The Pirates of the Prairies: Adventures in the American Desert

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  TWO WOMEN'S HEARTS.

  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 quittedforever. She felt for her, although she never remembered to have seenher before, a sympathy for which she could not account, and whichinstinctively attracted her.

  Who was this woman? How had she, still so young, become mixed up inthese scenes of murder and associated with these savage prairie men, towhom 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 thatpossible, 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 notexist, and who made it a principle to obey, under all circumstances, theimpulse of her heart, without reflecting on the consequences that mightresult from it, she silenced the feeling of revolt within her, and bentover White Gazelle.

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

  The two maidens, thus grouped on the uneven floor of a wretched Indianhut, offered an exquisite picture. Both deliciously lovely, though ofdifferent beauty--for Ellen had the most lovely golden locks ever seen,while the Gazelle, on the contrary, had the warm tint of the Spanishwoman, and hair of a bluish black--presented the complete type, in twodifferent races, of the beau-ideal of woman, that misunderstood andincomprehensible being, the fallen angel in whose heart God seems tohave let fall a glorious beam of His divinity, and who retains a vaguereminiscence of that Eden which she made us lose.

  The American woman, that perfect whole, a composition of graces,volcanic and raging passions, angel and demon, who loves and hatessimultaneously, and who makes the man she prefers feel in the samesecond the joys of paradise and the nameless tortures of the Inferno!Who could even analyze this impossible nature, in which virtue andvices, strangely amalgamated, seem to personify the terrible convulsionsof the soil on which she lives, and which has created her?

  For a long time, Ellen's cares were thrown away. White Gazelle remainedpale and cold in her arms. The maiden began to grow alarmed. She knewnot to what she should have recourse, when the stranger made a slightmovement, and a faint ruddiness tinged her cheeks. She uttered aprofound sigh, and her eyelids painfully rose. She looked round her inamazement, and then closed her eyes again.

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

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

  "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 asmile.

  The Spaniard listened to her as if she did not catch her meaning, andshook her head so passionately that she broke the ribbon confining herhair, which fell in thick ringlets over her white shoulders, and veiledthem.

  "Who are you?" she asked, impetuously, with an accent of menace andanger.

  "Who am I?" Ellen replied, in a firm voice, in which a slight tinge ofreproach 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 ofthose women called in your country Quakeresses, who spend their life inpreaching."

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

  "Yes, yes," the Spaniard shrieked, as she writhed her handsdespairingly, and burst into tears--"I suffer all the torments of hell."

  Ellen regarded her for a moment with compassion, and walked towards her."Do not cry, poor girl!" she said to her, mistaking the cause that madeher 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 acondition to defend myself, were I insulted? What need have I of yourprotection?"

  And, roughly seizing Ellen's arm, she shook her passionately as shesaid:--

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

  "You, who were with the bandits when they attacked this village, shouldknow me," Ellen replied, drily.

  "Yes, I know you," the Spaniard said presently, in a hoarse voice. "Youare the woman whom the genius of evil brought across my path to rob meof all my happiness! I did not expect to find you here, but I amdelighted at doing so, for I can at length tell you how I hate you," sheadded, stamping her foot passionately. "Yes, I hate you!"

  Ellen, in her heart, was alarmed at the stranger's violence; she triedin vain to explain her incomprehensible words.

  "You hate me!" she replied, softly. "For what reason? I do not know you.This is the first time that accident has brought us together. Up to thisday, we never had any relations together, near or remote."

  "Do you think so?" the Spaniard continued, with a cutting smile. "Intruth," she added, "we never had any relations together. You are right,and yet I know you thoroughly. Miss Ellen, daughter of the squatter, thescalp hunter, the bandit, in a word, Red Cedar, and who dares to loveDon Pablo de Zarate, as if you did not belong to an accursed race. HaveI forgotten aught--are those all your titles? Answer, will you?" shesaid, thrusting her face, inflamed with passion, close to Ellen's, andshaking her violently by the arm.

  "I am, indeed, Red Cedar's daughter," Ellen answered, coldly; "but I donot understand what you mean by your allusion to Don Pablo de Zarate."

  "Do you not, innocent lamb!" the Spaniard retorted with irony.

  "And supposing it were so," the American answered with some haughtiness,"what does it concern you? By what right do you cross-question me?"

  "By what right?" the Spaniard said, violently, but suddenly checkedherself, and, biting her lips till the blood came, she folded her handson her breast, and, surveying Ellen with a glance full of the utmostcontempt, she continued:--

  "In truth, you are an angel of purity and gentleness; your life haspassed calmly and softly at the hearth of honest and respectableparents, who inculcated in you at an early age all the virtues theypractice so well--ah, ah! Is not that what you meant to say to me?--while I, who am an associate of brigands, who have spent my whole lifeon the prairie, who understand nothing of the narrow exigencies of yourpaltry civilisation, who have always breathed the sharp and savage airof liberty--by what right should I come to interfere in your familyarrangements, and interfere in your chaste loves, whose sentimental andinsipid incidents are so well regulated by feet and inches? You areright, I cannot, with my savage manner, and burning heart, cross yourlove, and destroy for a caprice all your combinations--I am, indeed,mad," she added, as she rudely repulsed the maiden.

  She folded her arms on her chest, and leant against the wall of the hutin silence. Ellen looked at her for a while, and then said, in a softand conciliating voice--

  "I try in vain to understand your allusions, but if they refer to anyfact effaced from my mind, if, under any circumsta
nce, I may haveunconsciously offended you, I am ready to offer you all the apologiesyou may require. Our position among these ferocious Indians is toocritical for me not to try, by all means in my power, to draw moreclosely together the bonds of friendship between ourselves, the onlyrepresentatives of the white race here, which alone can enable us toescape the snares laid for us, and resist the attacks that threaten us."

  The Spaniard's face had gradually lost the hateful and wicked expressionthat disfigured it, and her features had become calmer. Now that she hadreflected, she repented the imprudent words she had uttered on the firstoutburst of passion. She would have liked to recall her secret; still shehoped that it was not too late to do so; and with that craft innate inwoman, and which renders her so dangerous under certain circumstances,she resolved to deceive her companion, and efface from her mind the badimpression which her foolish words must have left there.

  Hence it was with a smile, and in her softest voice, that she answeredthe American--

  "You are good-hearted; I am not worthy of the attention you have paidme, or of the gentle words you address to me, after what I dared to sayto you. But I am more unfortunate than wicked. Abandoned when a child,and adopted by the bandits with whom you saw me, the first sounds thatstruck my ear were cries of death, the first light I saw was the glareof incendiary fires. My life has been passed in the desert, far from thetowns, where people learn to grow better. I am an impetuous andobstinate girl; but, believe me, my heart is good; I can appreciate akindness, and remember it. Alas! A girl in my position is more to bepitied than blamed."

  "Poor child!" Ellen said, with involuntary emotion, "So young, andalready so unhappy."

  "Oh, yes, most unhappy," the Spaniard went on; "I never knew thesweetness of a mother's caresses, and the only family I have had iscomposed of the brigands, who accompanied the Apaches when they attackedyou."

  The girls remained seated side by side, with their arms intertwined andhead on each other's shoulder, like two timid doves. They talked for along time, describing their past life. Ellen, with the candour andfrankness that formed the basis of her character, allowed her companionto draw from her all her secrets, harmless as they were, not perceivingthat the dangerous woman who held her beneath the charm of herblandishments, continually excited her to confidence, while herselfmaintaining the utmost reserve.

  The hours passed thus rapidly, nearly the whole night slipped away intheir confessions, which did not terminate till sleep, which neversurrenders its sway over young and animated people, closed the droopingeyelids of the American girl.

  The Spaniard did not sleep; when the other maiden's head fell on herchest she raised it cautiously, and laid it delicately on the skins andfurs arranged to act as a bed; then, by the flickering and uncertainlight of the pinewood torch fixed in the ground, which lit up the hut,she gazed long and attentively on the squatter's daughter.

  Her face had lost its placid mask and assumed an expression of hatred ofwhich such lovely features would have been thought incapable; withfrowning brow, clenched teeth, and pallid cheeks, as she stood beforethe maiden, she might have been taken for the genius of evil, preparingto seize the victim which it holds fascinated and gasping beneath itsdeadly glance.

  "Yes," she said, in a hollow voice, "this woman is lovely; she has allneeded to be beloved by a man. She told me the truth--he loves her! AndI," she added, with a movement of rage, "why does he not love me? I amlovely too--more lovely than this one, perhaps. How is it that he hasbeen at least twenty times in my presence, and his heart has never beenwarmed by the fire that flashed from my eyes? Whence comes it that hehas never noticed me, that all my advances to make him love me haveremained futile, and that he has never thought of anyone but the womanlying asleep there, who is in my power, and whom I could kill if Ipleased?"

  While uttering these words she had drawn from her girdle a smallstiletto, with a blade sharp as the tongue of a cascabel.

  "No!" she added, after a moment's reflection, "No, it is not thus thatshe must die! She would not suffer enough. Oh, no! I mean her to endureall the sufferings that are lacerating me. Jealousy shall torture herheart as it has done mine for so long. _Voto a Dios!_ I will avengemyself as a Spanish woman should do. If he despise me, if he will notlove me, neither of us shall have him; we shall both suffer, and hertorture will alleviate mine. Oh! Oh!" she said, with a smile, as shewalked round the sleeping girl with the muffled tread of a wild beast;"fair-haired girl, with lily complexion, your cheeks covered with thevelvety down of a peach, will ere long be as pale as mine, and youreyes, red with fever, will no longer find tears to soothe them."

  She bent over Ellen, attentively listened to her regular breathing, andcertain that she was plunged in a deep sleep, she walked toward thecurtain door of the hut, raised it cautiously, and after looking aroundher in the obscurity, feeling assured by the calmness that surroundedher, she stepped over the body of Curumilla, who was lying across thedoor, and started off hurriedly, but with such light steps that the mostpractised ear could not have noticed the sound.

  The Indian warrior had taken on himself the duty of watching over thetwo women. When the scalp dance was ended he returned to install himselfat the spot he had selected, and, in spite of the remarks of Valentineand Don Pablo, who assured him that they were in safety, and it wasunnecessary for him to remain there, nothing could make him give up hisresolution.

  Phlegmatically shaking his head at his friend's remarks, he took off hisbuffalo robe without any further response; he stretched it on theground, and lay down on it, wishing them good night with a brief butperemptory nod. The others, seeing the Araucano's immoveable resolve,philosophically went away, shaking their heads.

  Curumilla was not asleep--not one of the Spanish girl's movementsescaped him; and she had scarce gone ten yards when he was already onher trail, watching her carefully. Why he did so he was himselfignorant; but a secret foreboding warned him to follow the stranger, andtry to learn for what reason, instead of sleeping, she traversed at solate an hour the camp in which she was a prisoner, and where sheconsequently exposed herself to come in contact at each step with aferocious enemy, who would have killed her with delight.

  The reason that made her brave so imminent a danger must be verypowerful, and that reason the Indian chief determined on knowing.

  The girl had difficulty in finding her way through this inextricablelabyrinth of huts and tents, against which she stumbled at every step.The night was dark; the moon, veiled under a dense mass of clouds, onlydisplayed its sickly disc at lengthened intervals; not a star gleamed inthe sky.

  At times the girl halted on her journey, stretching forth her hand tolisten to any suspicious sound, or else returned hurriedly on herfootsteps, turning in the same circle, while careful not to go far fromEllen's hut.

  It was evident to Curumilla that the prisoner was seeking, though unableto find, a tent that contained the person she wished to speak with. Atlength, despairing probably of ever succeeding in this search of whichshe did not hold the thread, the girl stopped and imitated twice thesnapping bark of the white coyote of the Far West. This signal, for itwas evidently one, succeeded better than she expected, for two similarbarks, uttered at points diametrically opposed, answered her almostimmediately. The girl hesitated for a second; a dark flush passed overher face, but recovering at once, she repeated the signal.

  Two men appeared simultaneously at her side--one, who seemed to rise outof the ground, was Red Cedar, the second, Pedro Sandoval.

  "Heaven be praised!" the Spaniard said, as he pressed the girl's hand,"You are saved, Nina, and I fear nothing more now. _Canarios!_ You mayflatter yourself with having caused me a terrible fright."

  "Here I am," said Red Cedar; "can I be of any service to you? We areambushed a few steps from here, with two hundred Apaches; speak, what isto be done?"

  "Nothing at present," the Gazelle said, as she returned the pressure ofher two friends' hands. "After our ill success of this evening, anyattempt would be premature, and fai
l. At daybreak, from what I haveheard, the Comanches will set out to take up your trail. Do not lettheir war party out of sight. It is possible that I may require yourhelp on the way; but till then do not show yourself; act with thegreatest prudence, and before all try to keep your enemies in ignoranceof your movements."

  "You have no other recommendations to give me?"

  "None; so retire; the Indians will soon wake up, and it would not bewell for you if they surprised you."

  "I obey."

  "Above all, do what I told you."

  "That is agreed," Red Cedar repeated.

  He glided into the gloom and disappeared among the tents. Curumilla wasinclined to follow him and kill him as he fled; but after a shorthesitation he allowed him to escape.

  "It is now your turn," the Gazelle continued, addressing Sandoval; "Ihave a service to ask of you."

  "A service, Nina; say rather an order to give me; do you not know that Iam happy to please you in everything?"

  "I am aware of it, and feel grateful to you, Pedro; but this time what Ihave to ask of you is so important and so serious, that, in spite ofmyself, I hesitate to tell you what I expect from you."

  "Speak without fear, my child, and whatever it may be, I swear to you todo it."

  "Even if the life of a person were at stake?" she said, with a brightand fixed glance, resembling that of a wild beast.

  "All the worse for him: I would kill him."

  "Without hesitation?"

  "Yes. Has anyone insulted you, my child? If so, point him out to me,that you may be the sooner avenged."

  "What I would ask of you is worse than killing a man."

  "I do not understand you."

  "I wish--you understand me clearly, my dear Pedro?--I wish that on theroad we should escape--"

  "If it is only that, it is easy."

  "Perhaps so! But that is not all."

  "I am listening."

  "When we escape, you must carry off and take with us the girl to whomyou entrusted me last evening."

  "What the deuce would you do with her?" the pirate exclaimed, astonishedat this singular proposition, which he was far from expecting.

  "That is my business," the Gazelle answered rudely.

  "Of course, still it seems to me--"

  "After all, why should I not tell you? There is, I think, in a country along distance from here, a savage and ferocious race called the Sioux?"

  "Yes, and they are precious scoundrels, I can assure you, senorita; butI do not see what connection there is--"

  "You shall see," she sharply interrupted him. "I wish that the girl youcarry off tomorrow shall be handed over as a slave to the Sioux."

  This proposition was so monstrous, that Pedro Sandoval could not refrainfrom a glance of stupefaction at the young Spaniard.

  "You have heard me," she continued.

  "Yes, but I should prefer killing her: it would be sooner done, and thepoor girl would suffer less."

  "Ah, you pity her!" she said with a demoniac smile; "the fate I reservefor her, then is very atrocious? Well, that is exactly what I want; shemust live and suffer for a long time."

  "This woman must have terribly insulted you?"

  "More than I can tell you."

  "Reflect on the horrible punishment to which you condemn her."

  "All my reflections are made," the girl replied in a sharp voice; "Iinsist on it."

  The Pirate hung his head silently.

  "Will you obey me?" she asked.

  "I must, for am I not your slave?"

  She smiled proudly.

  "Take care, Nina! I know not what has happened between this girl andyourself, but I am conscious that vengeance often produces very bitterfruits, 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 mesome day."

  "Oh, never!"

  "May Heaven grant it!"

  With these words, the accomplices separated.

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

  Curumilla lay down again at the entrance of the lodge.