother. Do not let these monsters suppose that your courage fails you."

"Alas!" Doña Emilia answered, as she mechanically passed her arm through her daughter's, "Poor child, I am the cause of your death. Oh forgive me! Forgive me!"

"Forgive you, mother? What? That I am about to die with you? Oh, could I ever hope for greater happiness!"

"I implore you, daughter, not to let your filial affection deceive you. I see it now. I was mad, and did wrong in exhorting you to die. Death is horrible at your age, my child, when you have scarce entered upon life and all still appears smiling."

"All the better, mother," the maiden answered, kissing her forehead. "I have only known the sweets of life; does not that make me the happier?"

"Oh, oh, woe is me!" Doña Emilia exclaimed, as she twined her arms desperately; "I have killed my daughter."

The Indian listened gloomy and pensive; a poignant remorse was silently gnawing his heart.

"Mother," Doña Diana said, kneeling piously before her, as she was wont to do each night in happier times; "mother, you are a holy woman; mother, bless your child."

"Oh, bless you, bless you; may God hear the prayer I offer up, and withdraw from you this frightful cup, to offer it to me alone."

The maiden rose. Her face shone with a pure and holy joy; never had her features reflected such a sublime expression; she was lovely, with the beauty of Virgin and Martyr.

"Let us go," she said, in a tone of authority which overpowered her mother's grief, "we should not keep our murderers waiting."

And with a sovereign gesture she showed the Indian chief the door. The latter, involuntarily overcome by this omnipotent will, went out with hanging head, and the two ladies followed him. They walked down the staircase of the teocali with a firm step, followed and preceded by a number of old squaws and children, who overwhelmed with insults and hurled mud in their faces. Doña Diana smiled; for a moment she felt her mother's arm tremble upon hers; fancying that the latter was giving way, she leant gently over to her and said with an ineffable expression —

"Courage, my kind mother, each step brings us nearer to heaven."

They at length reached the plain; on the last step they looked round instinctively to take a farewell glance at the wretched spot in which they had suffered so greatly. The Indian warriors, squaws, and children greeted the arrival of the captives on the plain with a yell of ferocious joy. The Stag had called up several braves, who, by his orders, ranged themselves round the prisoners, in order to protect them from the insults of the hideous women, who, at each step, rushed toward them as if to tear them with their long nails, which were bent like the claws of a panther.

"The paleface women must not be wounded before they are fastened to the stake," the chief said; "they would not have the strength left to endure the torture."

This reason appeared just, and the squaws restricted themselves to hurling at them the most disgusting insults they could imagine, resolved soon to take their revenge for the constraint imposed on them at this moment. Perhaps, in speaking as he had done, the majordomo disguised his thoughts, and this cruel insinuation was, in reality, hidden protection.

The distance to the place of torture was rather long; the two ladies, but little accustomed to walk through brambles and thorns, advanced slowly to their Calvary; still, they approached, and at length entered the clearing. The sachems of the tribe, gravely seated in a semicircle in front of the stakes of torture, were stoically smoking their calumets. The sinister procession stopped before them, and the Stag advanced.

"Here are the two white captives!" he said in a a voice which, despite all his efforts, trembled slightly.

Running Water raised his head and fixed his dull glance on the prisoners, while a cruel smile curled his thin lips, and displayed his teeth, white as those of a jaguar.

"Well," he asked, "what do they resolve? Do they accept the conditions the council offered them, or do they prefer death?"

The Stag turned to the captives with an expression of indescribable agony. They looked away from him disdainfully.

"They prefer death," he said.

"Wah!" the chief remarked, "the paleface squaws are like the red wolves of the prairie; they had a deal of boasting and little courage. Let them die, as they wish it; their cries of pain will rejoice the hearts of the Red Buffaloes."

A yell of joy greeted this finale, and the two ladies were led to the posts.

"There is still time," the Stag whispered in a hollow voice in the maiden's ear; "save yourself; save your mother! One word, but one, and you will escape the horrible punishment that threatens you."

"No," she answered in a firm voice, "I will not save myself by a cowardly deed; my fate is in the hands of God, and He can deliver me if He wills it."

"Summon thy God to thy help, then, proud fool, but make haste, for in a second it will be too late."

Suddenly, as if God wished to confound the blasphemer, a discharge of musketry burst forth like a thunderclap, and thirty horsemen dashed into the clearing, uttering cries of defiance and felling all who opposed their passage with sabre cuts and blows with their gun stocks. The Indians, who fancied themselves safe in their den, were terrified by this sudden attack, for which they were the less prepared, because the majority of them, supposing that they were going to celebrate a festival, had thrown their weapons pell-mell in a corner of the clearing. At the first moment the medley was frightful; the Indians fell like ripe corn beneath the strokes of the hunters. The women, half mad with terror, escaped in all directions, uttering fearful shrieks. Some warriors, however, had succeeded in recovering their lances, and prepared for a regular resistance.

"Ah!" the majordomo shouted, as he seized Doña Diana in his arms, "Dead or alive, you shall not escape me."

And lifting the maiden as if she were an infant, he started for the teocali.

"Mother; help, help!" the maiden shrieked in terror.

Doña Emilia leapt on the Indian and clung to him like a lioness; it was in vain that the latter tried to free himself; maternal love had increased her strength a hundredfold.

"Hold on, hold on!" Oliver shouted, as he made his horse leap over the corpses.

The Stag heard him, and he understood that his victim would escape him.

"Ah!" he shouted wildly, "Die then!"

And raising his scalping knife, he tried to stab her to the heart; but, with a movement swift as thought, Doña Emilia threw herself before the knife which completely disappeared in her throat.

"Thank you, my God!" she exclaimed, as she clung to the arm of the Comanche with a last supreme effort.

At the same moment Clary's sabre descended on the head of the chief, who rolled on the ground with cloven skull, dragging down with him the two females, one of whom was in the death agony, while the other had fainted, but was saved by her mother's heroic devotion. With the assistance of some of his comrades, Oliver raised the captives from the ground.

The battle was at an end; the Comanches had fled, leaving the clearing encumbered with corpses and a number of wounded, whom the implacable warriors set to work dispatching with the cold cruelty of men accustomed to such a task.

"Stay," said Oliver, noticing Running Water lying a few paces from him covered with wounds, "do not kill that man, he is an old acquaintance of mine."

The hunter had placed Doña Diana in her father's arms. Don Aníbal, delighted at seeing his daughter saved, but rendered desperate by the death of his wife, whose agony had already begun, was striving, by all the means in his power, to recall her to life.

"Good-bye," Doña Emilia murmured in a dying voice, as she gently pressed the hands of her daughter and her husband; "our daughter will console you for the loss of me. I die happy, because I died in saving her."

And gently laying her head on her husband's shoulder, she gave back her soul, still trying to smile on those whom she was leaving for ever.

It was after confiding Doña Diana to her father that Clary noticed Running Water. Count de Melgosa was lying by the side of the old sachem, with a lance thrust through his thigh. The hunters were preparing to remove the count to a more convenient spot, but the sachem, who had hitherto remained motionless, with his eyes closed as if he were already dead, gave a sudden start, and raised his head.

"One moment," he said, rising on his elbow with a great effort, "let me say a couple of words to this man."

The count ordered the hunters to withdraw.

"Chief, I am grieved to see you in this state," the Canadian said compassionately, for he remembered the sachem's kind reception; "let me bind up your wounds, and then you can speak at your ease."

"What good!" the chief answered bitterly; "I feel death approaching; its black wings are already spread out over my eyes; do not torment me."

"Let him speak," the count interrupted, "perhaps what he has to say to me may be more important than we suspect."

"Yes, yes," the chief continued with a groan, "much more than you believe."

And with a supreme effort he placed his face close to the count's, exclaiming with an expression of deadly hatred —

"Do you recognize me?"

"No," the count answered, after gazing fixedly at him.

The features of the old chief, already nearly decomposed by the advent of death, assumed a sinister expression.

"You do not recognize me," he said in a hollow voice, "and yet you are my enemy. My hand has fallen heavily upon you. You remember your brother's horrible death? Well, it was I who killed him. Oh! A portion of my vengeance has escaped me today, it is true, but my soul will not fly away alone to our happy hunting grounds. This woman, the Queen of the Savannah, and her daughter are dead. I have, therefore, gained my object."

"You are mistaken, chief," honest Clary interrupted him, scandalized by the Indian's language at such a moment; "although the Queen of the Savannah, as you call Doña Emilia, is dead, I was so fortunate as to save her daughter."

A convulsive quivering ran over the Indian's body; he gave the hunter an angry look, but almost immediately resumed, with a triumphant look —

"I have also sacrificed another victim to my hatred, the boy I carried off and entrusted to the Sumach."

"Well?" the Canadian said, with a cunning look, with the evident intention of drawing the redskin into a thorough confession.

"Yes, yes," the chief continued bitterly, "I know that all the palefaces are cowards, and that this one betrayed me."

The adventurer gave a start of passion, which was at once checked.

"That boy," the sachem exclaimed with cruel delight, "Don Aníbal educated as if he were his own son. Ah, ah! That handsome Don Melchior Díaz!"

"Well?" the count said, with feverish impatience.

"He was your son; but he is dead – crushed at the foot of a precipice."

Oliver leant over the chief, and gently touched his shoulder.

"Look, scoundrel!" he said, pointing to the young man who was running up to help the count, "Look, and die in despair, for there is the man whom you believe dead."

Running Water raised himself as if sustained by unknown strength; his eyes, dilated by horror and disappointed rage, were fixed on the young man with a terrible expression.

"Oh!" he exclaimed in a thundering voice, "All, all saved! the God of the palefaces has conquered!"

And he fell back without an effort to prevent it; ere he touched the ground he was dead.

Don Melchior Díaz was recognized without any difficulty as the count's son, and a year after the events we have narrated married Doña Diana. Don Aníbal de Saldibar, inconsolable at his wife's death, withdrew to a monastery in Mexico; after giving all property to his son-in-law and daughter, he took the vows, but grief had destroyed all his energy. Don Aníbal survived but a short time the death of the woman he had so dearly loved, and, in accordance with his request, was buried by her side.

Oliver Clary and his friend Moonshine, in spite of the young Count de Melgosa's earnest entreaties that they would remain with him, made but a short stay at the hacienda. Carried away by the irresistible attractions of a desert life, they resumed their adventurous excursions in the savannah, at the head of their bold cuadrilla, joyously recommencing the happy existence of wood rangers, and carrying with them Diego López, who had always a sneaking affection for the prairie.