is errand, looked at each other
in amazement, and fell into bursts of laughter.

Had their sense of triumph been such as to find joy in reprisal they
might have relished the fact that the anxieties, the secret fear, the
turmoil of doubt, which Oconostota had occasioned to them, were returned
to him in plenitude on his arrival in Charlestown. Governor Lyttleton
had not yet set out, but the military forces summoned forth were
already entered upon their long and toilsome march from various distant
districts to the appointed rendezvous at Congaree, and thither the
commander of the expedition felt that he must needs forthwith repair to
meet them. "I did not invite you to come here," he said to Oconostota,
and despite the remonstrance of the delegation, and doubtless thinking
he could treat with the savages to more effect at the head of an armed
force invading their country, he postponed hearing their "talk" till he
should have joined his little army, but offered them safe-conduct in
accompanying his march. "Not a hair of your head shall be touched," he
declared.

Returning thus, however, almost in the humiliated guise of prisoners, in
fact under a strong guard, accompanying a military force that was
invading Cherokee soil, comported little indeed with Oconostota's pride
and his sense of the yet unbroken power of his nation. The coercions of
this virtual captivity extended to the stipulations of the treaty
presently formulated. While ratifying previous pledges on the part of
the Indians to renounce the French interest, and providing for the
renewal to them of the privileges of trade, this treaty required of them
the surrender of the murderers concerned in the massacres along the
frontier; pending the delivery of these miscreants to the commandant at
Fort Prince George, and as a guarantee of the full and faithful
performance of this compact, the terms dictated the detention at the
fort, as hostages, of twenty-two of the Cherokee delegation now
present.[10]

Oconostota himself was numbered among the hostages to be detained at
Fort Prince George until the surrender of the Cherokee murderers, but
the representations of Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who was at liberty, compassed
the king's release, urging his influence with his nation and the value
of his counsels in the British interest for the restoration of peace.
The little band of Cherokees, helpless among overwhelming numbers, was
hardly in a position to openly withstand these severe