"Such way may be opened, yet I fear these savages will only take unkindly your efforts at ministry, even if they permit opportunity for the carrying on of such work."
"I should be overjoyed to minister unto them with the sharp edge of a steel blade," interposed De Noyan decidedly, and I noticed him for the first time, lying beyond his wife. "What do you expect, Master Benteen, these villains will do to us?"
"I read no sign of mercy in any face yet seen," I answered cautiously. "It would be against all savage nature to forgive the loss of those warriors sent home this day."
"You look for death?"
"I expect nothing less, and by torture; still they may permit us the slight chance of the gantlet, although I know not the war customs of the tribe."
He subsided into silence, as though my words merely echoed his own gloomy thought, and for a few moments no sound arose except the dismal droning of the priests about the altar. Then Cairnes silently pushed over toward me what remained of their evening meal, and I forgot gloomy forebodings in a new realization of hunger. It was while thus busily engaged Madame spoke to me, whispering her words softly, so that they could not reach the ears of the others.
"If the end prove according to our fears, could you outline my probable fate?"
No lack of courage prompted the question, I could perceive that in her eyes as they looked into my own, and some way their expression yielded me boldness to answer truthfully.
"I am afraid, Madame, you may be spared," I said gravely.
Her hands closed down tightly about each other.
"That is what renders my heart so heavy in this peril, Geoffrey Benteen. I could die easily, without tremor, beside you; nor would I shrink back from torture, did it of necessity come to me, for I possess a faith in Christ which would sustain me in such an ordeal. But this--O God!--it is too much! The thought that I may be reserved for a worse fate than death, may be compelled to live for months, perhaps years, as the humiliated companion of these murderous savages--I, a lady of France! It is more than I can bear."
I saw tears shining in her eyes, and my hand, seeking her own, closed over it with sympathetic pressure.
"God grant there be some escape," I said earnestly; it was all that came to my lips.
"But I feel there is none. I have not lived upon the border of this vast wilderness all my life without learning something regarding the customs of savages. If they spare a woman from stake or knife it is that they may doom her to a fate more horrible, making of her their degraded slave. I know this, and have read the truth anew in those faces glaring upon me to-day. There remains but one faint hope--that woman who seems to exercise control over them may incline the savages to mercy."