Among the rest, two men passed them; both were white and one was pursuing the other with desperate fury. One faltered and fell as he passed her, staggering to his knees as the other came up.
“Brother—brother! In the name of her who bore us, do not kill me!” shrieked the wretched man, looking with horror on the uplifted tomahawk. “I will be your slave—anything, everything, but do not kill me, brother!”
“Infernal traitor!”
The words hissed through his clenched teeth; the tomahawk whirled in the air, and came down with a dull crash! The fratricide fled onward—a brother’s life had not satiated him.
Mary turned sick with horror.
“On, grandmother, on!” she called; “they will kill her, too, our sister!”
Jane saw them coming, sprang to her sister’s arms, and began to plead in a voice of almost insane agony.
“Oh, Mary, let us go back and try to find him; we may as well all die together—for they will murder us!”
Tahmeroo parted them abruptly, and springing into the water, waded to a log which lay imbedded among the rushes, and rolled it into the current. It was scarcely afloat when a party of Indians came in sight, and, with a fierce whoop, rushed towards the little group. Tahmeroo sprang back upon the bank, pointing to the log.
“See, it floats! Fling yourself upon it—I will keep them back!”