“Ah, mates!” he continued, “I’ve often wondered what my grandfather’s feelings and poor Tom Turner’s must have been when they were dragged out, and tied to trees on the torture ground, with the female executioners all ready, and pining to see the white men’s blood, the knives sharpened, the torture irons heated to redness, and that awful circle of upturned faces, in which they must have looked in vain for one pitying glance.
“‘Good-bye, John,’ cried Tom.
“‘Good-bye, Tom,’ cried my grandfather, as two vicious-looking squaws approached him, one carrying a knife, the other a white-hot iron rod.
“‘Hold!’ cried an old white-haired chief, stalking into the circle.
“Every one looked impatiently towards him.
“Why, they asked, should even a chief of chiefs attempt to spoil the sport?
“But this was none other than Red Bull himself, one whose word had been law for years.
“He quickly gathered around him a dozen of the head warriors of the tribe.
“‘Your father would speak,’ said Red Bull, when they had seated themselves around him, and close to the stakes or trees to which the prisoners were tied. ‘Your father would speak. To torture a white man is no pleasure. The white man screams like a squaw. Then he faints, soon he dies. Then gone for ever is the sport, for he feels no more. Send them rather beneath the earth to the silent spirit. The great river rolls through our valley. Soon it disappears. Every year our young men are drawn beneath. Send the white men to seek them in the caves of darkness. If they come not back the great serpent has devoured them.’
“The awful truth was soon revealed more plainly to the prisoners. They were to be placed in separate canoes, and sent adrift upon the river that flowed through this romantic valley, and which a few miles nearer the mountains entered a yawning cave, and was never seen again.