I had given commands to spare all whites and to torture no one. But
Pierre was right. I was a fool to have pretended, even to myself, that
I thought the savages listened.
A fool can do harm enough, but a cowardly, soft-hearted man is the most
dangerous of knaves. I might have killed Pemaou when I threw the spear
at him; I might have killed him the night before my wedding in the
Pottawatamie camp. I had withheld my hand because it was disagreeable
to me to kill. And now the woman's life was to pay the forfeit of my
lax softness. I rolled in my agony, and bit the ground till my mouth
was full of leaf mould.
A planet swung from one tree-top to the next. What lay behind it? She
would know soon. But I could not follow her where she was going. I
should live. I knew that. When Death is courted he will not strike.
I had seen that in battle.
That first morning when she had come to me with the sunrise,--when she
had drifted to me, bound and singing,--I had called to her to have no
fear, that no harm should come to her. And she had trusted me.
She had a little hollow in her brown throat where I had watched the
breath flutter. I had never touched it.
I could thank God for her, for one thing.
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