All this time Seth had not spoken. He knew how vain was any appeal for mercy, and steeled his heart for the torture that was sure to be his fate.
Having secured him to the tree, his captors, letting the battle take care of itself, proceeded to amuse themselves in characteristic fashion by throwing their tomahawks at Seth's head with the idea of seeing which could come closest to without actually striking their living target.
IT WAS A TERRIBLE ORDEAL FOR SETH.
It was fine fun for the dusky fiends no doubt, but it was a terrible ordeal for Seth, and yet the brave fellow hardly blinked as the cruel steel flashed past his eyes, and buried itself in the tree with a vicious thud, sometimes severing a stray lock of his hair in its flight.
Nor were the redskins the only ones to act thus inhumanly, for when they had wearied of their amusement, a French officer came up, who after assailing the helpless captive with vigorous abuse, thrust the muzzle of his gun violently against his body, pretending to fire it, and then struck him in the face with the butt, inflicting a painful bruise.
Still Seth maintained his stoical silence, for he had determined that although they should tear him to pieces, or burn him with slow fire, they should not extort from him any sign or sound of weakness.
When the retreat began the Indians unloosed Seth from the tree, stripped him of nearly all his clothing, bound his wrists together so tightly that the pain was intense, and then placing upon his bare back as many of the packs of their wounded as could be piled up, they hurried him along until at last in sheer exhaustion he fell to the ground, and could not move despite the blows showered upon him.
He might have been despatched there and then had not a French officer, moved to compassion by his desperate plight, persuaded the Indians to untie his hands, and lighten his crushing burden. They also gave him a pair of moccasins to protect his lacerated feet, from which they had taken his shoes and stockings.
His misery being thus somewhat mitigated, Seth was able to go on and to stagger under his load until his captors encamped for the night.