ers were at the highest: and so sudden was the attack, so
instantaneous the change from freedom to captivity, so like the juggling
transition of a dream the whole catastrophe, that Forrester, although
overthrown and bleeding from two several wounds received at the first
fire, and wholly in the power of his enemies, who flourished their knives
and axes in his face, yelling with exultation, could scarce appreciate
his situation, or understand what dreadful misadventure had happened,
until his eye, wandering among the dusky arms that grappled him, fell
first upon the body of the negro Emperor, hard by, gored by numberless
wounds, and trampled by the feet of his slayers, and then upon the
apparition, a thousand times more dismal to his eyes, of his kinswoman
snatched from her horse and struggling in the arms of her savage captors.
The frenzy with which he was seized at this lamentable sight endowed him
with a giant's strength; but it was exerted in vain to free himself from
his enemies, all of whom seemed to experience a barbarous delight at his
struggles, some encouraging him, with loud laughter and in broken
English, to continue them, while others taunted and scolded at him more
like shrewish squaws than valiant warriors, assuring him that they were
great Shawnee fighting-men, and he a little Long-knife dog, entirely
beneath their notice: which expressions, though at variance with all his
preconceived notions of the stern gravity of the Indian character, and
rather indicative of a roughly jocose than a darkly ferocious spirit, did
not prevent their taking the surest means to quiet his exertions and
secure their prize, by tying his hands behind him with a thong of buffalo
hide, drawn so tight as to inflict the most excruciating pain. But pain
of body was then, and for many moments after, lost in agony of mind,
which could he conceived only by him who, like the young soldier, has
been doomed, once in his life, to see a tender female, the nearest and
dearest object of his affections, in the hands of enemies, the most
heartless, merciless, and brutal of all the races of men. He saw her pale
visage convulsed with terror and despair,--he beheld her arms stretched
towards him, as if beseeching the help he no longer had the power to
render,--and expected every instant the fall of the hatchet, or the
flash of the knife, that was to pour her blood upon the earth before him.
He would have called upon the wretches around for pity, but h