The tortures were renewed—the fire drawn still a little closer, and to make the horror more intense, the swollen, blistered feet were scarified with the point of a sharp knife and the blood and water spurted forth and hissed upon the glowing coals.
"Will the pale-face tell?"
"I can not—can not, more than I have already done."
He felt as if he would instantly expire. Yet his professional knowledge told him such would not be the case—that human nature could endure such suffering, severe though it was, for hours. And as the old fiend bent over him, with looks of hatred and ferocity lighting up his dark features, he registered the most solemn oath that ever was formed within a human soul, that if he should survive and gain his freedom he would rival him in revenge.
But when to the tortures of fire was added the equally terrible one of water falling drop by drop upon his head, he felt that his agony was fast becoming too great for endurance—every fiber of his frame shuddered, and he knew that he was rapidly becoming insane.
Then he would have bartered every particle of knowledge he possessed for a respite from pain, no matter how brief, and did all that was in his power to tell his tormentor what he was so anxious to know. But it was without avail. The fire still raged, and blistered, and burned—the skin was beginning to crumble away, shriveling up like parchment and gaping cracks appearing in the flesh!
Even the Medicine saw that it would not do to carry it further, and kicking aside the brands he drew some ointment from his pouch, dressed the horribly-burned feet, and with the very refinement of cruelty, said:
"To-morrow all the fire will be removed, and the sores begin to heal, for this salve is famous among the red-men. Then I will come and burn again!"
The poor white man fancied, and a prayer of thankfulness went upward from his heart at the thought, that his torture for the time was ended. But it was not so. It was to be continued in a different manner—one equally difficult to bear, though bringing with it little danger.
Tearing the garments from about his body and as far as he could well do from his limbs, the demon in human shape produced a bag of nettles and began rubbing the exposed flesh, leaving such a fierce, fiery, stinging sensation that even more than fire tended to drive the victim mad.