Where the Trail Divides | Page 7

at something it saw.
"You had best go in, Margaret." The man's voice was strained, unnatural. "They'll come very soon now. It's almost dark."
"And you?" Wonder of wonders, it was the woman's natural tone!
"I'll stay here. I can at least show them how a white man dies."
"Sam Rowland--my husband!"
"Margaret--my wife!" Regardless of watchful savage eyes, regardless of everything, the man sprang to his feet. "Oh, how can you forgive me, can God forgive me!" Tight in his arms he kissed her again and again; passionately, in abandon. "I've always loved you, Margaret; always, always!"
"And I you, man; and I you!"
* * * * *
It came. As from the darkness above drops the horned owl on the field mouse, as meet the tiger and the deer at the water hole, so it came. Upon the silence of night sounded the hoarse call of a catbird where no bird was, and again, and again. In front of the maize patch, always in front, a dark form, a mere shadow in the dusk of evening, stood out clear against the light of sky. To right and left appeared others, as motionless as boulders, or as giant cacti on the desert. Had Settler Rowland been other than the exotic he was, he would have understood. No Indian exposes himself save for a purpose; but he did not understand. Erect now, his finger on the trigger of the old smoothbore, he waited passive before the darkened doorway of the cabin, looking straight before him, God alone knows what thoughts whirling in his brain. Again in front of him sounded and resounded the alien call. The dark figures against the sky took life, moved forward. Simultaneously, on the thatch of the cabin roof, appeared two other figures identical with those in front. Foot by foot, silent as death, they climbed up, reached the ridge pole, crossed to the other side. On, on advanced the figures in front. Down the easy incline of the roof came the two in the rear, reached the edge, paused waiting. Of a sudden, out of the maize patch, out of the grass, seemingly out of space itself, came a new cry--the trilling call of the prairie owl. It was the signal. Like twin drops of rain from a cloudless sky fell the two figures on Rowland's head; ere he could utter a sound, could offer resistance, bore him to earth. From somewhere, everywhere, swarmed others. The very earth seemed to open and give them forth in legion. In the multitude of hands he was as a child. Within the space of seconds, ere waiting Margaret realised that anything had happened, he had disappeared, all had disappeared. In the clearing before the door not a human being was visible, not a live thing; only on the thatched roof, silent as before, patient as fate, awaited two other shadows, darker but by contrast with the weather-coloured grass.
Minutes passed. Not even the call of the catbird, broke the silence. Within the darkness of the cabin the suspense was a thing of which insanity is made.
"Sam!" called a voice softly.
No answer.
"Sam!" repeated more loudly.
Again no answer of voice or of action.
In the doorway appeared a woman's figure; breathless, blindly fearful.
"Sam!" for the third time, tremulous, wailing; and she stepped outside.
A second, and it was over. A second, and the revel was on. The earth was not silent now. There was no warning trill of prairie owl. As dropped the figures from above there broke forth the Sioux war-cry: long drawn out, demoniac, indescribable. Blood curdling, more savage infinitely than the cry of any wild beast, the others took it up, augmented it by a score, a hundred throats. Again the earth vomited the demons forth. Naked, breech-clouted, garbed in fragments of white men's dress, they swarmed into the clearing, into the cabin, about the two prisoners in their midst. Passively, patiently waiting for hours, of a sudden they seemed possessed of a frenzy of haste, of savage abandon, of drunken exhilaration in the cunning that had won the game without a shot from the white man's gun, without the injury of a single warrior. They were in haste, and yet they were not in haste. They looted the cabin like fire and then fought among themselves for the plunder. They applied the torch to the shanty's roof as though pressed by the Great Spirit; then capered fiendishly in its illumination, oblivious of time until, tinder dry, it had burned level with the earth. Last of all, purposely reserved as a climax, they gave their attention to the pair of half-naked, bound and gagged figures in their midst. Then it was the scene became an orgy indeed. The havoc preceding had but whetted their appetite for the finale. Savagery personified, cruelty unqualified, deadly hate, primitive lust--every black