"I need not tell you, I fancy, the fate that awaits you?"
"I have known it a long time; the worthy redskins will probably amuse themselves with flaying me alive, roasting me at a slow fire, or some other politeness of that sort. Much good may it do them."
"Suppose they spared your life, would you not reveal where your father, brother, and that excellent Fray Ambrosio are?"
"I would not. Look you, I am a bandit, I allow it, but, Niña, I am neither a traitor nor an informer. Regulate your conduct by that, and if you are curious to see a man die well, I invite you to be present at my punishment."
"He will not speak," she replied; "although he displays great resolution, perhaps the torture you will make him undergo may overcome his courage, and he consent to speak."
"Hum!" the chief went on, "my sister's advice is--"
"My advice," she quickly interrupted, "is to be as pitiless to him as he has been to others."
"Take him away," he said, "and let all the preparations be made for torture."
"Thanks," Nathan replied; "at any rate you will not make me languish, that is a consolation."
"Wait before you rejoice, till you have undergone the first trial," White Gazelle said ironically.
Nathan made no answer, but went away whistling with two warriors. They fastened him securely to the trunk of a tree, and left him alone, after assuring themselves that he could not move, and consequently flight was impossible. The young man watched them go off, and then fell on the ground, carelessly muttering--
"The disguise was good for all that; had it not been for that she-devil, I must have escaped."
Red Cedar had seen his son tied up, from the tree where he was concealed. This sight suddenly stopped him; he found himself just over the Comanche camp, in a most perilous situation, as the slightest false movement, by revealing his presence, would be sufficient to destroy him. Sutter and Fray Ambrosio in turn parted the branches and looked down at Nathan, who certainly was far from suspecting that the persons he had left on the previous day were so near him.
In the meanwhile the shadows gradually invaded the clearing, and soon all objects were confounded in the gloom, which was rendered denser by the gleam of the fires lighted from distance to distance, and which shed an uncertain light around. The squatter did not love his son; for he was incapable of feeling affection for more than one person, and it was concentrated on Ellen. Nathan's life or death, regarded in the light of paternal love, was of very slight consequence to him; but in the situation where his unlucky star placed him, he regretted his son, as one regrets a jolly comrade, a bold man and clever marksman--an individual, in short, who can be relied on in a fight.