XXVII
GA-HA-NO'S SACRIFICE
There was no time to reload. We fought with ax and knife as best we could. Ta-wan-ne-ars and I, with half a dozen of our warriors, crowded back to back. The rest of our party were cut off in twos and threes.
Resistance was hopeless. The swarms of False Faces seemed to care nothing for death if only they could bring down an Iroquois. They eschewed steel altogether, and battered down opposition with their knotted war-clubs, which shattered arms and shoulder-blades, but seldom killed.
I was knocked senseless by a blow which I partially warded with my tomahawk. When I came to I was lying in the snow in front of a huge fire. My arms were bound and my head ached so violently that I felt sick.
"Is my brother in pain?" asked the voice of Ta-wan-ne-ars.
I rolled over to find him lying beside me, the blood from three or four trivial cuts freezing on his head and shoulders.
"Yes," I groaned, "but 'tis naught."
"There was treachery," he said. "They knew we were coming, and they lost many men so that they might take us alive."
"All our warriors——" I faltered.
He turned his head to the left; and, following his gaze, I saw that I was on the right of a line of recumbent figures, which my dizziness would not permit me to count.