Intschu-Tschuna and Winnetou talked earnestly together for a while, then they came to us, and the former said: “Had not Kleki-Petrah told me so much of your faith, I should feel you were a man to whom it was a disgrace to talk. But I can understand your wish perfectly; though if my warriors were to hear it they would never understand, and would only despise you.”
“It is not a question of my wish alone, but of Kleki-Petrah’s, of whom you speak,” I said.
“He believed in this same faith which commands me to make this plea, and he died in it. His religion bade him forgive his enemies. Believe me, if he could speak he would not consent to his murderer dying such a death.”
He shook his head slowly. “What kind of men are you Christians? Either you are bad, and then your wickedness is so great that no one can understand it, or else you are good, and then your goodness is equally incomprehensible.”
He and his son looked at each other, and spoke together privately, but only for a moment. Then Intschu-Tschuna turned back to me and said: “This murderer was your enemy also?”
“Then hear me. We will see if there is the least, tiniest spark of goodness in him. Should we find one, we will try to do as you wish without disgracing you. Sit here and wait. If I give you a signal, come over to the murderer, and tell him to ask your pardon. If he does this, he shall die quickly.”
Intschu-Tschuna went back with Winnetou to the circle of braves, and we sat down where we were.
“I never dreamed that the chief would listen to you,” said Sam Hawkins. “You must stand well with him.”
“That is not the only reason; it is the influence of Kleki-Petrah, powerful though he is dead. These Indians have absorbed more real, interior Christianity than you suspect.”
We looked over towards the cart wherein the doomed man lay, and saw a long box-like object, on which a man was bound.
“That is the coffin,” said Sam, “made of hollow logs with wet leather drawn over them, which will be air-tight when the leather has dried. Kleki-Petrah’s body has been embalmed, you know.”
Not far from the head of the valley rose a cliff on which an open square had been newly made of great stones piled on top of each other, and many more stones had been gathered together around it. The man bound on the coffin was now carried to this square. It was Rattler.