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- Author: Mayne Reid
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From what Wilder had heard, their persecutors were in doubt about their having descended into the shaft; and this uncertainty promised to be their salvation. Unless sure that they were taking all this trouble to some purpose, the red men would not dally long over their work. Besides, there was the rich booty to be drawn from the captured waggons, which would attract the Indians back to them, each having an interest in being present at the distribution.
Thus reasoned Walt Wilder as they listened to detect a change in the performance, making use of all their ears.
Of course they could see nothing, no more than if they had been immured in the darkest cell of an Inquisitorial dungeon. Only by their ears might they make any guess at what was going on. These admonished them that more of the burning brush was being heaved into the hole. Every now and then they could hear it as it went swishing past the door of their curtained chamber, the stalks and sticks rasping against the rocks in their descent.
After a time these sounds ceased to be heard; the Indians no doubt thinking that sufficient of the inflammatory matter had been cast in to cause their complete destruction. If inside the cavern, they must by this time be stifled—asphyxiated—dead.
So must have reasoned the red-skinned fumigators; for after a while they desisted from their hellish task. But, as if to make assurance doubly sure, before taking departure from the spot, they performed another act indicative of an equally merciless intention.
During the short period of silence their victims could not tell what they were about. They only knew, by occasional sounds reaching them from above, that there was some change in the performance; but what it was they could not even shape a conjecture.
The interregnum at length ended with a loud rumbling noise, that was itself suddenly terminated by a grand crash, as if a portion of the impending cliff had become detached, and fallen down upon the platform.
Then succeeded a silence, unbroken by the slightest sound. No longer was heard either noise or voice—not the murmur of one.
It was a silence that resembled death; as if the vindictive savages had one and all met a deserved doom by being crushed under the falling cliff.
For some time after hearing this mysterious noise, which had caused the rock to tremble around them, the two men remained motionless within their place of concealment.
At length Wilder cautiously and deliberately pushed aside the curtain. At first only a small portion of it—a corner, so as to make sure about the smoke.
It still oozed in, but not so voluminously as at first. It had evidently become attenuated, and was growing thinner. It appeared also to be ascending with rapidity, as up the funnel of a chimney having a good draught. For this reason it was carried past the mouth of the grotto without much of it drifting in, and they saw that they could soon safely withdraw the curtain. It was a welcome relaxation from the irksome task that had been so long imposed upon them, and the coat was at length permitted to drop down upon the ledge.
Although there were no longer any sounds heard, or other signs to indicate the presence of the Indians, the fugitives did not feel sure of their having gone; and it was some time before they made any attempt to reascend the shaft. Some of the pursuers might still be lurking near, or straying within sight. They had so far escaped death, as if by a miracle, and they were cautious of again tempting fate. They determined that for some time yet they would not venture out upon the ledge, but keep inside the grotto that had given them such well-timed shelter. Some sulky savage, disappointed at not getting their scalps, might take it into his head to return and hurl down into the hole another shower of stones. Such a whim was probable to a prairie Indian.
Cautious against all like contingencies, the guide counselled his younger companion to patience, and for a considerable time they remained without stirring out of their obscure chamber.
At length, however, perceiving that the tranquillity continued, they no longer deemed it rash to make a reconnoissance; and for this purpose Walt Wilder crawled out upon the ledge and looked upward. A feeling of surprise, mingled with apprehension, at once seized upon him.
“Kin it be night?” he asked, whispering the words back into the grotto.
“Not yet, I should think?” answered Hamersley. “The fight was begun before daybreak. The day can’t all have passed yet. But why do you ask, Walt?”
“Because thar’s no light comin’ from above. Whar’s the bit o’ blue sky we seed? Thar ain’t the breadth o’ a hand visible. It can’t a be the smoke as hides it. That seems most cleared off. Darned if I can see a steim o’ the sky. ’Bove as below, everything’s as black as the ten o’ spades. What kin it mean?”
Without waiting a reply, or staying for his companion to come out upon the ledge, Wilder rose to his feet, and, grasping the projecting points above his head, commenced swarming up the shaft, in a similar manner as that by which he had made the descent.
Hamersley, who by this time had crept out of the grotto, stood upon the ledge listening.
He could hear his comrade as he scrambled up; the rasping of his feet against the rocks, and his stentorian breathing.
At length Walt appeared to have reached the top, when Hamersley heard words that sent a thrill of horror throughout his whole frame.
“Oh!” cried the guide, in his surprise, forgetting to subdue the tone of his voice, “they’ve built us up! Thar’s a stone over the mouth o’ the hole—shettin’ it like a pot lid. A stone—a rock that no mortal ked move. Frank Hamersley, it’s all over wi’ us; we’re buried alive!”
Only for a short while had Wilder’s trick held the pursuers in check. Habituated to such wiles, the Indians, at first suspecting it to be one, soon became certain. For, as they scattered to each side of the cleft, the steel tube no longer kept turning towards them, while the coonskin cap remained equally without motion.
At length, becoming convinced, and urged on by the Red Cross chief and the bearded savage by his side, they dashed boldly up, and, dismounting, entered the chine over the body of the butchered horse.
Only staying to take possession of the relinquished rifle, they continued on up the ravine fast as their feet could carry them. A moment’s pause where the red kerchief lay on the rock, suspecting this also a ruse to mislead them as to the track taken by the fugitives. To make certain, they separated into two parties—one going up the gulch, that led left, the other proceeding by that which conducted to the place where the two men had concealed themselves.
Arriving upon the little platform, the pursuers at once discovered the cavity, at the same time conjecturing that the pursued had gone into it. Becoming sure of this, they who took the left-hand path rejoined them, these bringing the report that they had ascended to the summit of the cliff, and seen nothing of the two men who were chased.
Then the stones were cast in; after them the burning stalks of the ideodondo; when, finally, to make destruction sure, the rock was rolled over, closing up the shaft as securely as if the cliff itself had fallen face downward upon the spot.
The savages stayed no longer there. All were too eager to return to the waggons to make sure of their share in the captured spoils.
One alone remained—he with the bushed beard. After the others were gone he stepped up to the boulder, and, stooping down, placed his ear close to it. He appeared as if trying to catch some sound that might come from the cavity underneath.
None came—no noise, even the slightest. Within the shut shaft all was still as death. For death itself must be down there, if there ever was life.
For some time he crouched beside the rock, listening. Then rising to his feet, with a smile of satisfaction upon his grim, sinister features, he said, in soliloquy,—
“They’re down there, no doubt of it; and dead long before this. One of the two must have been he. Who the other matters not Carrai! I’d like to have had a look at him too, and let him see who has given him his quietus. Bah! what does it signify? It’s all over now, and I’ve had my revenge. Vamos! I must get back to the waggons, or my friend the Horned Lizard may be taking his pick of the plunder. Luckily these redskins don’t know the different values of the goods; so I shall bestow the cotton prints with a liberal hand, keeping the better sorts to myself. And now to assist in the partition of spoils.”
So saying, he strode away from the rock, and, gliding back down the gulch, climbed over the carcass of the dead horse. Then, finding his own outside, he mounted and rode off to rejoin his red-skinned comrades engaged in sacking the caravan.
On reaching it a spectacle was presented to his eyes—frightful, though not to him. For he was a man who had seen similar sights before—one with soul steeped in kindred crime.
The waggons had been drawn partially apart, disclosing the space between. The smoke had all ascended or drifted off, and clear sunlight once more shone upon the sand—over the ground lately barricaded by the bodies of those who had so bravely defended it. There were thirteen of them—the party of traders and hunters being in all but fifteen. Of those slain upon the spot there was not one now wearing his hair. Their heads were bare and bloody, the crown of each showing a circular disc of dark crimson colour. The scalping-knife had already completed its work, and the ghastly trophies were seen impaled upon the points of spears—some of them stuck upright in the sand, others borne triumphantly about by the exulting victors. Their triumph had cost them dear. On the plain outside at least thirty of their own lay extended, stone dead; while here and there a group bending over some recumbent form told of a warrior wounded.
By the orders of their chief, some had set about collecting the corpses of their slain comrades, with the intent of interring them. Others, acting without orders, still continued to wreak their savage spite upon the bodies of their white victims, submitting them to further mutilation. They chopped off their heads; then, poising these on the points of spears, tossed them to and fro, all the while shouting in savage glee, laughing with a cacchination that resembled the mirth of a madhouse.
Withal, there was stern vengeance in its tones. A resistance, they little expected, causing them such serious loss, had roused their passions to a pitch of the utmost exasperation; and they tried to allay their spiteful anger by expending it on the dead bodies of those who, while living, had so effectually chastised them. These were slashed and hacked with tomahawks, pierced with spears, and arrows, beaten with war clubs, then cut into pieces, to be tied to the tails of their horses, and dragged in gallop to and fro over the ground. For some time this tragical spectacle held play. Then ensued a scene savouring of the ludicrous and grotesque.
The waggons were emptied of their contents, while the rich freight, transported to a distance, was spread out upon the plain, and its partition entered upon—all crowding around to receive their share.
The distribution was superintended by the Horned Lizard, though he with the beard appeared to act with equal, or even greater, authority. Backed by the second personage, who wore hair on his cheeks, he dictated the apportionment.
And as he had said in soliloquy, the cotton prints
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