61. CHAPTER LXI.
THE HALF-BREED.
THE figure which thus obtruded itself upon the
wild scene, belonged apparently to no nation or
class, if, indeed, to the race of human beings!
It was nevertheless possessed of a revolting interest,
and a lover of the horrible and picturesque united
would have feasted his eyes upon the animal.
He was a half-breed, about five feet high, with a deep yellow,
or sallow complexion, a gigantic breadth of chest, long
monkey-like arms, and legs which resembled the crooked
and bnarled boughs of a distorted oak. His forehead was
scarcely an inch in height; his small eyes, as cunning and
cruel as a serpent's, rolled beneath bushy brows; his nose
was crooked like a hawk's bill, and the hideous mouth,
stretching almost from ear to ear, was disfigured with protruding
tusks like those of a wild boar. The half-breed was
clad as an Indian, with doeskin leggins and breeches, but
his rugged chest and shoulders were bare. His enormous
flat feet were cased in huge moccasins; and in his belt he
carried a knife, a horseman's pistol. and a tomahawk, to the
unwiped edge of which still clung a quantity of bloody human
hair.
Such was the figure which now cautiously emerged from
the cavern, and cast a keen and searching glance upon the
panorama of forest, mountain and river. This look seemed
to plunge into the obscurest depths of the gorges, beneath
the heaviest foliage, and to descry every object within the
range of human vision.
“All's safe so far!” muttered the half-breed in a guttural
and discordant voice, with a slight French accent; “they
have either not followed us, or the trick has deceived them.
We may lay low here a day or two safely, until the alarm has
blown over—then to work again!”
As he spoke, with a sneering and horrible smile, a light
hand was laid upon his shoulder. He started and turned
suddenly, half drawing his long knife. Then at sight of
the intruder on his reverie, he returned the weapon slowly,
as if against his will, to its place, and said sullenly, with an
unconscious scowl, full of hatred and menace:
“What does the son of War Eagle want with me?”
“I would speak to the Yellow Serpent,” said a grave, collected
voice in the Indian tongue; “the day is done, and
the hour has come for talking.”
With these words the young Indian, Lightfoot, who was
the intruder, leaned back against the rock, and fixed his
eyes upon the threatening countenance of his companion.
Lightfoot was clad as we have seen him on a former occasion.
His slender but nervous limbs, with their rounded
but clearly defined muscles, were cased in pliant doeskin;
his narrow feet, with the lofty, instep, based themselves
firmly on the crag; above his forehead waved the variegated
plume which indicated his chiefship. There was the same
calm air of grave, almost melancholy dignity—the same
clear yet mild expression in the eyes; as before, his figure,
and attitude, and whole bearing were characterized by the
simple and exquisite grace of a nobleman of the great forests.
“And what does Lightfoot come to say?—talk it out!” said
the discordant voice, which attempted to assume an accent
of friendly interest; “the time is passing, and much must
be done.”
“Will the serpent return to the war-path again?” said
Lightfoot as before in the Indian tongue—then, with a sudden
change in his expression, from gravity to scorn, he ad
`ded, but there is no war trail! The braves are on the
path to the cabins of women and childen. The white warriors
are away, and the Catawbas creep over the fences in
the night—they are rabbits, not panthers!”
And the lip of the Indian curled. His words produced a
strong effect on the half-breed. The snake-like eye flashed
fire, and with a guttural sound like the growl of a wild animal,
he laid his hand on his knife, and seemed about to
throw himself upon the speaker.
The young Indian did not move a musele, or remove his
scornful eyes from the face of his companion. With a
movement wholly simple and unostentatious, he rested his
hand on the hilt of a long poniard in his belt, and continued
to gaze at the other.
“Does Lightfoot know what he is saying?” said the
half-breed, growling and letting his hand fall.
“Yes, the truth,” was the reply.
“I am one of these Catawbas.”
“I know that you are.”
“And you tell me to my face I am a rabbit: you dare?”
“I dare!” said Lightfoot, with superb scorn, “it is little
to dare!”
Again the hand of the Yellow Serpent wandered to his
weapon: but he seemed to want courage to attack his adversary.
A glance at the precipice near which they were
standing—a glance as rapid as lightning, and full of horrible
menace—betrayed the thought which passed through
his mind. But it was not carried into act. The young man
seemed to exert a singular influence over him—he evidently
hated him bitterly, but he cowered almost before his eye,
and yielded in the contest. The threatening scowl disappeared:
the hand fell again: with a grin which was even
more repulsive than the frown, he said, in a wheedling and
insinuating voice:
“Lightfoot is bold and outspoken as he has always been
—as his great father was before him, for whom twelve tribes
mourned when the blood ran out of his brave bosom. But
let the Yellow Serpent give Lightfoot a piece of advice.
These words are dangerous, and the warriors would want to
kill him. They are nothing to the Serpent. He is a half-breed,
and knows more than the redfaces. He is Lightfoot's
friend and would serve him.”
“Yellow Serpent,” said the young Indian, returning to
his calm expression, “do you believe in the Great Spirit?”
The half-breed grinned and replied:
“I believe in the Great Evil Spirit—what the palefaces
call the Devil—for he talks to me, and tells me what to do.”
I believe that, Serpent. But there is a good Spirit, too,
and he is the bad Spirit's master.”
The half-breed shook his head.
“Are you certain of that, Lightfoot?”
“I am certain. It is Manitou—the great and good. The
Dove of the Mountain told me this long ago.”
“Ah! ah! the Dove of the Mountain!” was the grinning
and sneering reply; “you are a friend of the Dove!”
“I am. She has made me better. I am evil, but not so
much as I was.”
“It is a pity that the tribe took her prisoner. But what
about the Great Spirit?”
“I would ask if you think you do right, Yellow Serpent,
when you put to death women and children?”
“They are whites,” said the half-breed with very great
surprise; “you see we strangle the brood when they are
young, to get rid of them.”
“You are cowards! Yes, lâche! lâche!” said the young
Indian with sudden vehemence, and using a term which he
had derived from the French allies of the savages, “lâche!
You are a dog, Yellow Serpent! But, no, not even dogs
would be so cowardly!”
And the young Indian's eyes were terrible for their depth
of indignation. The half-breed cowered before him, and
dared not speak. He seemed to want nerve. With a dark
scowl, which had in it something tragie and dangerous from
its subtlety, and veiled menace, he muttered:
Lightfoot is a great sagamore. The Serpent is not as
noble as he is. Let Lightfoot speak.”
“Listen, then, Yellow Serpent,” said the Indian, stretching
out his hand, and speaking in a voice of such nobility
and solemn earnestness that the furious and shuddering
half-breed was subdued by its very tones: “listen, Serpent,
and pay attention to what I am about to say. In this world
are two tribes of men—they are the evil and the good.
There is but one master over all, the Great Spirit. The Evil
One is his slave, but is not chained. It is his business to
make the tribes commit evil; and even now he is in your
heart, though you do not see him. But the Good Spirit is
not idle, or indifferent to the happiness of his creatures. He
is yonder in the clouds looking down, and watching. He
speaks in the thunder of the mountains—the lightning is the
flash of his eye; his finger marks the track of the rivers; he
is the Father of this world and its people. Not a tribe
roams the forest, from the sand hills of the mighty lakes,
to the Big Water of the South—from the Minnehaha to the
land of Shawandasee—which is not beneath his eye. He
sends to all, the bright seasons, the moon of strawberries,
and the moon of cohonks;—mondamin grows for all, and
plenty crowns the feasts of all the mighty tribes of the
beautiful world. But in these tribes there are some whom
the Master of Life looks on with smiles—there are others
upon whom he frowns. He frowns on the bad, on the cruel,
on the oppressors of the weak, on the slayers of women and
children? Once these evil people made him angry, and the
sea swept over them—but the land was repeopled; then they
grew as evil as before. The Master sent his son to heal the
sick ones, and to make men pure again. They nailed him
on a cross, and killed him! But before he died he told them
many things, and among the rest he said, `Let the children
come to me—the Master loves them, and his land is full of
them.' He loved them because they were weak and helpless
—and he told the tribes, not the redfaces only, but all, to
love each other, and forgive even their enemies. The Master
said that! And now what are you doing, Yellow Serpent?
You are killing the women and the children who
never wronged you; you are not even acting like a warrior,
and meeting the palefaced braves in battle,—you are lâche!
lâche! You have said rightly! The Evil Spirit whispers in
your ear, and sets you to do his work! You are his slave,
Yellow Serpent.”
And the young Indian, with a cold and collected air,
leaned back against the rock from which he had half risen
in the ardor of his address.
His words seemed to affect the half-breed strangely. A
sullen and gloomy expression came to his hideous features,
and he cowered, almost. The young chief plainly exercised
a singular dominion over the monster. Then this sullen
air disappeared—a flash of concealed hatred darted from
his eyes—lastly, the former crafty and insinuating grin succeeded.
“Lightfoot is a great brave,” he said; “the Serpent cannot
talk with the son of War Eagle. I think I will tell the
tribe what he says, and in future they shall spare the women
and children of the pale-faces, whom Lightfoot loves better
than his own tribe. Oh, yes! we will not kill any more!”
The Indian shook his head.
“Yellow Serpent,” he said, “I know you very well, and I
do not trust you. The word of a brave is his word—yours
is the word of a half-breed. You hate me, and are envious
of me, because when we rise at the same moment to speak
to the tribe, the warriors say, `Let us hear the son of War
Eagle.' You would destroy me—but I fear you not. Beware!
You have said that I love the pale-faces. That is
true. They are the children of the Great Spirit, like the
red-faces. They have been kind to me, and I will speak for
them as I have spoken in council. Enough. They are on
the war-path even now, and the bullet for your heart may
be moulded. Yellow Serpent, you are evil; the Devil of the
whites, truly, is your friend. Beware of him—he will tear
you limb from limb, and devour you. I have spoken!”
And turning away, the young Indian swept the landscape
with a comprehensive glance, and re-entered the cavern, in
depths of which he disappeared.
The half-breed, who seemed to be agitated strangely, as
though under a magnetic influence, remained motionless.
This influence was slowly dissipated: his crafty grin returned,
and with a menacing flash of the glittering eyes, he
followed Lightfoot into the cave.
For five minutes he had been covered by a dozen rifles,
from the depths of the opposite mountain, where Captain
Wagner and his party lay concealed.
