Pokračování textu ze strany 550
… cease, and for the last time summoned the Apaches to surrender, or to let their women and children come out unmolested. On their side, the Apaches also ceased all hostile demonstrations, and it seemed to some of us Americans that they must be making ready to yield, and were discussing the matter among themselves. Our Indian guides and interpreters raised the cry, “Look out! there goes the Death Song; they are going to charge!” It was a weird chant[1], one not at all easy to describe, half wail and half exultation — the frenzy of despair, and the wild cry for revenge. Now, the petulant, querulous treble of the squaws kept time with the shuffling feet, and again the deeper growl of the savage bull-dogs, who represented manhood in that cave, was flung back from the cold, pitiless brown of the cliffs.
“Look out! here they come!” Over the rampart, guided by one impulse, moving as if they were all part of one body, jumped and ran twenty of the warriors — superblooking feUows, all of them; each carried upon his back a quiver filled with the long reed arrows of the tribe; each held in his hands a bow and a rifle, the latter at full cock. Half of the party stood upon the rampart, which gave them some chance to sight our men behind the smaller rocks in front, and blazed away for aU they were worth — they were trying to make a demonstration to engage our attention, while the other part suddenly slipped down and around our right flank, and out through the rocks which had so effectively sheltered the retreat of the one who had so nearly succeeded in getting away, earlier in the morning. Their motives were divined, and the move was frustrated;
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A Death Song, probably the one used here, is:
“Father we are going out to die,
Let not fear enter into our hearts.
For ourselves, we grieve not, but for those that are left behind.
We are going out to die.”
