Читать книгу The Trappers of Arkansas: or, The Loyal Heart - Aimard Gustave, Gustave Aimard, Jules Berlioz d'Auriac - Страница 11

In order to make the reader comprehend the position of the hunters, it is necessary to return to the Comanche chief.

Scarce had his enemies disappeared among the trees, ere Eagle Head raised himself softly up, bent his body forward, and listened to ascertain if they were really departing. As soon as he had acquired that certainty, he tore off a morsel of his blanket with which he wrapped up his arm as well as he could, and, in spite of the weakness produced by loss of blood and the pain he suffered, he set off resolutely on the trail of the hunters.

He accompanied them, thus himself unseen, to the limits of the camp. There, concealed behind an ebony tree, he witnessed, without being able to prevent it, though boiling with rage, the search made by the hunters for their traps, and, at length, their departure after recovering them.

Although the bloodhounds which the hunters had with them were excellent dogs, trained to scent an Indian from a distance, by a providential chance, which probably saved the life of the Comanche chief, they had fallen upon the remains of the repast of the redskins, and their masters, not dreaming that they were watched, did not think of commanding their vigilance.

The Comanches at length regained their camp, after having, with infinite difficulty, succeeded in catching their horses.

The sight of their wounded chief caused them great surprise, and still greater anger, of which Eagle Head took advantage to send them all off again in pursuit of the hunters, who, retarded by the traps they carried, could not be far off, and must inevitably fall speedily into their hands.

They had been but for an instant the dupes of the stratagem invented by Loyal Heart, and had not been long in recognising, on the first trees of the forest unequivocal traces of the passage of their enemies.

At this moment, Eagle Head, ashamed of being thus held in check by two determined men, whose cunning, superior to his own, deceived all his calculations, resolved to put an end to them at once, by carrying into execution the diabolical project of setting fire to the forest; a means which, according to the manner in which he meant to employ it, must, he did not doubt, at length deliver his formidable adversaries up to him.

In consequence, dispersing his warriors in various directions, so as to form a vast circle, he ordered the high grass to be set on fire in various places simultaneously.

The idea, though barbarous and worthy of the savage warriors who employed it, was a good one. The hunters, after having vainly endeavoured to escape from the network of flame which encompassed them on all sides, would be obliged, in spite of themselves, if they did not prefer being burnt alive, to surrender quietly to their ferocious enemies.

Eagle Head had calculated and foreseen everything, except the most easy and most simple thing, the only chance of safety that would be left to Loyal Heart and his companions.

As we have said, at the command of their chief the warriors had dispersed, and had lighted the conflagration at several points simultaneously.

At this advanced season of the year, the plants and grass, parched by the incandescent rays of the summer's sun, were immediately in a blaze, and the fire extended in all directions with frightful rapidity.

Not, however, so quickly as not to allow a certain time to elapse before it united.

Loyal Heart had not hesitated. Whilst the Indians were running like demons around the barrier of flame they had just opposed to their enemies, and were uttering yells of joy, the hunter, followed by his friend, had rushed at full speed between two walls of fire, which from right and left advanced upon him, hissing, and threatening to unite at once above his head and beneath his feet. Amidst calcined trees which fell with a crash, blinded by clouds of thick smoke which stopped their respiration, burnt by showers of sparks which poured upon them from all parts, following boldly their course beneath a vault of flame, the intrepid adventurers had cleared, at the cost of a few trifling burns, the accursed enclosure in which the Indians had thought to bury them for ever, and were already far from the enemies who were congratulating themselves upon the success of their artful and barbarous plan.

The conflagration, in the meantime, assumed formidable proportions; the forest shrivelled up under the grasp of the fire; the prairie was but one sheet of flame, in the midst of which the wild animals, driven from their dens and lairs by this unexpected catastrophe, ran about, mad with terror.