“That is it. Let them kill the fellow at the stake!” cried the old Tory in glee. “I’ll go and watch the flames as they curl around him. Ah! it will be a great sight to see him sizzle and burn.”
“He deserves the fate,” the younger Tory said angrily. “Let the savages have him, I say.”
The British commander, naturally more humane than his Tory friends, appeared to be shocked by the cruel proposal. He hesitated to give an order which would send the lad to the stake; but finally said:
“Let him go with the other prisoners now. I will decide later what is to be done with him.”
On the next morning when the young scout, unmindful of the terrible fate which might be his, declared that the banner floating over the fort was the flag of a new nation, the officer in his wrath sent for the men who had made the capture, and turned the lad over to them.
“He is your prisoner. Do what you please with him,” he said.
Therefore back to the Indian encampment Late was taken, and a day or two after a council was summoned to decide his fate. The terrible slaughter of the savages during the battle of Oriskany, and the fact that the captive had been found in the vicinity of that place, may have had something to do with the sentence imposed. He was condemned to the stake.
Just before sunset, surrounded by a score of braves, he was taken across the river and tied to a small tree, whose branches had been trimmed away for that purpose. Around him the fagots were piled, and the death dance was begun.
Pale, but unflinching, the heroic lad watched the grotesque dancing, at the ending of which he knew the flames would be kindled. It was not the form of death he would have chosen, but, after all, it would soon be over, and what difference did it make? He had long since given his life to the Cause, and if this was the method by which the sacrifice was to be made, he would die like a man.
The dance was at an end, and two of the savages, taking brands from a fire which had been kindled near-by, came toward the helpless boy. In another instant they would have kindled the wood about him; but at the critical moment a great shout was raised, and some one, darting out from the thicket, dashed across the little clearing to push aside both braves with one sweep of his strong arms.