"Well done! Well done!" exclaimed Ichabod. "I doubt whether I could beat that with my rifle. I must say that you are about as expert a set of fellows with them kind of we'pons as I ever come across."
Panther now approached Ichabod, and said, "we have tried our brother as well as we could with our tomahawks. He is very brave; and it does us good to do him honor. If we had our squaws here to scold at him, or our pappooses to shoot arrows at him, we might please him better; but we have not, and we please him as well as we can, to-morrow we will try and do better. But to-night, we will leave him here tied to the tree; but he shall have an Indian by him to keep away the wolves. We expect, in the morning, our brother will be weaker, and he will not then be so brave. It is not natural that he should be. We will then tell him what we mean to do. But let not my brother be troubled; it shall be something that will honor him much."
This was a species of torture which Ichabod had not expected. He had been bound to the tree in such a manner that he was entirely sustained by the thongs which confined him, and his position was becoming, momentarily, more painful. It must be confessed, that his spirit quailed at the idea of remaining so long a time in this painful situation; but he knew of only one way by which he could be relieved—and that was, by the betrayal of his friend. This he would not do; and he could only hope that he might find some means so to provoke his guard that in his anger the latter might, by some hasty blow, dispatch him. It was with much impatience, then, that he waited for the approach of darkness—until which time he would probably be left alone.
He closed his eyes, into which the sun had shone until the brilliant glare had nearly deprived him of the power of vision, and endeavored to draw strength and fortitude from within. But a short time elapsed, however, before he heard a step, as of someone approaching him from behind. It was Guthrie, who had separated himself from the Indians, and who now came up immediately in front of him, with an ironical smile upon his countenance. Ichabod surveyed him with a look of calmness and composure.
"I suppose," said he, "that you've come here for the purpose of having your chance at me. Now, all I've got to say to you, is, that I've a sort of respect for them red devils, for they do according to their natur' and color: but as for you, you're a white-livered traitor and Tory; and if anybody knows any other words in the English language that have got a more contemptible meaning, they know more than I do—that's all:" and Ichabod closed his eyes again, as with the effort to shut out of his view so disgusting a sight.
"Pluck to the last!" exclaimed Guthrie. "I must say, that you've got more nerve than I reckoned on; but I rather expect that you'll give in before to-morrow's over. Do you want to know what's coming next?" asked he, with a sneer.
"Well, stranger, I don't suppose I should know any more about it after you have told me, than I do now," answered Ichabod; "for I've set you down for an infarnal liar. I ain't at all particular as to what you say; but this I do know, if them Senecas—who are gentlemen born, compared to what you are—would give me that rifle of mine again, and set me loose for a few moments, I'd agree, that after I'd given you a proper sort of chastising, I'd come back here again and stand all they might choose to do to me. It rather provokes one with Natur' and Providence, to see such an infarnal villain as you are, live and breathe."
Guthrie chuckled, in his peculiar manner. "I've waited many a day to get a chance at you. You didn't know me, when I saw you up at the cottage yonder; but I knowed you. I've got a scar over here," pointing towards his back, "that will remember you as long as it burns. You give it to me in that scrimmage we had down here, in '79; and I thought I'd just let you know that you may thank me for what you're getting now. As for that fighting you propose, I don't think that it's any object, for you're receiving, now, pretty much what you desarve." Then, approaching close to Ichabod, and laying his hand upon the spot shaven by the tomahawk of Panther, he continued—"That was a pretty close shave, any way. I was rather afeard he would make a bad job of it, and kill you. I knowed him do that once:" and the villain laughed.
Ichabod groaned in his helplessness and anger. The agony of that moment far exceeded any physical torture that the whole nation of Senecas could have inflicted upon him. He wept in his misery, and a sob that seemed to rend his frame, almost deprived him of consciousness for a moment. The fearful spasm that convulsed his limbs, did what no ordinary exercise of strength could have done,—the thongs that bound his hands snapped like threads; and in a moment, with a convulsive rapidity against which Guthrie could not guard, he seized the Tory by the throat—he shook him like a leaf, until the villain fell, breathless and struggling, to the ground. At the same moment, overpowered by this spasmodic exertion of strength, Ichabod fell, fainting suspended by the withes which bound his waist.