Forest Glen; or, The Mohawk's Friendship

by Elijah Kellogg

CHAPTER XXIII. THE QUAKER'S APPEAL TO THE DELAWARES.

Honeywood and Rangely, maintaining their ground while their comrades retreated, were thus left alone; and, being surrounded by savages, Rangely was killed, and Honeywood, wounded severely in the breast, was taken prisoner.

The Delawares knew Honeywood well: among them were some of those who were present when he shot the savage who held Sam Sumerford in his arms, without hurting the boy. They immediately painted his face black, thus signifying that he was to be reserved for torture. Greatly elated with their prize, they treated him with the utmost kindness, and carried him the greater part of the way to a Delaware camping-ground on a litter. Upon arriving at their place of destination, they exerted all their skill to heal his wounds, and restore his strength, in order that he might be able longer to endure the tortures they intended to inflict upon so brave a man and dreaded enemy.

The victim was too well acquainted with Indian customs and character to be ignorant of the designs of his captors; but hope lingers long in the human breast, and he was not without some slight expectation that his friend Wasaweela might be able to help him. He was not aware that the generous Mohawk had fallen (soon after he gave the warning to the settlers at the Run) in a battle with the southern Indians who had trespassed upon the hunting-grounds of the Six Nations.

Among the savages who captured Honeywood, was one who had often been to the shop of Clavell in Baltimore, of whom the captive had learned his trade; and he had several times repaired the rifle and traps of this savage free of charge, and invited him to spread his blanket on the hearth. On the march this savage showed much kindness to his former benefactor, often gave him food from his own store that was scanty, and would probably have aided him to escape if he could; but the day before they reached their place of destination, a Delaware encampment in the territory of the Six Nations, he told Honeywood, evidently with sorrow, that his people would burn him, because he had struck them very hard, and killed many of their young men, and was a great brave. He then exhorted him to be strong, and to let it be known, by the courage with which he endured the torture, that he was a great warrior.

Thrown upon the world in childhood, the mind of Honeywood was of the firmest texture, and he had often been called to face death. But he was in the prime of early manhood, a loving, kind-hearted man; and it was bitter to die under such horrible tortures as savage ingenuity alone could devise. He thought of his home, the acres he had toiled so hard to win and defend; his wife and little ones; his neighbors, young men and children, respecting whose improvement, both mental and moral, he had cherished so many hopes, and devised so many plans to be carried into effect when the Indian war should end, of which there was now a probability.

Honeywood was not only a man of iron nerve and unflinching courage, but he was a good man: he lived in constant intercourse with God. In his boyhood, while one of the household of Henry Clavell, he had been deeply interested in religious truths.

The instructions of Mrs. Raymond, a Quakeress, and the housekeeper of his master, had fallen upon willing ears and a tender conscience; and the great sorrow of his youth, the death of his benefactor, had completed the work; and from his Father in heaven he sought for strength to die, not with the sullen stoicism of the red man, but with the faith and resignation of a Christian.

His wounds were now healed, and his strength restored; his captors, having treated his injuries with great skill, fed him upon the best of provisions, game being plenty, and treated him with all the kindness consistent with safe-keeping. The war-parties sent out in different directions had come in, as also the fugitives who had escaped from Armstrong at Kittanning.

One of those parties brought with them two white captives,—one a Scotchman by the name of McAlpine, and the other a German, Luke Bogardus,—and a great number of scalps.