an attack from without. One and
twenty stalwart savages were dangerous inmates at large, with the
freedom of the parade as they had had much of the time. They resisted;
one of the soldiers was killed in the effort to shackle them, for arms
appeared among them, evidently brought and secreted by their friends who
had been permitted to visit them, much leniency having been accorded
them, being hostages and not themselves criminals. Another soldier was
wounded in the head with a tomahawk. Upon the death of their comrade,
and the announcement that the commandant was dying, the garrison was
seized with an uncontrollable frenzy, fell upon the hostages, and within
five minutes had slaughtered the last man of them.

"I know you will feel for me," Milne wrote. "I dared scarce reprimand
the men, for they were full of fury. I see here and there signs of
sullenness. They watch me--their way of showing regret. I can scarcely
blame--yet the Cherokees were hostages and I am sorry; I was much alone,
with the temper of the soldiers to consider. Coytmore dead, and Bell
gone into a delirium with the fever--his wound bled very little--the
ball is near the bone. Doharty had been ill of a pleurisy and seems to
relapse. On the night after, I sat for a time in the block-house where
we had laid the commandant, feeling very low in my mind. There is one of
the men a bit of a joiner, and a great billet of the red cedar, used in
building the fort, being left over, he made a decent coffin, the wood
working easily and with a fine grain and gloss. I could hear as I sat
there the tapping of his mallet and chisel as he worked on the coffin,
while Coytmore lay with the flag over him, his sword and hat by his
side--there was no fire, because of him, and only a candle at his head,
or I think the savages would have seen the light. But the work being
finished and everything still, they supposed all asleep. I cannot think
why they did not smell the blood--for the ground of the room where the
hostages lay reeked of it. Twenty-one!--I could not think how I could
bury them inside the fort and I dared not send out a detail, nor do I
think the men would obey--the barracks seemed steeped in the smell,
though none there. Of a sudden, the night being fine and chill as I sat
there with Coytmore, a sentry outside the door, I heard a great voice
like a wind rushing. I thought I had been sleeping. And again I heard
it--words in Cherokee. _O-se-skinnea co-tan-co-nee!_ I sl