University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

The agony which Roland suffered from the
thong so tightly secured upon his wrists, was so
far advantageous as it distracted his mind from
the subject which had been at first the chief
source of his distress: for it was impossible to
think long even of his kinswoman, while enduring
tortures that were aggravated by every jerk of
the rope, by which he was dragged along; these
growing more insupportable every moment. His
sufferings, however, seemed to engage little of the
thoughts of his conductors; who, leaving the buffalo
road, and striking into the pathless forest,
pushed onward at a rapid pace, compelling him to
keep up with them; and it was not until he had
twice fainted from pain and exhaustion, that,
after some discussion, they thought fit to loosen
the thong, which they afterwards removed altogether.

Then, whether it was that they were touched
at last with compassion, or afraid that death might
snatch the prisoner from their hands, if too severely
treated, they proceeded even to take other
measures of a seemingly friendly kind, to allay
his pangs; washing his lacerated wrists in a little
brook, on whose banks they paused to give him
rest, and then binding them up, as well as the two
or three painful, though not dangerous, wounds he
had received, with green leaves, which one of the
juniors plucked, bruized, and applied with every

appearance of the most brotherly interest; while
the other, to equal, or surpass him in benevolence,
took the keg of whiskey from the horse's back,
and filling a little wooden bowl that he drew from
a pack, insisted that the prisoner should swallow
it. In this recommendation the old Piankeshaw
also concurred; but finding that Roland recoiled
with disgust, after an attempt to taste the fiery
liquid, he took the bowl into his own hands, and
despatched its contents at a draught. “Good!
great good!” he muttered, smacking his lips with
high gusto; “white man make good drink!—Piankeshaw
great friend white-man's liquor.”

Having thus opened their hearts, nothing could
be, to appearance, more friendly and affectionate
than the bearing of the savages, at least so
long as they remained at the brook; and even
when the journey was resumed, which it soon
was, their deportment was but little less loving.
It is true, that the senior, before mounting his
horse, proceeded very coolly to clap the noose,
which had previously been placed on Roland's
arms, around his neck, where it bade fair to strangle
him, at the first false step of the horse; but
the young Indians walked at his side, chattering
in high good-humour; though, as their stock of
English extended only to the single phrase, `Bozhoo,
brudder,' which was not in itself very comprehensible,
though repeated at least twice every
minute, it may be supposed their conversation had
no very enlivening effect on the prisoner.

Nor was the old Piankeshaw much behind the
juniors in good humour; though, it must be confessed,
his feelings were far more capricious and
evanescent. One while he would stop his horse,
and dragging Roland to his side, pat him affectionately
on the shoulder, and tell him, as well as

his broken language could express his intentions,
that he would take him to the springs of the Wabash,
one of the principal seats of his nation, and
make him his son and a great warrior; while at
other times, having indulged in a fit of sighing,
groaning, and crying, he would turn in a towering
rage, and express a resolution to kill him on the
spot,—from which bloody disposition, however, he
was always easily turned by the interference of
the young men.

These capricious changes were perhaps owing
in a great measure to the presence of the whiskey-keg,
which the old warrior ever and anon
took from its perch among the packs behind him,
and applied to his lips, sorely, as it appeared,
against the will of his companions, who seemed
to remonstrate with him against a practice so
unbecoming a warrior, while in the heart of a foeman's
country, and not a little also against his
own sense of propriety: for his whole course in
relation to the keg was like that of a fish that
dallies around the angler's worm, uncertain whether
to bite, now looking and longing, now suspecting
the hook and retreating, now returning to
look and long again, until, finally, unable to resist
the temptation, it resolves upon a little nibble,
which ends, even against its own will, in a furious
bite.

It was in this manner the Piankeshaw addressed
himself to his treasure; the effect of which
was to render each returning paroxysm of affection
and sorrow more energetic than before,
while it gradually robbed of their malignity those
fits of anger with which he was still occasionally
seized. But it added double fluency to his tongue;
and, not content with muttering his griefs in his
own language, addressing them to his own people,

he finally began to pronounce them in English,
directing them at Roland; whereby the latter
was made acquainted with the cause of his
sorrow. This, it appeared, was nothing less than
the loss of a son, killed in the battle with the Kentuckians,
and left to moulder, with two or three
Shawnee corses, in the cave by the river-side;
which loss he commemorated a dozen times over,
and with a most piteous voice, in a lament that
celebrated the young warrior's virtues: “Lost
son,” he ejaculated; “good huntaw: kill bear,
kill buffalo, catch fish, feed old squaw, and young
squaw, and little papoose—good son! mighty good
son! Good fighting-man: kill man Virginnee, kill
man Kentucky, kill man Injun-man; take scalp,
squaw scalp, papoose scalp, man scalp, all kind
scalp—debbil good fighting-man! No go home
no more Piankeshaw nation; no more kill bear,
no more kill buffalo, no more catch fish, no more
feed old squaw, and young squaw, and little papoose;
no more kill man, no more take scalp—
lose own scalp, take it Long-knife man Kentucky;
—no more see old Piankeshaw son,—leave dead,
big hole Kentucky; no more see no more Piankeshaw
son, Piankeshaw nation!”

With such lamentations, running at times into
rage against his prisoner, as the representative
of those who had shed the young warrior's blood,
the old Piankeshaw whiled away the hours of
travel; ceasing them only when seized with a fit
of affection, or when some mis-step of the horse
sent a louder gurgle, with a more delicious odour,
from the cask at his back; which music and perfume
together were a kind of magic not to be
resisted by one who stood so greatly in need of
consolation.

The effect of such constant and liberal visitations

to the comforter and enemy of his race,
continued for several hours together, was soon
made manifest in the old warrior, who grew more
loquacious, more lachrymose, and more foolish
every moment; until, by and by, having travelled
till towards sunset, a period of six or seven hours
from the time of setting out, he began to betray
the most incontestable evidences of intoxication.
He reeled on the horse's back, and finally, becoming
tired of the weight of his gun, he extended it
to Roland, with a very magisterial yet friendly
nod, as if bidding him take and carry it. It was
snatched from him, however, by one of the younger
warriors, who was too wise to intrust a loaded
carbine in the arms of a prisoner, and who had
perhaps noted the sudden gleam of fire, the first
which had visited them since the moment of his
capture, that shot into Roland's eyes, as he
stretched forth his hands to take the weapon.

The old Piankeshaw did not seem to notice who
had relieved him of the burthen. He settled himself
again on the saddle as well as he could, and
jogged onwards, prattling and weeping, according
to the mood of the moment, now droning out an
Indian song, and now nodding with drowsiness;
until at last slumber or stupefaction settled so
heavily upon his senses that he became incapable
of guiding his horse; and the weary animal,
checked by the unconscious rider, or stopping of
his own accord to browse the green cane-leaves
along the path, the Piankeshaw suddenly took a
lurch wider than usual, and fell, like a log, to the
ground.

The younger savages had watched the course
of proceedings on the part of the senior with ill-concealed
dissatisfaction. The catastrophe completed
their rage, which, however, was fortunately

expended upon the legitimate cause of displeasure.
They tumbled the unlucky cask from its
perch, and assailing it with horrible yells and as
much apparent military zeal as could have been
exercised upon a human enemy lying in like manner
at their feet, they dashed it to pieces with
their tomahawks, scattering its precious contents
upon the grass.

While they were thus engaged, the senior rose
from the earth, staring about him for a moment
with looks of stupid inquiry; until beginning at
last to comprehend the accident that had happened
him, and perhaps moved by the fate of his treasure,
he also burst into a fury; and snatching up
the nearest gun, he clapped it to the horse's head,
and shot it dead on the spot, roaring out, “Cuss'
white-man hoss! throw ole Piankeshaw! No good
nothing! Cuss' debbil hoss!”

This act of drunken and misdirected ferocity
seemed vastly to incense the younger warriors;
and the senior waxing as wrathful at the wanton
destruction of his liquor, there immediately ensued
a battle of tongues betwixt the two parties,
who scolded and berated one another for the
space of ten minutes or more with prodigious volubility
and energy, the juniors expatiating upon
the murder of the horse as an act of the most
unpardonable folly, while the senior seemed to insist
that the wasting of so much good liquor was
a felony of equally culpable dye; and it is probable
he had the better side of the argument, since
he contined to grumble for a long time even
after he had silenced the others.

But peace was at last restored, and the savages
prepared to resume their journey; but not until
they had unanimously resolved that the consequences
of the quarrel should be visited upon the

head of the captive. Their apparent good-humour
vanished, and the old Piankeshaw, staggering up,
gave Roland to understand, in an oration full of
all the opprobrious epithets he could muster,
either in English or Indian, that he, the Piankeshaw,
being a very great warrior, intended to
carry him to his country, to run the gauntlet
through every village of the nation, and then to
burn him alive, for the satisfaction of the women
and children; and while pouring this agreeable
intelligence into the soldier's ears, the juniors took
the opportunity to tie his arms a second time,
heaping on his shoulders their three packs; to
which the old man afterwards insisted on adding
the saddle and bridle of the horse, though for no
very ostensible object, together with a huge mass
of the flesh, dug with his knife from the still quivering
carcass, which was perhaps designed for
their supper.

Under this heavy load, the unhappy and degraded
soldier was compelled to stagger along
with his masters; but fortunately for no long
period. The night was fast approaching; and
having soon arrived at a little glade in the forest,
where a spring of sweet water bubbled from the
grass, they signified their intention to make it
their 'camping-ground for the night. A fire was
struck, the horse-flesh stuck upon a fork and roasted,
and a share of it tendered to the prisoner; who,
sick at heart, and feverish in body, refused it with
as much disgust as he had shown at the whiskey,
expressing his desire only to drink of the spring,
which he was allowed to do to his liking.

The savages then collected grass and leaves,
with which they spread a couch under a tree beside
their fire; and here, having compelled the soldier
to lie down, they proceeded to secure him for

the night with a cruel care, that showed what
value the loss of the horse and fire-water, the only
other trophies of victory, led them to attach to
him. A stake was cut and laid across his breast,
and to the ends of this his out-stretched arms were
bound at both wrist and elbow. A pole was then
laid upon his body, to the extremities of which his
feet and neck were also bound; so that he was
secured as upon, or rather under, a cross, without
the power of moving hand or foot. As if even
this were not enough to satisfy his barbarous companions,
they attached an additional cord to his
neck; and this, when they lay down beside him
to sleep, one of the young warriors wrapped several
times round his own arm, so that the slightest
movement of the prisoner, were such a thing possible,
must instantly rouse the jealous savage
from his slumbers.

These preparations being completed, the young
men lay down, one on each side of the prisoner,
and were soon fast asleep.

The old Piankeshaw, meanwhile, sat by the fire,
now musing in drunken revelry,—`in cogibundity
of cogitation,'—now grumbling a lament for his
perished son, which, by a natural license of affliction,
he managed to intermingle with regrets for
his lost liquor, and occasionally heaping maledictions
upon the heads of his wasteful companions,
or soliciting the prisoner's attention to an account
that he gave him at least six times over, of the
peculiar ceremonies which would be observed in
burning him, when once safely bestowed in the
Piankeshaw nation. In this manner, the old savage,
often nodding, but always rousing again, succeeded
in amusing himself nearly half the night
long; and it was not until near midnight that he
thought fit, after stirring up the fire, and adding a

fresh log to it, to stretch himself beside one of the
juniors, and grumble himself to sleep. A few explosive
and convulsive snorts, such as might have
done honour to the nostrils of a war-horse, marked
the gradations by which he sank to repose;
then came the deep, long-drawn breath of mental
annihilation, such as distinguished the slumber of
his companions.

To the prisoner alone sleep was wholly denied;
for which the renewed agonies of his bonds, tied
with the supreme contempt for suffering which
always marks the conduct of savages to their
captives, would have been sufficient cause, had
there even been no superior pangs of spirit to banish
the comforter from his eyelids. Of his feelings
during the journey from the river,—which, in
consequence of numberless delays caused by the
old Piankeshaw's drunkenness, could scarce have
been left more than eight or ten miles behind,—
we have said but little, since imagination can only
picture them properly to the reader. Grief, anguish,
despair, and the sense of degradation natural
to a man of proud spirit, a slave in the hands
of coarse barbarians, kept his spirit for a long time
wholly subdued and torpid; and it was not until
he perceived the old Piankeshaw's repeated potations,
and their effects, that he began to wake
from his lethargy, and question himself whether
he might not yet escape, and, flying to the nearest
settlements for assistance, strike a blow for the
recovery of his kinswoman. Weak from exhaustion
and wounds, entirely unarmed, and closely
watched, as he perceived he was, by the young
warriors, notwithstanding their affected friendship,
it was plain that nothing could be hoped for,
except from caution on his part, and the most besotted
folly on that of his captors. This folly was

already made perceptible in at least one of the
party; and as he watched the oft-repeated visitations
of the senior to the little keg, he began to
anticipate the period when the young men should
also betake themselves to the stupifying draught,
and give him the opportunity he longed for with
frantic, though concealed, impatience. This hope
fell when the cask was dashed to pieces: but hope,
once excited, did not easily forsake him. He had
heard, and read, of escapes made by captives like
himself, from Indians, when encamped by night in
the woods,—nay, of escapes made when the number
of captors and the feebleness of the captive,
(for even women and boys had thus obtained their
deliverance,) rendered the condition of the latter
still more wretched than his own. Why might not
he, a man and soldier, guarded by only three foemen,
succeed, as others had succeeded, in freeing
himself?

This question, asked over and over again, and
each time answered with greater hope and animation
than before, employed his mind until his
wary captors had tied him to the stakes, as has
been mentioned, leaving him as incapable of motion
as if every limb had been solidified into stone.
Had the barbarians been able to look into his soul
at the moment when he first strove to test the
strength of the ligatures, and found them resisting
his efforts like bands of brass, they would have
beheld deeper and wilder tortures than any they
could hope to inflict, even at the stake. The effort
was repeated once, twice, thrice—a thousand
times,—but always in vain: the cords were too
securely tied, the stakes too carefully placed, to
yield to his puny struggles. He was a prisoner in
reality,—without resource, without help, without
hope.

And thus he passed the whole of the bitter night,
watching the slow progress of moments counted
only by the throbbings of his fevered temples, the
deep breathings of the Indians, and the motion of
the stars creeping over the vista opened to the
skies from the little glade, a prey to despair, made
so much more poignant by disappointment and
self-reproach. Why had he not taken advantage
of his temporary release from the cords, to attempt
escape by open flight, when the drunkenness of
the old Piankeshaw would have increased the
chances of success? He had lost his best ally in
the cask of liquor; but he resolved,—if the delirious
plans of a mind tossed by the most phrensied
passions could be called resolutions,—a second
day should not pass by without an effort better
becoming a soldier, better becoming the only friend
and natural protector of the hapless Edith.

In the meanwhile, the night passed slowly away;
the moon, diminished to a ghastly crescent, rose
over the woods, looking down with a sickly smile
upon the prisoner,—an emblem of his decayed
fortunes and waning hopes; and a pale streak, the
first dull glimmer of dawn, was seen stealing up
the skies. But neither moon nor streak of dawn
yet threw light upon the little glade. The watch-fire
had burned nearly away, and its flames no
longer illuminated the scene. The crackling of the
embers, with an occasional echo from the wood
hard by, as of the rustling of a rabbit, or other
small animal, drawn by the unusual appearance
of fire near his favourite fountain, to satisfy a
timorous curiosity, was the only sound to be heard;
for the Indians were in the dead sleep of morning,
and their breathing was no longer audible.

The silence and darkness together were doubly
painful to Roland, who had marked the streak of

dawn, and longed with fierce impatience for the
moment when he should be again freed from his
bonds, and left to attempt some of those desperate
expedients which he had been planning all the
night long. In such a frame of mind, even the
accidental falling of a half-consumed brand upon
the embers, and its sudden kindling into flame,
were circumstances of an agreeable nature; and
the ruddy glare thrown over the boughs above his
head was welcomed as the return of a friend,
bringing with it hope, and even a share of his long
lost tranquillity.

But tranquillity was not fated to dwell long in
his bosom. At that very moment, and while the
blaze of the brand was brightest, his ears were
stunned by an explosion bursting like a thunderbolt
at his very head, but whether coming from
earth or air, from the hands of Heaven or the fire-lock
of a human being, he knew not; and immediately
after there sprang a huge dark shadow
over his body, and there was heard the crash as
of an axe falling upon the flesh of the young Indian
who slept on his right side. A dismal shriek,
the utterance of agony and terror, rose from the
barbarian's lips; and then came the sound of his
footsteps, as he darted, with a cry still wilder,
into the forest, pursued by the sound of other
steps; and then all again was silent,—all save
groans, and the rustling in the grass of limbs convulsed
in the death-throe at the soldier's side.

Astounded, bewildered, and even horror-struck,
by these incomprehensible events, the work of but
an instant, and all unseen by Roland, who, from
his position, could look only upwards towards the
boughs and skies, he would have thought himself
in a dream, but for the agonized struggles of the
young Indian at his side, which he could plainly

feel as well as hear; until by and by they subsided,
as if in sudden death. Was it a rescue? was that
shot fired by a friend? that axe wielded by a human
auxiliary? those sounds of feet dying away
in the distance, were they the steps of a deliverer?
The thought was ecstasy, and he shouted aloud,
“Return, friend, and loose me! return!”

No voice replied to the shout; but it roused
from the earth a dark and bloody figure, which
staggering and falling over the body of the young
warrior, crawled like a scotched reptile upon Roland's
breast; when the light of the fire shining
upon it revealed to his eyes the horrible spectacle
of the old Piankeshaw warrior, the lower part of
his face shot entirely away, and his eyes rolling
hideously, and, as it seemed, sightlessly, in the
pangs of death, his hand clutching the knife with
which he had so often threatened, and with which
he yet seemed destined to take, though in the last
gasp of his own, the soldier's life. With one hand
he felt along the prisoner's body, as if seeking a
vital part, and sustained his own weight, while
with the other he made repeated, though feeble
and ineffectual, strokes with the knife, all the time
rolling, and staggering, and shaking his gory head
in a manner most horrible to behold. But vengeance
was denied the dying warrior; his blows
were offered impotently, and without aim; and
becoming weaker at every effort, his left arm at
last failed to support him, and he fell across Roland's
body; in which position he immediately
after expired.

In this frightful condition Roland was left,
shocked, although relieved from fear, by the savage's
death, crying in vain to his unknown auxiliary
for assistance. He exerted his voice, until the
woods rang with his shouts; but hollow echoes

were the only replies: neither voice nor returning
footstep was to be heard; and it seemed as if he
had been rescued from the Indians' hands, only to
be left, bound and helpless, to perish piecemeal
among their bodies. The fear of a fate so dreadful,
with the weight of the old Piankeshaw, a man
of almost gigantic proportions, lying upon his
bosom, was more than his agonized spirits and
exhausted strength could endure; and his wounds
suddenly bursting out afresh, he lapsed into a state
of insensibility,—in which, however, it was happily
his fate not long to remain.