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Page 42
"Whensomever I mention the name o' Simon Girty," replied Younker, in a
deliberate and startlingly solemn tone, "I al'ays call down God's curse
upon the fiendish renegade--and I do so now."
"By ----! old man," cried Girty, casting Ella roughly from him, and
starting upright, the perfect picture of a fiend in human shape;
"another word, and your brains shall be scattered to the four winds of
heaven!"
As he spoke, he brandished his tomahawk over the other's head; while the
child, before noticed, uttered a wild scream, and sprung to Mrs.
Younker, at whose side she crouched in absolute terror.
"Strike!" answered Younker, mildly, with an unchanged countenance, his
eye resting steadily upon the other, who could not meet his gaze in the
same manner. "Strike! Simon Girty; for I'm a man that's never feared
death, and don't now; besides, I reiterate all I've said, and with my
dying breath pray God to curse ye!"
"Not yet!" rejoined Girty, smothering his rage, as he replaced his
weapon. "Not yet, Ben Younker; for you take death too easy; and by ----!
I'll make it have terrors for you! But what child is this?" continued
he, grasping the little girl fiercely by the arm, causing her to utter a
cry of pain and fear. "By heavens! what do we with squalling children?
Here, Oshasqua, I give her in your charge; and if she yelp again, brain
her, by ----!" and he closed with an oath.
The Indian whom we have previously noticed as the sentinel, stepped
forward, with a demoniac gleam of satisfaction on his ugly countenance,
and taking the child by the hand, led her away some ten paces, where he
amused himself by stripping her of such apparel as he fancied might
ornament his own person; while she, poor little thing, afraid to cry
aloud, could only sob forth the bitterness of her heart.
Meantime Girty turning to Ella, and finding her gradually recovering,
assisted her to rise; and then motioning the chief aside, he held a
short consultation with him, in the Indian dialect, regarding their next
proceedings, and the disposal of the prisoners.
"Were it not, Peshewa, for his own base words," said the renegade, in
reply to some remark of his Indian ally, "I would have spared him; but
now," and his features exhibited a concentrated expression of infernal
hate and revenge; "but now, Peshewa, he dies! with all the horrors of
the stake, that you, a noble master of the art of torture, can invent
and inflict. The Long Knife[6] must not curse the red man's friend in
his own camp and go unpunished. I commend him to your mercy,
Peshewa--ha, ha, ha!" and he ended with a hoarse, fiend-like laugh.
"Ugh!" returned Wild-cat, giving a gutteral grunt of satisfaction,
although not a muscle of his rigid features moved, and, save a peculiar
gleam of his dark eye, nothing to show that he felt uncommon interest
in the sentence of Younker: "Peshewa a chief! The Great Spirit give him
memory--the Great Spirit give him invention. He will remember what he
has done to prisoners at the stake,--he can invent new tortures. But
the squaw?"
"Ay, the squaw!" answered the renegade, musingly; "the old man's
wife--she must be disposed of also. Ha! a thought strikes me, Peshewa:
You have no wife--(the savage gave a grunt)--suppose you take her?"
Peshewa started, and his eyes flashed fire, as he said, with great
energy: "Does the wolf mate with his hunter, that you ask a chief of the
Great Spirit's red children to mate with their white destroyer?"
"Then do with her what you ---- please," rejoined Girty, throwing in an
oath. "I was only jesting, Peshewa. But come, we must be on the move!
for this last job will not be long a secret; and then we shall have the
Long Knives after us as hot as h----l. We must divide our party. I will
take with me these last prisoners and six warriors, and you the others.
A quarter of a mile below here we will separate and break our trail
in the stream; you and your party by going up a piece--I and mine by
going down. This will perplex them, and give us time. Make your trail
conspicuous, Peshewa, and I will be careful to leave none whatever, if I
can help it; for, by ----! I must be sure to escape with my prisoners.
If you are close pressed, you can brain and scalp yours; but for some
important reasons, I want mine to live. We will meet, my noble Peshewa,
at the first bend of the Big Miama."
The Indian heard him through, without moving a muscle of his seemingly
blank features, and then answered, a little haughtily:
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