The wind came in at the loop-holes and stirred the blood-clotted hair on the prisoner's brow, and the suspension of the mental effort that the examination cost him was for a moment a relief; the shadowy dusk of the ill-lighted room was grateful to his eyes, the heavy, regular throbbing of his head grew less violent. He could even note the incongruity of the situation when he saw that Willinawaugh resisted upon the point that the matter was with him a question of character! The chief said he had lost his standing in public estimation because he had allowed the Englishman, MacLeod, and his brother, to deceive him on the pretense of being French,--for although he (Willinawaugh) spoke French himself, and that better than some people who had lost their front tooth, he could not understand such French as the two Scotchmen spoke, nor, indeed, as some Cherokees spoke, with their front tooth out.
Savanukah, seated on the rug an expression of poignant mortification on his face, his lips fast closed over the missing tooth, only muttered disconsolately, in his mingled French and Cherokee jargon, "_C'est dommage! Sac-llé bleu! Noot-te![J] Ugh! en vérité--O-se-u!_"[K]
Willinawaugh, pausing merely for effect, continued. He himself was not an interpreter, to be sure; he was a Cherokee war-captain, with a great reputation to sustain. He had captured the prisoner, and it ill accorded with his honor to yield him to another.
"_Cho-eh!_"[L] said Atta-Kulla-Kulla, softly.
And Stuart became aware, with a start that almost dislocated his pinioned arms, that it was the transfer of his custody, the purchase of himself, over which they were bargaining.
"_Nankke--soutare_,"[M] urged Atta-Kulla-Kulla.
Again Willinawaugh shook his head. Was he some slight thing,--_seequa, cheefto_, an opossum, a rabbit? "_Sinnawah na wora!_"[N] he cried sonorously. For months, he said, he had besieged that man in his great stronghold of Fort Loudon. Like a panther he had watched it; like a spider he had woven his webs about it; like a wolf by night he had assaulted it; like a hawk he had swooped down upon it and had taken it for the Cherokee nation; and it was a small matter if he, who spoke French so well, had not comprehended an Englishman who spoke French like an unknown tongue, and had let him pass, being deceived!