When these twelve unfortunates stood trembling before him, Eagle Head commanded the women to be set apart.
Ordering the men to pass one by one before him, he looked at them attentively, and then made a sign to the warriors standing by his side.
The latter instantly seized the Americans, chopped off their hands at the wrists with their knives, and, after having scalped them, pushed them into the fort.
Seven colonists underwent this atrocious torture, and there remained but one.
He was an old man of lofty stature, thin, but still active; his hair, white as snow, fell on his shoulders; his black eyes flashed, but his features remained unmoved; he waited, apparently impassible, till Eagle Head should decide his fate, and send him to join the unfortunates who had preceded him.
But the chief continued to survey him attentively.
At length the features of the savage expanded, a smile played upon his lips, and he held out his hand to the old man,—
"Usted no conocer amigo?" (No you know friend?) he said to him in bad Spanish, the guttural accent of his race.
At these words the old man started, and looked earnestly at the Indian in his turn.
"Oh!" said he, with astonishment, "El Gallo!" (the Cock.)