though, Heaven be
praised, not a drop of nigger or Injin blood runs in _my_ veins,"
resumed the corporal. "Harken, friend redskin, answer me one thing.
Did you ever hear of such a man as Mad Anthony? He was the tickler for
your infernal tribes! You pulled no saplings together for him. He put
you up with 'the long-knives and leather-stockings,' and you outrun his
fleetest horses. I was with him, and saw more naked backs than naked
faces among your people, that day. Your Great Bear got a rap on his
nose that sent him to his village yelping like a cur."

Again was the corporal compelled to stop to take breath. The allusion
to Wayne, and his defeat of the Indians, excited so much ire, that
several hands grasped knives and tomahawks, and one arrow was actually
drawn nearly to the head; but the frown of Bear's Meat prevented any
outbreak, or actual violence. It was deemed prudent, however, to put
an end to this scene, lest the straightforward corporal, who laid it on
heavily, and who had so much to say about Indian defeats, might
actually succeed in touching some festering wound that would bring him
to his death at once. It was, accordingly, determined to proceed with
the torture of the saplings without further delay.

The corporal was removed accordingly, and placed between the two bended
trees, which were kept together by withes around their tops. An arm of
the captive was bound tightly at the wrist to the top of each tree, so
that his limbs were to act as the only tie between the saplings, as
soon as the withes should be cut. The Indians now worked in silence,
and the matter was getting to be much too serious for the corporal to
indulge in any more words. The cold sweat returned, and many an
anxious glance was cast by the veteran on the fell preparations. Still
he maintained appearances, and when all was ready, not a man there was
aware of the agony of dread which prevailed in the breast of the
victim. It was not death that he feared as much as suffering. A few
minutes, the corporal well knew, would make the pain intolerable, while
he saw no hope of putting a speedy end to his existence. A man might
live hours in such a situation. Then it was that the teachings of
childhood were revived in the bosom of this hardened man, and he
remembered the Being that died for _him_, in common with the rest of
the human race, on the tree. The seeming similarity of his own
execution struck his imagination, and brought a