and no tribe dares to kill a captive
during the days consecrated to this solemn ceremony. But after the feast
I was bound down on the ground before the sacred totem pillars, and all
the maidens and warriors of the Creek nation danced around me, chanting
songs of triumph. Again I sang my song of death.

"'I do not fear your torments! For I am brave! I defy you, for you are
all weaker than women. My father, Outalissi, has drunk from the skulls
of your bravest warriors. Burn me! Torture me! But you will not make me
groan; you will not make me sigh.'

"Angered by my song, a Creek warrior stabbed me in the arm. 'Thank you,'
I said.

"To make sure that I should not again escape, they bound cords around my
neck and feet and arms; the ends of these cords were fastened in the
earth by means of pegs, and a band of warriors set to watch over me laid
down on the cords, so that I could not make a single movement of which
they were not aware. The songs and dances gradually ceased as night came
on, and the camp fires burnt low and red, and, in spite of my pain, I,
too, fell asleep. I dreamt that someone was setting me free, and I
seemed to feel that sharp anguish which shoots along the nerves when
ropes, which are bound so tightly as to stop the flow of blood, are
suddenly cut from the numbed limbs. The pain became so keen that it made
me open my eyes. A tall, white figure was bending over me, silently
cutting my cords. It was Atala. I rose up and followed her through the
sleeping camp.

"When we were out of ear-shot she told me that she had bribed the
medicine man of her tribe, and brought some barrels of fire-water into
the camp and made all the warriors drunk with it. Drunkenness, no doubt,
prevented the Creeks from following us for a day or two. And if
afterwards they pursued us, they probably turned to the west, thinking
that we had set out in the direction of the country of Natchez. But we
had gone north, tracking our way by the moss growing on the trunks of
the trees."

_II.--The Magic of the Forest_

"The Creeks had stripped me almost naked, but Atala made me a dress out
of the inner bark of the ash-tree and sewed some rat-skins into
moccasins. I, in turn, wove garlands of flowers for her head as we
tramped along through the great forests of Florida. Oh, how wildly
beautiful the scenes were through which we passed. Nearly all the trees
in Florida are covered with a white moss which hangs from their branches
to the gr