CHAPTER XII.
THE INDIANS AND THEIR PRISONERS.
As you ascend the Miami from its mouth at the present day, you come almost immediately upon what are termed the Bottoms, or Bottom Lands, which are rich and fertile tracts of country, of miles in extent, and sometimes miles in breadth, almost water level, with the stream in question slowly winding its course through them, like a deep blue ribbon carelessly unrolled upon a dark surface. They are now mostly under culture, and almost entirely devoted to the production of maize, which, in the autumn of the year, presents the goodly sight of a golden harvest. At the time of which we write, there were no such pleasant demonstrations of civilization, but a vast unbroken forest instead, some vestiges of which still remain, in the shape of old decaying trees, standing grim and naked,
"To summer's heat and winter's blast,"
like the ruins of ancient structures, to remind the beholder of former days.
On these Bottoms, about ten miles above the mouth of the Miami, Wild-cat and his party, with their prisoners, encamped on the evening the attack was made upon the renegade, as shown in the preceding chapter. Possessing caution in a great degree, and fearful of the escape of his prisoners, Wild-cat spared no precautions which he thought might enhance the security of Younker and Reynolds. Accordingly, when arrived at the spot where he intended to remain for the night, the chief ordered stakes to be driven deep into the earth, some distance apart, to which the feet of the two in question, after being thrown flat upon their backs, in opposite directions, were tightly bound, with their hands still corded to the crossbars as before. A rope was next fastened around the neck of each, and secured to a neighboring sapling, in which uncomfortable manner they were left to pass the night; while their captors, starting a fire, threw themselves upon the earth around it, and soon to all appearance were sound asleep.
To the tortures of her older companions in captivity, little Rosetta was not subjected; for Oshasqua—the fierce warrior to whom Girty had consigned her, in the expectation, probably, that she would long ere this have been knocked on the head and scalped—had, by one of those strange mysterious phenomena of nature, (so difficult of comprehension, and which have been known to link the rough and bloody with the gentle and innocent,) already begun to feel towards her a sort of affection, and to treat her with great kindness whenever he could do so unobserved by the others. The apparel of which he had at first divested her, to ornament his own person, had been restored, piece by piece; and this, together with the change in his manner, had at length been observed by the child, with feelings of gratitude. Poor little thing! to whom could she look for protection now? Her father and mother were dead—had been murdered before her own eyes—her brother was away, and she herself a captive to an almost merciless foe; could she feel other than grateful for an act of kindness, from one at whose hands she looked for nothing but abuse and death? Nay, more: So strange and complex is the human heart—so singular in its developments—that we see nothing to wonder at, in her feeling for the savage, under the circumstances—loathsome and offensive as he might have been to her under others—a sort of affection—or rather, a yearning toward him as a protector. Such she did feel; and thus between two human beings, as much antagonistical perhaps, in every particular, as Nature ever presented, was already established a kind of magnetic sympathy—or, in other words, a gradual blending together of opposites. The result of all this, as may be imagined, was highly beneficial to Rosetta, who, in consequence, fared as well as circumstances would permit. At night she slept unbound beside Oshasqua, who secured her from escape by passing his brawny arm under her head, which also in a measure served her for a pillow. So slept she on the night in question.
With Younker and Reynolds there was little that could be called sleep—the minds of both being too actively employed with the events which had transpired, and with thoughts of those so dear to them, who had been left behind, for what fate God only knew. Besides, there was little wherewithal to court the drowsy god, in the manner of their repose—each limb being strained and corded in a position the most painful—and if they slept at all, it was that feverish and fitful slumber, which, though it serve in part the design of nature, brings with it nothing refreshing to the individual himself. To both, therefore, the night proved one of torture to body and mind; and bad as was their condition after the encampment, it was destined to be worse ere the gray dawn of morning, by the arrival of Girty and the only two Indians who had escaped the deadly rifles of the Kentuckians.
"Up, warriors!" cried the renegade, with a blasphemous oath, as he came upon the detachment. "Up, warriors! and sharpen your wits to invent the most damnable tortures that the mind of man can conceive!" and at the sound of his voice, which was loud and hoarse, each Indian sprung to his feet, with an anxious and troubled face.