"Brother, listen! I have lived many moons; many snows have fallen on my head; and I remember the good days when the children of William Penn were many, when they bore rule at the council-fire, and those bad men who now have most to say were of small account, and when the red man, treated justly, was happy; and, because you are few, our lands are taken without paying for them, and our blood is shed. We do not love you the less because the power has gone from you: therefore we give the life of this man (whom the pale-faces could not buy) to you, and the spirit of the great and good Penn.
"Brother, you have come to us when our hearts are sore and our minds disturbed, for which we are sorry. We shall burn these two bad men. You would not wish to hear their cries, therefore we cannot ask you to spread your blanket at our fire; but some of our young men will build you a wigwam in the woods, and, when you are rested, will guide you to the white man's fort by a shorter path than the one by which you came. I have said."
Cuthbert now presented his thanks, and also those of Mrs. Raymond, to his brothers the Delawares; and Isetaune, loosing Honeywood from the stake, brought him to Mrs. Raymond.
Savage ferocity, so long repressed, now broke forth: fires were rekindled, and yells of vengeance rent the air. Cuthbert would gladly have interceded for the two other miserable victims, but he knew it would be of no avail; and but a moment was given him to think of it, for with Honeywood and Mrs. Raymond he was hurried off to the woods by Isetaune and several others, who hastily constructed a shelter of boughs, provided them with food, and then hurried back to take part in the terrible tortures about to be inflicted upon McAlpine and Bogardus.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE RETURN OF THE CAPTIVE.
When the Indians had departed, Honeywood said to Mrs. Raymond,—
"Mother, when a boy under your care, you were the means of saving my soul; and this day you and Friend Cuthbert have saved my life."
He then begged to know in what way Cuthbert was informed of his capture, and more especially of the place to which the Indians had carried him, as it was in the limits of the Six Nations, who had taken no part in the war.