University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Blood makes the taste for blood—we teach the
hound to hunt the victim, for whose entrails he acquires
an appetite. We acquire such tastes ourselves from
like indulgences. There is a sort of intoxicating
restlessness in crime that seldom suffers it to stop at
a solitary excess. It craves repetition—and the relish
so expands with indulgence, that exaggeration becomes
essential to make it a stimulant. Until we have
created this appetite, we sicken at its bare contemplation.
But once created, it is impatient of employ,
and it is wonderful to note its progress. Thus, the
young Nero wept when first called upon to sign the
warrant commanding the execution of a criminal. But
the ice once broken, he never suffered it to close
again. Murder was his companion—blood his banquet—his
chief stimulant licentiousness—horrible licentiousness.
He had found out a new luxury.

The philosophy which teaches this, is common to
experience all the world over. It was not unknown
to the Yemassees. Distrusting the strength of their

hostility to the English, the chief instigators of the
proposed insurrection, as we have seen, deemed it
necessary to appeal to this appetite, along with a
native superstition. Their battle-god called for a
victim, and the prophet promulgated the decree. A
chosen band of warriors were despatched to secure a
white man; and in subjecting him to the fire-torture,
the Yemassees were to feel the provocation of that
thirsting impulse which craves a continual renewal of
its stimulating indulgence. Perhaps one of the most
natural and necessary agents of man, in his progress
through life, is the desire to destroy. It is this which
subjects the enemy—it is this that prompts him to adventure—which
enables him to contend with danger,
and to flout at death—which carries him into the interminable
forests, and impels the ingenuity into exercise,
which furnishes him with a weapon to contend
with its savage possessors. It is not surprising, if,
prompted by dangerous influences, in our ignorance,
we pamper this natural agent into a disease, which
preys at length upon ourselves.

The party despatched for this victim had been successful.
The peculiar cry was heard indicating their
success; and as it rung through the wide area, the
crowd gave way and parted for the new comers, who
were hailed with a degree of satisfaction, extravagant
enough, unless we consider the importance generally
attached to their enterprise. On their procuring this
victim alive, depended their hope of victory in the
approaching conflict. Such was the prediction of the
prophet—such the decree of their god of war—and
for the due celebration of this terrible sacrifice, the
preparatory ceremonies had been delayed.

They were delayed no longer. With shrill cries
and the most savage contortions, not to say convulsions
of body, the assembled multitude hailed the entrée of
the detachment sent forth upon this expedition. They
had been eminently successful; having taken their
captive, without themselves losing a drop of blood.
Upon this, the prediction had founded their success.

Not so the prisoner. Though unarmed he had fought
desperately, and his enemies were compelled to wound
in order to secure him. He was only overcome by
numbers, and the sheer physical weight of their
crowding bodies.

They dragged him into the ring, the war-dance all
the time going on around him. From the copse, close
at hand, in which he lay concealed, Harrison could
distinguish, at intervals, the features of the captive.
He knew him at a glance, as a poor labourer, named
Macnamara, an Irishman, who had gone jobbing
about, in various ways, throughout the settlement. He
was a fine-looking, fresh, muscular man—not more
than thirty—and sustaining well, amid that fierce
assemblage, surrounded with foes, and threatened with
a torture to which European ingenuity could not often
attain, unless in the Inquisitoral dungeons, the fearless
character which is a distinguishing feature with his
countrymen. His long, black hair, deeply saturated
and matted with his blood, which oozed out from
sundry bludgeon-wounds upon the head, was wildly
distributed in masses over his face and forehead. His
full, round cheeks, were marked by knife-wounds,
also the result of his fierce defence against his captors.
His hands were bound, but his tongue was unfettered;
and as they danced and howled about him, his eye
gleamed forth in fury and derision, while his words
were those of defiance and contempt.

“Ay—screech and scream, ye red divils—ye'd be
after seeing how a gintleman would burn in the fire,
would ye, for your idification and delight. But its not
Tedd Macnamara, that your fires and your arrows will
scare, ye divils; so begin, boys, as soon as ye've a
mind to, and don't be too dilicate in your doings.”

He spoke a language, so far as they understood it,
perfectly congenial with their notion of what should become
a warrior. His fearless contempt of death, his
haughty defiance of their skill in the arts of torture—
his insolent abuse—were all so much in his favour.
They were proofs of the true brave, and they found,

under the bias of their habits and education, an added
pleasure in the belief, that he would stand well the torture,
and afford them a protracted enjoyment of it.
His execrations, poured forth freely as they forced him
into the area, were equivalent to one of their own
death-songs, and they regarded it as his.

He was not so easily compelled in the required direction.
Unable in any other way to oppose them, he
gave them as much trouble as he could, and in no way
sought to promote his locomotion. This was good
policy, perhaps, for this passive resistance—the most
annoying of all its forms,—was not unlikely to bring
about an impatient blow, which might save him from
the torture. In another case, such might have been
the result of the course taken by Macnamara; but
now, the prophecy was the object, and though roughly
handled enough, his captors yet forbore any excessive
violence. Under a shower of kicks, cuffs, and blows
from every quarter, the poor fellow, still cursing them
to the last, hissing at and spitting upon them, was
forced to a tree; and in a few moments tightly lashed
back against it. A thick cord secured him around the
body to its overgrown trunk, while his hands, forced
up in a direct line above his head, were fastened to
the tree with withes—the two palms turned outwards,
nearly meeting, and so well corded as to be perfectly
immovable.

A cold chill ran through all the veins of Harrison,
and he grasped his knife with a clutch as tenacious as
that of his fast-clinched teeth, while he looked, from his
place of concealment, upon these dreadful preparations
for the Indian torture. The captive was seemingly less
sensible of its terrors. All the while, with a tongue
that seemed determined to supply, so far as it might,
the forced inactivity of all other members, he shouted
forth his scorn and execrations.

“The pale-face will sing his death-song,”—in his
own language cried a young warrior.

“Ay, ye miserable red nagers,—ye don't frighten
Tedd Macnamara now so aisily,” he replied, though

without comprehending what they said, yet complying
as it were with their demand; for his shout was now
a scream, and his words were those of exulting superiority.

“It aint your bows and your arrows, ye nagers,
nor your knives, nor your hatchets, that's going to
make Teddy beg your pardon, and ax for your marcies.
I don't care for your knives, and your hatchets, at all
at all, ye red divils. Not I—by my faith, and my own
ould father, that was Teddy before me.”

They took him at his word, and their preparations
were soon made for the torture. A hundred torches
of the gummy pine were placed to kindle in a neighbouring
fire—a hundred old women stood ready to
employ them. These were to be applied as a sort of
cautery, to the arrow and knife-wounds which the
more youthful savages were expected, in their sports,
to inflict. It was upon their captives in this manner,
that the youth of the nation was practised. It was in
this school that the boys were prepared to become
men—to inflict pain as well as to submit to it. To
these two classes,—for this was one of the peculiar
features of the Indian torture,—the fire-sacrifice, in its
initial penalties, was commonly assigned; and both of
them were ready at hand to commence it. How beat
the heart of Harrison with conflicting emotions, in the
shelter of the adjacent bush, as he surveyed each step
in the prosecution of these horrors.

They began. A dozen youth, none over sixteen,
came forward and ranged themselves in front of the
prisoner.

“And what for do ye face me down after that sort,
ye little red negers?” cried the sanguine prisoner.

They answered him with a whoop—a single shriek
—and the face paled then, with that mimicry of war, of
the man, who had been fearless throughout the real strife,
and amid the many terrors which preceded it. The
whoop was followed by a simultaneous discharge of all
their arrows, aimed, as would appear from the result,
only at those portions of his person which were not vital.

This was the common exercise, and their adroitness
was wonderful. They placed the shaft where they
pleased. Thus, the arrow of one penetrated one
palm, while that of another, almost at the same instant,
was driven deep into the other. One cheek was
grazed by a third, while a fourth scarified the opposite.
A blunted shaft struck him full in the mouth, and
arrested, in the middle his usual execration—“You
bloody red nagers,” and there never were fingers of a
hand so evenly separated one from the other, as those
of Macnamara, by the admirably-aimed arrows of
those embryo warriors. But the endurance of the
captive was proof against all their torture; and while
every member of his person attested the felicity of
their aim, he still continued to shout his abuse, not
only to his immediate assailants, but to the old warriors,
and the assembled multitude, gathering around,
and looking composedly on—now approving this or
that peculiar hit, and encouraging the young beginner
with a cheer. He stood all, with the most unflinching
fortitude, and a courage that, extorting their freest admiration,
was quite as much the subject of cheer with
the warriors as were the arrow-shots which sometimes
provoked its exhibition.

At length, throwing aside the one instrument, they
came forward with the tomahawk. They were far
more cautious with this fatal weapon, for, as their
present object was not less the prolonging of their
own exercises than of the prisoner's tortures, it was
their wish to avoid wounding fatally or even severely.
Their chief delight was in stinging the captive into
an exhibition of imbecile and fruitless anger, or terrifying
him into ludicrous apprehensions. They had no
hope of the latter source of amusement from the firmness
of the victim before them; and to rouse his impotent
rage, was the study in their thought.

With words of mutual encouragement, and boasting,
garrulously enough, each of his superior skill, they
strove to rival one another in the nicety of their aim
and execution. The chief object was barely to miss

the part at which they aimed. One planted the tomahawk
in the tree so directly over the head of his captive,
as to divide the huge tuft of hair which grew massively
in that quarter; and great was their exultation and
loud their laughter, when the head thus jeoparded, very
naturally, under the momentary impulse, was writhed
about from the stroke, just at the moment when another,
aimed to lie on one side of his cheek, clove the ear
which it would have barely escaped had the captive
continued immoveable. Bleeding and suffering as he
must have been with such infliction, not a solitary groan
however escaped him. The stout-hearted Irishman
continued to defy and to denounce his tormentors in
language which, if only partially comprehended by his
enemies, was yet illustrated with sufficient animation
by the fierce light gleaming from his eye with a blaze
like that of madness, and in the unblenching firmness
of his cheek.

“And what for do ye howl, ye red-skinned divils, as
if ye never seed a jontleman in your born days before?
Be aisy, now, and shoot away with your piinted sticks,
ye nagers,—shoot away and be cursed to ye; sure it
isn't Tedd Macnamara that's afeard of what ye can do,
ye divils. If it's the fun ye're after now, honeys,—the
sport that's something like—why, put your knife over
this thong, and help this dilicate little fist to one of the
bit shilalahs yonder. Do now, pretty crathers, do—
and see what fun will come out of it. Ye'll not be
after loving it at all at all, I'm a thinking, ye monkeys,
and ye alligators, and ye red nagers, and them's the
best names for ye, ye ragamuffin divils that ye are.”

There was little intermission in his abuse. It kept
due pace with their tortures, which, all this time, continued.
The tomahawks gathered around him on every
side; and each close approximation of the instrument
only called from him a newer sort of curse. Harrison
admired, with a sympathy in favour of such indomitable
nerve, which more than once prompted him to rush forth
desperately in his behalf. But the madness of such a
movement was too obvious, and the game proceeded
without interruption.

It happened, however, as it would seem in compliance
with a part of one of his demands, that one of the
tomahawks, thrown so as to rest betwixt the two uplifted
palms of the captive, fell short, and striking the
hide, a few inches below, which fastened his wrists to
the tree, entirely separated it, and gave freedom to his
arms. Though still incapable of any effort for his
release, as the thongs tightly girdled his body, and
were connected on the other side of the tree, the fearless
sufferer, with his emancipated fingers, proceeded
to pluck from his hands, amid a shower of darts, the
arrows which had penetrated them deeply. These,
with a shout of defiance, he hurled back towards his
assailants, they answering in similar style with another
shout and a new discharge of arrows, which penetrated
his person in every direction, inflicting the greatest
pain, though carefully avoiding any vital region. And
now, as if impatient of their forbearance, the boys were
made to give way, and each armed with her hissing
and resinous torch, the old women approached, howling
and dancing, with shrill voices and an action of body
frightfully demoniac. One after another they rushed
up to the prisoner, and with fiendish fervour, thrust the
blazing torches to his shrinking body, wherever a knife,
an arrow, or a tomahawk had left a wound. The torture
of this infliction greatly exceeded all to which he
had been previously subjected; and with a howl, the
unavoidable acknowledgment forced from nature by the
extremity of pain, scarcely less horrible than that which
they unitedly sent up around him, the captive dashed
out his hands, and grasping one of the most forward
among his unsexed tormentors, he firmly held her with
one hand, while with the other he possessed himself
of the blazing torch she bore. Hurling her backward,
in the next moment, among the crowd of his enemies,
with a resolution from despair, he applied the torch to
the thongs which bound him to the tree, and while his
garments shrivelled and flamed, and while the flesh
blistered and burned with the terrible application, resolute
as desperate, he maintained it on the spot, until the
withes crackled, blazed, and separated.

His limbs were free—a convulsion of joy actually
rushed through his heart, and he shouted with a new
tone, the result of a new and unimagined sensation.
He leaped forward, and though the flames grasped and
gathered in a thick volume, rushing from his waist to
his extremities, completely enveloping him in their
embrace, they offered no obstacle to the fresh impulse
which possessed him. He bounded onward, with that
over-head-and-heel evolution which is called the somerset,
and which carried him, a broad column of
fire, into the very thickest of the crowd. They gave
way to him on every side—they shrunk from that living
flame, which mingled the power of the imperial element
with the will of its superior, man. Panic-stricken
for a few moments at the novel spectacle, they shrunk
away on either hand before the blazing body, and offered
no obstacle to his flight.

But the old warriors now took up the matter. They
had suffered the game to go on as was their usage, for
the tutoring of the youthful savage in those arts which
are to be the employment of his life. But their own
appetite now gave them speed, and they soon gathered
upon the heels of the fugitive. Fortunately, he was
still vigorous, and his hurts were those only of the
flesh. His tortures only stimulated him into a daring
disregard of any fate which might follow, and, looking
once over his shoulder, and with a halloo not unlike
their own whoop, Macnamara bounded forward directly
upon the coppice which concealed Harrison. The
latter saw his danger from this approach, but it was
too late to retreat. He drew his knife and kept close
to the cover of the fallen tree alongside of which he
had laid himself down. Had the flying Macnamara
seen this tree so as to have avoided it, Harrison might
still have maintained his concealment. But the fugitive,
unhappily, looked out for no such obstruction. He
thought only of flight, and his legs were exercised at
the expense of his eyes. A long-extended branch,
shooting from the tree, interposed, and he saw it not.
His feet were suddenly entangled, and he fell between

the arm and the trunk of the tree. Before he could
rise or recover, his pursuers were upon him. He had
half gained his feet, and one of his hands, in promoting
this object, rested upon the tree itself, on the opposite
side of which Harrison lay quiet, while the head of
Macnamara was just rising above it. At that moment
a tall chief of the Seratees, with a huge club, dashed
the now visible scull down upon the trunk. The blow
was fatal—the victim uttered not even a groan, and
the spattering brains were driven wide, and into the
upturned face of Harrison.

There was no more concealment for him after that,
and starting to his feet, in another moment his knife
was thrust deep into the bosom of the astonished Seratee
before he had resumed the swing of his ponderous
weapon. The Indian sunk back, with a single
cry, upon those who followed him—half paralyzed,
with himself, at the new enemy whom they had conjured
up. But their panic was momentary, and the
next instant saw fifty of them crowding upon the Englishman.
He placed himself against a tree, hopeless,
but determined to struggle to the last. But he was
surrounded in a moment—his arms pinioned from behind,
and knives from all quarters glittering around
him, and aiming at his breast. What might have been
his fate under the excitement of the scene and circumstances
could well be said; for, already, the brother
chief of the Seratee had rushed forward with his uplifted
mace, and as he had the distinct claim to revenge,
there was no interference. Fortunately, however,
for the captive, the blow was stricken aside and
intercepted by the huge staff of no less a person than
the prophet.

“He is mine—the ghost of Chaharattee, my brother,
is waiting for that of his murderer. I must hang
his teeth on my neck,” was the fierce cry, in his own
language, of the surviving Seratee, when his blow was
thus arrested. But the prophet had his answer in a
sense not to be withstood by the superstitious savage.

“Does the prophet speak for himself or for Manneyto?

Is Manneyto a woman that we may say,
Wherefore thy word to the prophet? Has not Manneyto
spoken, and will not the chief obey? Lo! this
is our victim, and the words of Manneyto are truth.
He hath said one victim—one English for the sacrifice,—and
but one before we sing the battle-song—
before we go on the war-path of our enemies. Is not
his word truth? This blood says it is truth. We
may not slay another, but on the red trail of the English.
The knife must be drawn and the tomahawk
lifted on the ground of the enemy, but the land of
Manneyto is holy, save for his sacrifice. Thou must
not strike the captive. He is captive to the Yemassee.”

“He is the captive to the brown lynx of Seratee—
is he not under his club?” was the fierce reply.

“Will the Seratee stand up against Manneyto?
Hear! That is his voice of thunder, and see, the eye
which he sends forth in the lightning!”

Thus confirmed in his words by the solemn auguries
to which he referred, and which, just at that moment
came, as if in fulfilment and support of his decision,
the Seratee obeyed, while all around grew silent
and serious. But he insisted that, though compelled
to forbear his blood, he was at least his captive. This,
too, the prophet denied. The prisoner was made such
upon the sacred ground of the Yemassees, and was,
therefore, doubly their captive. He was reserved for
sacrifice to the Manneyto at the conclusion of their
present enterprise, when his doom would add to the
solemnity of their thanksgiving for the anticipated
victory.