moment, became only the
more irritated, and returned with vigor and wonderful pertinacity to the
attack,--beginning to sting the poor animal furiously in all the tender
parts. They assailed the wretched master in his turn, darting their
venomed barbs into his face and hands, and driving him nearly frantic.
The horse plunged furiously, and Jack Diver, losing his stirrups and his
presence of mind together, twisted his hands into the horse's mane, to
keep his seat, letting the reins fall on his neck. At last, with a rear
and a bound into the air, the maddened animal darted off at a gallop;
but the faster he went, the closer stuck the persevering wasps. Jack
Diver shut his eyes, screaming with fear and pain. Then the Carib chief
rose up, and again the hawk-like scream echoed along the valley. The
turn is to be made--can the horse recover himself? Yes, maddened as he
is, he sees the danger instinctively. His speed slackens--he throws
himself on his haunches, with his fore feet on the very brink of the
precipice. One more chance! The blind, infatuated man remains on his
back. Again the horse feels the stings of his deadly persecutors; again
he plunges forward, striving to turn quickly round the corner. Round,
and he is in comparative safety. On a sudden, from behind a buttress of
projecting rock, there start across the path three dusky forms,
flinging their hands wildly in the air. Then was heard that rare and
awful sound, the shriek of a horse in the fear of a certain and coming
death; when swerving one side, he lost his footing on the slippery
shelf, and struggling madly, but unsuccessfully, to recover it, he fell
over and over--down--down--a thousand feet down! From the sailor's lips
there came no cry.

[Illustration: GEN. COFFEE'S ATTACK ON THE INDIANS.]

MASSACRE OF FORT MIMMS.

On the 30th of August, 1813, Fort Mimms, which contained one hundred and
fifty men, under the command of Major Beasely, besides a number of women
and children, was surprised by a party of Indians. The houses were set
on fire, and those who escaped the flames fell victims to the tomahawk.
Neither age nor sex was spared; and the most horrible cruelties, of
which the imagination can conceive, were perpetrated. Out of the three
hundred persons which the fort contained, only seventeen escaped to
carry the dreadful intelligence to the neighboring stations.

This sanguinary and unprovoked massacre excited universal horror, and
the desire of rev