Then the bloodthirsty rage of the barbarous horde took a fresh turn.

Their one victim was for the time being insensible to pain, but there was another. Him they had been reserving with this end in view. Shouts were raised that it was time to begin upon him.

With a wild-beast laugh, the two fiend-like hags approached the new victim, their reeking knives in hand, the yells and roars of the crowd urging them on. The miserable Geoffry, bound immovably to the stake, watched their approach. His eyes protruded from their sockets, a cold sweat rained down his distorted countenance, and there was a strange hoa.r.s.e rattle in his throat. It was a sight to haunt the spectator for a lifetime. Then his head fell heavily forward on his chest.

Seizing him by the hair, one of the female fiends forced it back. It was as lead in her grasp. Then the truth became apparent. The miserable captive was stone-dead. He had died of sheer horror and fright.

A moment of silence, then with a wild yell of disappointed fury the ferocious crowd flung itself upon the corpse and hacked and mutilated it into a shapeless and gory ma.s.s. Then the blind madness of their bloodthirsty rage fairly let loose, they turned once more to the first victim. The scalp was torn from his head; knives and burning splinters were stuck into his flesh; and the yet warm and palpitating heart was plucked out and reared aloft on the point of a lance. Then bundles of dry brushwood were piled around both of the mangled corpses, and set alight, and soon the red tongues of flame--whose roaring and crackling was drowned by the frenzied yells of the savages as they danced and leaped around like devils let loose from the nethermost h.e.l.l--shot upward, licking around the cruel stakes of torture, and a horrible and sickening odour of burning flesh hung upon the air. A great volume of smoke mounted to the heavens, and, after watching it for a while, the whole fiend-like crowd surged back to the village, there to hold a gigantic scalp-dance--bearing the reeking trophies aloft on lance-points.

All that remained of the border ruffian and the unfortunate Geoffry Vallance were two little heaps of calcined bones.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

THE SUN QUEEN.

A month had gone by. The mountain air had become thin and steely, and the gorgeous glories of the golden-hued woods were falling fast. Winter was in the atmosphere.

In the villages of the hostiles time was of no account. Dancing and warlike exercises, gossip, story-telling and gambling, and hunting in the adjacent mountains, thus this great gathering of savages on a war-footing solaced their leisure hours--which were many. Bands of warriors, under some favourite chief or partisan, would strike the war-post, and sally forth on some more or less desperate foray, returning in due time with scalps or plunder, or both. Once they brought with them a wretched prisoner, who was promptly done to death under the usual circ.u.mstances of revolting barbarity.

Now, of this life Vipan had become heartily sick. Accustomed as he was to come and go at will among the camps and villages of the Sioux, the restraint of knowing himself a prisoner galled him. For although allowed a certain amount of liberty, and rather ostentatiously treated as a guest, he was carefully watched. But it is doubtful whether another cause had not more to do with his weariness and disgust. That was no mere pa.s.sing pa.s.sion whose expression had so nearly escaped him when standing in the dug-out with Yseulte Santorex. By an inexplicable rebound from his wild and reckless life, this man's mature mind and strong nature had sprung to the other extreme. Well he knew--none better--his position, or, rather, the utter lack of it, did he return to civilisation, and there were times when he felt tempted to throw himself in heart and soul with his Indian friends, to lead them on the war-path, and in ferocity and daring excelling even the savages themselves, to devote the remainder of his life to acts of vengeance upon that civilisation whose laws had placed it in the power of a specious hypocrite to drive him forth from its midst a pauper and an outcast-- acts of barbarous and b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance that should render his name a terror to the whole of the Western frontier. What had he to do with softness--with love--at his time of life? Yseulte Santorex would be safe in her English home by this time, probably recalling--when she did recall it--their acquaintanceship only as a pa.s.sing romance embedded among her other adventurous experiences. With such reflections would he lash and torture himself.

More than once when accompanying some of their hunting parties into the mountains he had been seized by a wild impulse to make a dash for liberty. But the cat-like watchfulness of the Indians never flagged, and upon such occasions a glance was enough to show the impracticability of any such scheme. The first step would be the signal for a volley of bullets through his body--moreover, he was never allowed the use of anything but an inferior steed.

And now, day by day, his situation became more precarious. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the other chiefs had somehow waxed more than doubtful of late as to whether his services in regard to a possible British intervention would be of any use at all--and this idea was insidiously fostered by his enemies, who were many and powerful-- Mountain Cat, the Ogallalla war-chief, and Crow-Scalper, who hated all whites, and the band of young desperadoes who had attached themselves to the fortunes of War Wolf. The latter brave's b.u.mptiousness had become simply overwhelming. Full of the recently-acquired importance conferred upon him by his captivity among the whites and subsequent escape, he would strut and swagger around, bedecked in all his war-paint and finery--pa.s.sing Vipan with a contemptuous laugh or a remark of covert insolence. The only consideration that restrained the latter from inflicting summary chastis.e.m.e.nt was the certainty that the hour he did so would be his last. And his friend and protector, Mahto-sapa, was frequently absent on warlike or diplomatic expeditions. The sullen and hostile feeling growing around him was written on every grim and scowling face. He felt as helpless as a fly in a spider's web.

Pondering over these things, he was seated one day alone in the lodge of his host--the latter being away upon one of those absences which const.i.tuted such a peril to himself--when a shadow darkened the entry and a feminine voice inquired in English:

"May I come in?"

He started, as well he might. The accent was pure and refined, the tone firm and pleasing. For answer he rose and bowed, and the speaker entered.

Strange as it may seem, during all this while Vipan had seen his host's white wife by no more than a few stray pa.s.sing glimpses, and then at a distance. It had always struck him that she avoided him with design, and he had respected her motives. She dwelt in two _teepes_, which she occupied all to herself--an unwonted luxury--and was attended on by a Shoshone slave girl of unrivalled hideosity, captured on one of the chief's forays into the country of the Snakes.

He saw before him a tall, fine-looking woman who might or might not have been under forty. She was habited in the tasteful Indian dress, and the tunic and leggings of soft doeskin, beautifully embroidered, brought out every line and curve of a splendidly-moulded figure. Her face, browned and hardened by exposure to the sun, and a life not altogether free from privation, was lighted up by a pair of clear blue eyes, and must formerly have been one of striking beauty. But the chief attraction was her hair. This was not arranged in two long plaits after the Sioux fashion, but rippled over her shoulders in a heavy redundant ma.s.s, forming a very mantle of sheeny, ruddy gold, explaining to the astonished spectator the name she bore among her adopted compatriots, The Sun Queen. But--Heavens--what an apparition to meet with in the camp of the hostile Sioux!

"Thanks," she said, simply, seating herself upon the pile of robes which Vipan had dragged forward for that purpose. Then pausing a moment to see if he would break the silence, she went on: "You do not seem to remember me."

"Pardon me. I am not likely to have forgotten you," was the quiet reply, with an undercurrent of cutting satire. "Who that had seen her could ever forget the beautiful Miss D'Arcy--the Belle of the Island?"

She broke into a bitter laugh. "Is that what they used to call me? I had forgotten--it seems such a long, long time ago. Could it have been myself? I, Isabel D'Arcy, who held the whole island in thrall; Government House, the garrison--all--all my humble devoted slaves, now the wife of a painted savage! In a word, an Indian squaw!"

"And because I declined to make one of the crowd of your humble devoted slaves you ruined my life. You blighted my whole career as a sacrifice to your ruffled vanity. One word from you would have exonerated me--yet you did not speak it."

"Why did you not defend yourself? Why did you not explain the matter fully?"

"I was a fool not to, perhaps. In fact, I am sure I was. Well, you see--it was no part of my creed to give away a friend, nor yet a woman-- for it was in a secondary degree on your account that I kept silence and set up no defence."

"On my account?" she echoed.

"Yes. Your only chance of getting clear out of the business was to deny the whole thing and stick to it. If I had cut in with the story of the other man borrowing my charger for the occasion, especially as owing to our striking resemblance we were often taken for each other--why the whole murder would have been out. No, there was nothing for it but the denial."

"And--and have you never explained a word of it since?"

"Never. What was the use? I was already condemned. Your uncle, Sir George, had more than enough influence for that, and I was practically cashiered. I must, however, give him credit for the astute way in which the business was hushed up. Barentyne, I suppose, couldn't clear me for fear of giving _you_ away."

"And what became of Major Barentyne?" she asked eagerly.

"He left the service soon afterwards. He's a governor-general now, a sort of viceroy, and all sorts of things; while I'm--well, a fair specimen of a Western border ruffian. Thus, in this world, is the saddle clapped upon the wrong horse, and the scapegoat is jerked forth into the wilderness--and it doesn't much matter."

There was no heat, no upbraiding in his tone. After the first touch of satire underlying his recognition of her he spoke in an even, almost monotonous voice, puffing slowly at his long Indian pipe with the impa.s.siveness of the red men themselves. Then a silence fell between them. The meeting, the conversation, seemed to have bridged over the weary, hopeless years of captivity of the one, the aimless and chequered wanderings of the other. By magic the Indian _teepe_, with its confusion of _parfleches_ and robes and cooking-pots and wicker-beds, seemed to have disappeared, and once more their minds were back among the Government House state and the garrison festivities of the island colony, and many a familiar, but long-forgotten, face and memory of other days. And now the once beautiful girl who had queened it there, the descendant of a good old line, was the weary, middle-aged wife of a Sioux chief, doomed to live and die among the red barbarians. Truly the whirligig of Fortune was executing a strange freak when it brought these two face to face thus.

"I have, indeed, injured you," she said at length. "But I can yet make some amends?"

He shook his head.

"Listen," she went on. "I can do this. I can give you in writing a full and true statement of the whole affair. Then you can return home and clear yourself."

"And to what end?" he answered. "Nothing on earth is to be gained by raking up old troubles already forgotten. Besides, you are forgetting; I am a prisoner here, and, candidly, have very small hope of ever knowing liberty again. My time is about run out. Do you know that from hour to hour I live in unceasing apprehension of treachery? Any moment may be my last. See, I have an old pistol here--only one shot. I am keeping it for myself, if necessary, for I will never figure at their h.e.l.lish stake."

She shuddered.

"But," she urged, lowering her voice, and speaking quickly, "but what if I can help you to escape?"

He looked up, a flash of hope in his eyes. Then he shook his head.

"I'm afraid it can't be done. They would be certain to detect your agency in the matter, and then what would be _your_ fate?"

"What, you can still make that a consideration!" she exclaimed in amazement. Then, suddenly she burst into a flood of tears.

"Forgive me," she said, quickly recovering herself. "I am very foolish.

But you are the first of my race I have conversed with for eight long years. The only white faces I have seen during that time have been those of wretched prisoners brought in for torture and outrage, or of horse thieves and border ruffians, more repulsive and villainous than those of the savages themselves."

"I had no idea of your ident.i.ty," he said, "until you came in here just now. Then I recognised you, for I never forget a face. I am not easily astonished, but I was then. If the subject is not painful I should be glad to know the circ.u.mstances of your being here at all."

She laughed drearily.

"Oh, no! Feeling is pretty well dead by now, and happily so. The story is that of many another, only I suppose I ought to reckon myself fortunate when I think of what I have seen others go through. In an evil moment I arranged to come home from the Islands with some friends, who were anxious to do the trip overland. We landed at San Francisco, and all went well until we reached this side of the mountains. We were a small party, so small that the people at Fort Laramie tried all they could to dissuade us from going on, as most of the tribes were on the war-path. We were attacked on the banks of the North Platte, about two days out from Laramie. It was early in the morning, and we had just hitched up for a start. The spring waggon containing ourselves was a little behind the rest. Suddenly a band of warriors, hundreds of them it seemed, charged in upon us yelling like fiends. The teamsters were shot dead in a moment. Mr Elsdale, under whose protection I was travelling, was run through with a lance almost before he had time to fire a shot, and his wife and I were at the mercy of the savages. Even now I would rather not think of what she had to go through."

"And yourself?"

"I fainted, mercifully. I must have remained unconscious for hours, for when I came to I found myself tightly held by a powerful Indian in front of his saddle. The party was travelling at a considerable pace, and some of them carried freshly-taken scalps, those of our unfortunate outfit. My captor smiled good-humouredly as I opened my eyes, and, with signs and a word or two of English, told me not to be afraid, they were not going to kill me. Even then it struck me that he had a fine face.

There was an expression of humanity and kindness in it totally absent from the hideous and painted visages of the rest. That man was Mahto-sapa."

She paused, and seemed to make an effort to proceed. Her listener, keenly interested, still smoked gravely without speaking.

"That night, when we halted, there was a frightful scene. Mrs Elsdale was a prisoner too, but I had not seen her until then. Well, you know Indians and their ways. She was dead before morning. That I escaped the same brutal treatment was due to the chief. It appears that he had captured me with his own hand, and he claimed me as his exclusive property. There was nearly a fight over me, and I have since learned that it was little short of a miracle that he carried his point. Well, I was taken to their head village unmolested, for the chief protected me unswervingly the whole way, and then he took me as his wife. What could I do, at the mercy of a band of ruthless savages? Some women might have killed themselves, but I was a full-blooded creature and clung to life; besides I always had a strong dash of the Bohemian in me."

Vipan remembered how that very thing used to be said of her among the envious gossips of the island colony, who had predicted all sorts of queer futures for Isabel D'Arcy. Surely, however, that which had befallen her was many degrees queerer than even they had ever designed for her.