University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

No sooner were these discoveries made, than the
greater portion of the warriors set out in immediate
pursuit of the fugitives, while a few remained to guard
the prisoners. Mr. Lee and Miss Pendleton were now
seated near each other, and for the first time had the
opportunity of conversing together; and the latter addressing
her former playmate with the frankness due to
so old an acquaintance, expressed her regret for his
misfortune, while she could not help congratulating herself
on having a friend near her at so trying a period.

“Ah, cousin Virginia!” exclaimed George, “how
willingly would I bear captivity, or even death, to do you
a service!”

This speech savored too much of gallantry for the
time and place, and Miss Pendleton looked very grave.

“Dear Virginia,” continued George, “don't be cast
down; they will not have the heart to do you any harm.
I have been a brother to you all my life—you have been
kinder to me, and dearer to me, than a sister—and they
shall not separate us, while I have a drop of blood in my
veins.”

“Thank you, cousin George,” was all that Virginia
could reply, while the tears started from her eyes. This
touching proof of affection went to her heart, and her
noble nature enabled her to comprehend the full extent
of the sacrifice that her kind-hearted companion was
willing to make for her. Had that affection flowed only

from the friendship of the playmate of her early years,
it would have been most grateful to her feelings; but
sensible as she was, that it resulted from a hopeless passion,
which she could not encourage without insincerity,
nor without cherishing hopes which she felt could never
be realized, it distressed and pained her. She endeavored
to change the subject; but the single-hearted George
always came back to the same point, and continually
exclaimed, “Poor Virginia!” “Dear cousin Virginia!”
“To think that you, you, should be here, a prisoner
among savages!”

At length a new thought seemed to strike him; and
starting up suddenly, he beckoned the Indian to him,
who seemed to have been the chief person in the party
by which he was taken. This person had seemed to
claim George as his own prisoner, and had treated him
with a show of kindness. To him Mr. Lee now offered
to give any ransom which might be demanded, for the
liberty of Miss Pendleton, assuring the Indian of his
ability to comply with any contract which he might
make. The Indian, who spoke a little broken English,
readily understood the proposition, and listened to it with
interest.

“Hugh!” said he, “how much?”

George, who was no great hand at making a bargain,
and was besides too much in love to think of standing
upon trifles, replied eagerly that he would give all he was
worth for her liberation.

“Velly good!” replied the Indian, perfectly comprehending
the offer, “how much—how much you got?”

George told him that he owned a thousand acres of

land; but the Indian shook his head, and swinging his
arms with a lordly contempt, as he pointed to the vast
forest around them, gave the Virginian to understand
that he had land enough.

The Indian then inquired if he had any “whiskee.”

George had no whiskey, but said he had money
enough to buy boat-loads of it, and promised to give his
captor as much as would keep the whole tribe drunk for
a month.

“Hugh! velly good!” exclaimed the delighted Indian,
who then inquired for tobacco.

“Plenty, plenty, my dear fellow,” cried George, who
thought he was making a fine bargain, “I raise ever so
much on my plantation every year. You shall have as
much as you can use all your life!”

“How much hos?” inquired the warrior.

“Horses! no man in Virginia has more horses, or
finer ones. I have more than forty on my plantation
now, as fine blooded animals as ever you saw.”

“How much?”—inquired the Indian, who had caught
the meaning sufficiently to see that a large number was
intended to be expressed, but without understanding
exactly how many.

George was at a loss how to explain, until the Indian
directed him to hold up his fingers. He then held up
both hands, to express ten. The Indian nodded. Mr.
Lee repeated the operation, and the Indian nodded with
still greater satisfaction; and this dumb-show was carried
on until Mr. Lee had signified that he was willing to
give forty horses, in addition to the whiskey and tobacco
before stipulated, for the ransom of the lady of his heart.

Avarice is a passion which exists in some form in
every state of society; the Indian can make all the other
feelings and propensities of his nature bend to his interest,
as well as the most civilized inhabitant of a commercial
city. The wealth of George Lee had its usual
effect upon his captor. Naturally distrustful, he had
some misgivings as to the sincerity of so generous an
offer, and he could hardly conceive how one man could
be so rich as to possess so many horses, and such a
quantity of whiskey and tobacco; but then Mr. Lee had
an ingenuous countenance, and a rather imposing person
and appearance, and, upon the whole, the Indian felt disposed
to credit his word. Inasmuch, however, as he
had proffered freely thus far, the crafty savage determined
to try how far he might extort from the liberality of
his captive; and he again inquired if Mr. Lee had nothing
more to offer.

George considered, and muttered aside, “Yes, I have
a great gang of negroes—but I can't give them to be
roasted and eaten by the savages—no, plague on it, I
could'nt have the heart to send my black people here”—
and he prudently replied, that he had nothing more to
give.

The warrior shook his head, and intimated that unless
more was offered, he should marry the lady himself.

“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed the terrified lover, “take
all I have,—take my farm! take my black people! I
have a hundred likely negroes; you shall have them all!”

“Nigger!” said the Indian, “velly good—help squaw
to make corn—how much nigger?”

George had now to go through the tedious process of

counting his fingers, frequently stopping in hopes that
the cupidity of the savage would be satisfied without
taking all; but the latter possessed that faculty of the
wily gambler, or the experienced merchant, which
enables its possessor to judge from the countenance of
the subject under operation, whether he is still able to
bear a little more depletion, and continued to shake his
head until George declared that the black people were
all counted. He then coolly remarked that he should
keep the woman himself.

George flew into a rage, and then burst into tears—
“You unconscionable rascal!” he cried, “will nothing
satisfy you? I offer you all I have in the world, for
the liberty of this lady. I am willing, besides, to stay
and serve you myself all my life. Set her free, you
avaricious dog, and I will stay, and be overseer for you,
among my own negroes!”

“The white man has a forked tongue,” replied the
warrior calmly: “when he offered horses, whiskey, and
tobacco for his squaw, I thought he was honest. White
men are fools; they will give all they have for a pale-faced
woman. But when the white man offers to sell
himself, to be a servant to the Indian women, and to send
his squaw back to the thirteen fires, I know that he
speaks lies.”

So saying, he walked off. But the overture had a
good effect. The idea of procuring a valuable ransom
for Miss Pendleton, determined the Indians to treat her
with kindness. A lodge of mats was prepared for her,
and she soon found herself placed in a situation of comparative
comfort. She was not an inattentive listener to

the preceding conversation. The solicitude and generosity
of Mr. Lee, affected her deeply. But she was
generous herself, and noble natures know how to receive,
as well as to confer, obligations. Conscious that her
warm-hearted friend was offering no more than she
would have freely given to redeem him, or any other
human being, from so dreadful a fate, she did not attempt
to interfere, until he proposed to become a slave
himself. Then she exclaimed “No! not so—George—
cousin George Lee—dear George—” but he heard her
not, and in the vehemence of his exertions in her behalf,
he lost perhaps the tenderest words that she had ever
addressed to him, since the days of their childhood.

But, however Miss Pendleton's heart might have been
awakened to sensations of gratitude, she felt that this
was not the time nor place to indulge them; and in the
exhausted state of her mind and body, she readily and
hastily accepted the shelter prepared for her, and throwing
herself, stupefied with sufferings of various kinds,
upon a mat, endeavored to find repose. She had sunk
into a feverish slumber, when she was awaked by the
noise of loud and triumphant shouting. The camp was
again crowded with Indian warriors; the party which
had gone in pursuit of the fugitives was returned; they
had overtaken Colonel Hendrickson, and that unfortunate
gentleman was again a prisoner. His fate was
now sealed. The determination which had originally
been formed, of carrying him to the village of the captors,
to be publicly sacrificed, was now abandoned; and
the savages determined to gratify their eager thirst for
his blood, by torturing him at the stake, without further

delay. He was again bound, and preparations were
made for the awful solemnity. Some of the savages
employed themselves in painting their faces and bodies,
to render them the more terrific; other were whetting
the edges of their tomahawks and knives; and some
were endeavoring to excite their own passions, and those
of their companions, to the utmost pitch of fury, by hideous
yelling, by violent gesticulations, and by pouring out
bitter execrations upon their defenceless prisoner.

“I saw you in the dark and blood ground,” cried one,
drawing the back of his knife, in mockery, across the
throat of the victim—“You killed my brother there, and
I will have your heart's blood!”

“You slew my son,” shrieked a hoary-headed savage;
“his bones lie unburied in the villages of the white men,
his scalp is hanging over the door of your wigwam—
but his spirit shall rejoice in the agonies of your death!”

“You led the warriors of your tribe to battle,” exclaimed
a young warrior, as he flourished his tomahawk
over the head of the veteran pioneer, “when the long
knives met the red men on the banks of the big river—
my father fell there—your foot was on his neck—I will
trample on your mangled body. The wolf shall feed
upon your flesh—the bird of night shall flap her wings
over your carcase, and the serpent shall crawl about
your bones!”

“Revenge is sweet!” shouted one.

“Revenge! revenge!” echoed many voices.

“It is good, and pleasing to the spirit of the warrior,
to witness the death-pang of the enemy he hates!” exclaimed
another human monster.

“The white man is our enemy!”

“He is the serpent that stung our fathers!”

“He is the prowling fox that stole away our game!”

“He is the hurricane that scattered our wigwams and
destroyed our corn-fields!”

“He drove us from our hunting grounds, and trampled
in scorn upon the bones of our fathers!”

“His knife has drunk the blood of the red man; the
blood of our women and our children is on his hands!”

“Let him perish in torture!”

“Let him be slowly consumed by fire!”

“The great Spirit will laugh, when he sees the white
man writhing in agony!”

“The spirits of our fathers will rejoice—they will
shout and clap their hands in the world of shades, when
they hear the shrieks of the white warrior.”

These exclamations were uttered severally by different
individuals, in the Indian tongue, with which Colonel
Hendrickson was acquainted, in the emphatic tones of
savage declamation, and with that earnestness of gesticulation,
which renders their eloquence so impressive.
There were others who addressed the victim in coarser
language, loading him with opprobrious epithets, and
pouring out the bitterness of their malignant hearts, in
copious streams of vulgar invective. And now the wood
was piled about the victim; torches were lighted, and
blazing brands snatched from the fire, and the hellish
crew, flourishing them around their heads, danced round
the prisoner with that malignant joy, with which devils
and damned spirits may be supposed to exult in the
agonies of a fallen soul.

At length a chief stepped forward and commanded
silence. “White man,” said he, `are you ready to die?'

“I am!” replied the brave Kentuckian, in a calm
tone: “the white man's God has whispered peace to my
soul.”

“Can the God of the white man save you from torture?
Can he prevent you from feeling pain when your
flesh shall be torn, when your limbs shall be separated,
one by one, from your body, and the slow flames shall
scorch, without consuming, your miserable carcase?”

“My God is a merciful God,” replied the undaunted
pioneer; “his ear is ever open to the prayers of those
who put their trust in him. He has filled my heart with
courage. I have no fear of death—blessed for ever be
the Lord God of Israel!” Then raising his eyes upward,
he exclaimed, with devout fervor, “Make haste, O God,
to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord. Let
them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my
soul: let them be turned backward, and put to confusion,
that desire my heart!”

Virginia, who had thus far endeavored to restrain her
feelings, now rushed forward, and gliding rapidly through
the circle of warriors, threw herself upon her uncle's
bosom, exclaiming in frantic accents, “Let us die together!”
while Mr. George Lee, who had gazed on the
preceding scene with stupid wonder, sought to follow
her, determined to share her fate. Being prevented, he
swore that it was “the most infamous transaction he
had ever witnessed, and that if he got back to old
Virginia, he would have satisfaction, at the risk of his
life.”

And now the whole fury of the savage band was
ready to be poured upon their devoted but heroic prisoner,
when the report of a single rifle rang through the woods,
and the principal chief, who stood alone, received a
death-wound. A volley instantly followed, and every ball
being aimed by a skilful hand at a particular object, brought
one of the Indian warriors to the ground; in another
minute, a band of hardy backwoodsmen, headed by Fennimore
and Colburn, rushed into the camp. Before the
Indians had time to array themselves for battle, the
bonds of Colonel Hendrickson were cut, and Fennimore
had passed one arm round Miss Pendleton, while he
prepared to defend her with the other. The assailants
rushed upon the savage band, and hewed them down
with desperate valor. Colonel Hendrickson snatched up
a war-club, and plunged into the thickest of the fight.
Nor was George Lee backward; he first sought Virginia,
and finding her supported by the young soldier, he
caught up a weapon, and mingled in the battle with more
hearty good-will than he had for some days shown for
any operation in which he was called upon to join, except
that of eating. The valor and skill of the backwoodsmen
soon prevailed. It was impossible to withstand
their fury. Colonel Hendrickson seemed a new
man; he shouted until the woods resounded with his
battle-cry, and his friends, animated by the sound of his
voice, returned the yell, and pressed on with determined
vigor. They literally cried aloud and spared not. The
Indians sounded their terrific war-whoop; but that cry, so
dreadful to the white man, so full of thrilling horror to the
hearts of the borderers who have heard it in the lone hour

of night, breaking in upon the repose of the wilderness,
and ringing the death-knell of the mother and the infant,
was drowned in the louder shouts of the Kentucky warriors.
The first fire had reduced the savages to a number
less than that of the assailants, and they now stood
opposed to men who were their superiors in bodily
strength, their equals in courage, and in all the
arts of border warfare. Thus overmatched, they maintained
the fight for but a little while, when they began
to give back; the whites still pressed on, cutting them
down, with the most revengeful hostility, at every step.
The battle soon became a massacre, for the Kentuckians
not having lost a single man, the disparity of force was
becoming greater every moment; and those who had so
often witnessed the scenes of savage barbarity, or
mourned over the affecting consequences of that unsparing
warfare, now dealt their blows with unrelenting
animosity.

So long as the battle raged round the spot where Miss
Pendleton stood, Fennimore joined in it, supporting her
with his arm, and shielding her with his body, while he
performed a soldier's duty with his sword. But when the
Indians began to give way, he withdrew from the fight,
and gave his whole attention to his fair charge. Not so
Mr. George Lee; animated with a newly-awakened fury,
smeared with blood, and shouting like a madman, he
rushed forward among the foremost, beating down the
stoutest warriors with his war-club, and taking full satisfaction
for all the fright, the sufferings, and the hunger,
he had endured. While thus engaged, he saw the Indian
who had captured him, and had saved his life, struck

down, by a sturdy backwoodsman, who was aiming the
death-blow at his prostrate foe.

“Don't strike!” cried George, “that's a good fellow
—he treated me well—”

But he spoke to deaf ears; the tomahawk fell, and
the only Indian in whom he had seen anything to conciliate
his good-will, slept with the mangled dead.

“Bless me,” cried George, “what a bloody business!
They are all alike—Indians and Kentuckians—a blood-thirsty
set.”

Having uttered this moral reflection, he drew his gory
hand across his brow, to wipe off the big drops of
perspiration. The battle swept on past him, like a heavy
storm, which no human hand can stay, and his momentary
pause gave him time to look round. The ground
was strewed with the dead and dying; wherever he
turned his eye, it fell on distorted features, and gaping
wounds, from which the crimson current still flowed.
He stepped forward, and the blood gurgled under his foot-step.
Groans and convulsive breathings fell upon his
ear. His heart sickened at the scene of horror, and he
slowly retraced his steps to the camp-fire of the vanquished
Indians.

Colonel Hendrickson and young Colburn, who fought
side by side through the whole contest, were the last to
relinquish the pursuit. The veteran seemed to be animated
with a supernatural strength and activity, and to be
actuated by an inhuman ferocity. Wherever his blow
fell, it crushed; but his fury was unabated. Blood seemed
to whet his appetite for blood. As he struck down the
last enemy within his reach, he halted, and his eye

seemed to gloat upon the victims of his revenge. His
cheek was flushed, his nostrils distended, and his muscles
full of action—like those of a pawing war-horse. In a
moment, this excitement began to subside, and he exclaimed,
“God forgive my soul the sin of blood-guiltiness!”

Colburn looked at him with astonishment. The veteran
turned towards him, and said, “Young man, I have this
hour shown how frail are our best intentions. I was
once a soldier of some note. But when I became a
Christian, and felt the obligation to love all men, and
forgive my enemies, I determined to fight no more, except
in defence of my home or country. I even prayed
that I might have strength to forgive an injury which
had rankled in my bosom for years. You were too
young to remember my boy—my only son, who was
butchered in my presence by this very tribe. Dearly did
I revenge his death, and devoutly did I afterwards pray
that I might forgive it. For years have I disciplined my
feelings so severely, that I had thought the last spark of
hatred was extinguished, and that my last days would
glide away in charity with men, in peace with God.
When I stood a prisoner, bound to the stake, and expecting
a miserable death, I endeavored to subdue every
vindictive feeling. I prayed that I might die the death
of the righteous, and felt that peace which the world
cannot give nor take away. When it pleased God to
cut my bands asunder, it was my right and my duty to
defend the life which He spared, and the friends who
were dear to me. But no sooner did I raise my armed
hand, than all my former feelings of vengeance against

the race who had slain my child, were kindled up. Hatred,
long smothered, broke forth, with implacable fury,
and I tasted the sweets of revenge. It was a bad, a
wicked feeling. It is a dreadful, an unholy passion.
Take warning from me, my young friend; never let the
passion of revenge find a place in your bosom. It will
poison your best enjoyments, destroy your noblest feelings,
and make shipwreck of your purest hopes. God
preserve you from hating as I have hated, from suffering
as I have suffered!”