CHAPTER XI.
WHAT HAPPENED IN A CAVE.
It was far from Coleola’s intention to leave the country when she parted in rage from the war-party on the banks of Cahokia Creek, as described in chapter sixth. She retraced her steps to the hunted Peoria’s hidden home, where for many hours, like the jungle-tiger, she lay in wait for her prey. But that noble prey came not; some unseen power held Swamp Oak aloof from the snare, and, when tired of lying in ambush, the Snake Queen left the cave, and sought for the Yellow Bloodhound and his pale prisoners.
Between these two ferocious characters an inseparable gulf had ever rolled, and each succeeding year it grew wider.
For a long time the Bloodhound and Coleola had lived at knife-points, and even in times of peace had attempted each other’s life.
She found Bardue’s trail without any difficulty, for she was an expert trailer, and came up with her great enemy in his own cave, when the rifles of our friends covered his cowardly heart, and when he held the lives of all in his hands.
The Snake Queen did not comprehend the situation, else she would not have fired without sober second thought. She did not realize the danger she was in, and flushed with anger, hightened by the presence of those whom she hated with all the bitterness of a mad-woman’s hatred, her rifle spoke the words of doom.
Well might Bob Somerville’s heart sink into the slough of despair when he comprehended his hopeless situation—when he saw Kate in the gripe of the mad Snake Queen, and found himself bound.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Coleola, fastening her baleful eyes upon the trader’s daughter, whose cheeks had suddenly assumed the hue of the undriven snow. “The Lone Dove is Coleola’s at last, and her mate with the long plumage is hers, too. Coleola and her braves saw the Ojibwas and the white Hunter creep along the willowed banks, and when they entered the bushes she followed, and lo! here she is. Yellow dog!” and tossing Kate Blount to one of her giant followers, she turned abruptly upon the prostrate Frenchman, who was glaring at her like a tiger. “Ha! the yellow dog is in the folds of the Snake Queen, and they are going to squeeze him to death. The pale-faces will hear him yelp with pain, directly, and then they shall yelp themselves. Coleola’s enemies are all here save one—Swamp Oak, the Peoria dog. Oh, if he were here, and oh, if there stood at his side the girl who has no tongue!”
A moment’s silence followed Coleola’s bitter words, and then one of the braves jerked the creole to his feet.
He was dragged across the cave and stood upright against the wall composed of very soft limestone rock. He made no effort to escape; he knew that his strength would accomplish nothing, but he glanced wistfully from the fire to the powder-funnel. Oh, if he were free a moment! How quickly would he spring to the fire and hurl a torch upon the explosive heap—thus, at one fell swoop, sending his enemies as well as himself to eternity.
Coleola saw his glance, and laughed fiendishly at his despair.
“The black dirt shall not become fire by the Yellow Bloodhound’s claws,” she cried. “Warriors, nail him to the stones!”
Jules Bardue groaned aloud at this announcement of his doom, and he saw the Snake Queen’s Indians snap the steel ramrod belonging to Big Moccasin’s musket, and approach him, griping the improvised nails and their tomahawks.
They were going to nail him to the soft rocks!
Then he knew the knife would be resorted to, and he would be flayed alive!
At the thought of such a terrible doom, his limbs quaked like aspen leaves, and that cowardice which always nestled in his heart now rose up and bubbled from his throat.
“Mercy! mercy! Coleola,” he cried, his face as white as ashes. “Spare! and I will leave this country, never, never to return. Woman!—”
“Nail the white dog to the stones!” was the unpitying command that rudely interrupted the creole’s pleadings. “To the hound’s cries Coleola is deaf; she couldn’t hear him were he to cry as loud as the great cataract far toward the big ice-seas.” [2]
The renegade bit his lips till the blood trickled over his chin, and in silence he permitted the warriors to push him against the rock.
He shrieked like a dying fiend when the first stroke of the tomahawk drove the pointless nail into his palm, and each succeeding blow was followed by a like shriek, until Coleola sprung forward and choked him into silence.
Under the Snake Queen’s gripe, and the pain occasioned by the nails, Jules Bardue lost his senses, and when he hung from the wall by both hands, Coleola stepped back and awaited the return of consciousness.
“The creole’s doom is terrible, but just!” murmured young Somerville, who had witnessed the red-men’s work in horrified silence, not knowing how soon he would be subjected to the same fearful torture. “I am doomed to some fearful death, but I can die more like a man than that dog gives promise of doing. For myself I care not, but for Kate yonder, I care much—all. I wonder where Doc is? Oh, if he knew that we were in the hands of that mad snake-woman, he’d hasten hither and with his own strong arm tear us from her. Freedom! freedom! Oh, were ye mine for one moment!”
As he uttered the exclamation, the young scout tugged at his bonds; but across the cave he saw the wish which had lately leaped from his heart traced upon Nehonesto’s face.
While the Snake Queen waited for the return of consciousness to her great enemy, not a word was spoken.
Bob Somerville gazed into Kate Blount’s face, and in her eyes saw hope encircled by despair. Her dark orbs twinkled, too, with terrible determination.
What did it mean?
Why should the girl hope when not a ray illumined the cavern—when a speedy and horrible doom stared her in the face with all the grinning horror it could assume?
She was not bound; but the arm of her jailer encircled her waist, and his fingers griped her arm like the jaws of a vise.
She saw the wish for freedom with the determination that accompanied it in her lover’s eyes, and she seemed to be waiting for a certain moment.
Kate Blount was not the girl to submit tamely to doom. She resolved to make a desperate struggle for freedom, and a glance at Nehonesto and the scout told her that she would be ably seconded.
Their enemies numbered four—Coleola and three braves, and the trader’s daughter felt confident of overcoming them by a sudden attack. She waited for the right moment.
At last a groan escaped the Yellow Bloodhound’s lips, and he raised his head!
Coleola sprung toward him with a cry of joy.
Now the devil’s work would begin.
Kate Blount noted this, and threw a look at her lover—a look which he understood, for he returned a slight nod, and Nehonesto also proclaimed himself ready to help, so soon as he was set at liberty.
The eyes of the Indians were fastened upon Coleola now, and the gripe of Kate’s captor had suddenly, and to no little degree, relaxed.
The brave girl saw the opportunity, and seized it with a determination worthy the bravest of her sex.
With no cry she sprung from the Delaware’s arms, snatching his scalping-knife from his girdle as she executed the movement.
The savage with a shriek started forward; but suddenly he was hurled backward by the young scout, whose bonds Kate had severed at a single stroke.
All now was confusion!
Coleola uttered a wild yell and darted toward the trader’s daughter; but all at once a dark object shot upward from the floor of the cavern, and, despite her struggles, she found herself in the grip of Nehonesto. He tore the twin snakes from her neck, and before they could bury their fangs in his tawny arm, he hurled them into the fire, where they hissed like demons in the agonies of death.
The savage who had guarded our heroine received a death blow at the hands of the youthful scout, and another of Coleola’s red followers dropped at the Yellow Bloodhound’s imprisoned feet, wounded to the bitter end.
The third brave received reinforcements from the corridor which led to the river!
The Snake Queen had penetrated the willows with seven braves, four of whom she had left to guard the entrance, as she feared the return of the trader, Doc Bell, or the avenging lover, Swamp Oak.
Now a peculiar shriek from the third savage who followed Coleola to the cave caused the guards to leave their posts; and all at once, like a quartette of devils, they rushed into the cavern, just as victory was declaring for our friends.
Then the conflict was renewed again with tenfold fury.
Despite his arm which hung shattered at his side, Nehonesto caught a warrior, and hurled him against the wall of the cave, at the foot of which he sunk with a crushed skull.
Kate Blount, too, performed prodigies of valor. She stood with clubbed rifle before the Snake Queen, beating back the savages who tried to free the mad-woman.
Suddenly a brave kicked the fire hither and thither, and then the fight continued in the semi-gloom.
At length, tripping over a dead Delaware, Bob fell to the earth, and before he could rise, a tomahawk, hurled from a red-skin’s hand, stretched him senseless and bleeding upon the stones again.
A moment later, as a firebrand caused brave Kate Blount to reel, three dusky forms darted from the corridor, and she heard yells of despair well from the throats of the now almost victorious savages. New and unexpected antagonists had appeared upon the scene of action, and when Kate had collected her scattered senses, she found herself in the arms of Doc Bell, the Indian-fighter!
“Well, now, we got hyar jist in time!” cried the giant, looking down into Kate’s colorless face. “It ar’ a good thing thet we heard ye fightin’, fur ef ye hedn’t made sech a racket, I guess we’d be a good piece from hyar now. This is the Bloodhound’s kennel, eh, girl?”
“Yes,” answered Kate.
“An’ where might the yaller dog be?”
“Yonder, nailed to—”
Kate Blount interrupted herself with a blank stare, and an exclamation.
“Why, he’s gone!”
Yes, the white rocks to which the renegade had been nailed exhibited all their wonted ghostliness, and the Yellow Bloodhound was nowhere to be seen!
“How did he git away ef he war nailed?” cried Doc Bell springing to his feet. “The spirits don’t ginerally help such fellars. But he’s gone—gone to come back to us ag’in some day. Yes, that devil is far from dead.”
“No, he is not, Doc,” said Bob, who had regained his senses, and was wiping the blood drawn by the tomahawk from his forehead. “I cut all around his heart with my knife. Coleola’s ball entered his body, and her red devils drove a ramrod through his hands. He can’t get over all that.”
“Boy, did Coleola’s bullet take ’im atween the eyes?” asked the giant hunter, anxiously.
“No.”
“Then the yaller dog won’t die. Ye know how I hacked him up once? Nothin’ under heaven but a half ounce of lead atween the peepers will ever finish ’im. He’ll turn up in a few days again, afore we call ourselves safe.”
A brief examination told the victors how the bloodhound had effected his escape. Alone he could do nothing, but during the conflict Big Moccasin must have freed himself, and borne his master from the cave, for the giant guard too was missing.
I have said that two persons came to the rescue with Doc Bell.
The identity of one the reader can easily fix; the other was the hunted Peoria—the vengeful Swamp Oak.
The giant and his tongueless companion had encountered the young chief in the forest, not far from the Bloodhound’s cave. Upon the night when Swamp Oak had saved the lives of the trader and the giant by shooting Segowatha’s avenging son, he had followed the twain but had failed to overtake them. Still he searched the forest, but the storm that burst above the trees immediately after their escape, had completely obliterated their trail, thus baffling the young Indian.
The meeting in the forest, mentioned above, was, no doubt, the strangest that ever took place in America.
The young Peoria clasped Ulalah to his heart, but started back to find her silent.
He then called upon her to speak, but still silent, she took his hand and put it into her mouth.
He uttered a cry of horror, and then the hunter-giant told him all he knew about Ulalah’s terrible misfortune.
The hunted lover listened in silence, and when he had finished, in the dim light of a star, Doc Bell saw the Indian’s face grow black with rage.
Again he kissed Ulalah, whispered “vengeance,” and she replied by pressing his hand.
The revengeful pair did not see Coleola until the fight in the cave had entirely ended, and Ulalah was the first to recognize her mother.
With a guttural noise, she sprung to her lover’s side and pointed to the apparition.
For a moment the Peoria could not believe his senses, but when they assured him that the object of his vengeance actually stood before him—when he heard Coleola laugh triumphantly as she glanced from him to her mutilated child—mutilated by her own mad hand—he shot toward her with uplifted knife.
A single bound brought him face to face with his mad red mother-in-law.
“In whose power is Coleola now?” he hissed. “Ay, into whose hands has she fallen? She has hunted long that she might stand within arm’s-length of Swamp Oak, and she stands thus at last. She found the Peoria’s cave, but first she found Swamp Oak’s sister, whose face is almost like Ulalah’s. She bore the Drooping Willow through the forests until she found the Peoria’s cave; she entered it; she slew the Drooping Willow, and tore Ulalah’s tongue from her head. When Swamp Oak returned with the Lone Dove,” continued the Indian, glancing at Kate, “he found whom he thought to be his Ulalah. He caught her in his arms, and her decaying body drove his brain on fire. Then Coleola came, and he darted away. Ah! the Snake Queen could not catch the Peoria, and when he stopped he found that he bore Drooping Willow, not Ulalah. Vengeance then he swore, and vengeance now he will have. Ulalah.”
The speechless girl sprung forward, and, with wild eyes and trembling knife, confronted her unnatural mother.
The Snake Queen faced her executioners with dignified mien, and upon her face still gleamed that devilish expression of triumph.
Without a word Swamp Oak released one of Coleola’s hands, binding the other fast to her body. Then he pushed her against the rock to which she had lately nailed the Yellow Bloodhound, and placed her arm against it.
“Coleola shall see her limbs torn from her trunk,” he hissed, “and then her tongue shall be plucked from her mouth even as she tore her child’s away; and when she has seen all this, then shall her eyes fly from her head as the arrow flies from the Indian’s bow. Ulalah, come—the tomahawk! This hand plucked out your tongue. Cut it off!”
A look of triumph flashed from the wronged girl’s eyes, and she snatched from her lover’s hand the tomahawk it extended.
A second later she darted toward her mother.
The tomahawk flew above her head, and in the twinkling of an eye it descended, severing Coleola’s right arm a few inches above the hand!
A soul-piercing shriek followed the avenging blow.
The mad queen shot forward, despite Swamp Oak’s strength, and it was a giant’s.
He might as well have tried to hold a crazy rhinoceros.
Coleola darted toward the corridor in which the Bloodhound and Big Moccasin had undoubtedly disappeared.
Kate Blount stood in her way, and noticed that her left arm was free.
“Back, Kate!” yelled the young scout.
Our heroine needed no summons to spring from the demoness’ path; but ere she could shrink away, the left arm encircled her body, and she found herself lifted from the ground.
She shrieked, as well she might.
Four brave men sprung forward to rescue her from the mad Snake Queen; but their hands closed on emptiness!
Coleola and her beautiful captive had eluded them!
[2] Niagara.