It had become a mêlée now, in which all were fighting hand to hand--O'Rourke was down, lying prone, yet still grasping his sword; Mr. Kinchella standing before me and Mary still kept off those who endeavoured to seize us; my lord, Buck, and Lamb, side by side, fought yet unharmed; and of the others some were slain, some wounded, and some still able to render assistance.
And now, oh! dreadful sight! I saw the blood spurt from my beloved one's forehead; I saw him reel and stagger, and, with a shriek, I rushed forth and caught him in my arms as he fell; his blood dyeing my white satin evening dress and mantua.
Then, mad with grief and frenzy, I cared no longer what the end of this night's work might be. He whom I loved so fondly lay with his head upon my breast, while I knew not whether he was yet dead or still dying. My home was wrecked; all the light of my life was gone out, as I deemed, for ever. Nothing mattered now--nothing; the sooner the howling savages around me slew us all the better. So, through my tears, I looked on at the scene of carnage, praying that some bullet might crash through my brain or some tomahawk scatter my brains upon the floor where I sat with him in my arms.
What the end of this night's work might be! Alas, alas! the end was at hand!
The fighting had ceased at last. On our side there were no longer any to continue it; on the Indians' side there was nothing to be done but to bind and secure their prisoners. The ammunition had given out, after which Buck and Lamb were soon made fast and their hands tied behind them. Mr. Kinchella and the other men were treated in the same way and now came our turn; the turn of the two unhappy women who had fallen into the power of these human fiends. Yet, savages as they were, they offered us, at present at least, no violence, while one who had fought in the van ever since they had entered the saloon came forward and, standing before Mary and me, said in good English (many of the Shawnees and Doegs having learnt our language when they dwelt in peace with the colonists, and retained it and taught it to their descendants): "White women--children of those who drove us forth from them when we would have remained their friends, children of those who stole our lands under the guise of what they called fair barter and traffic--the fortune of the night's fight has gone against you and you are in our power."
"What do you intend to do with us?" I stammered, looking up at the great Indian who towered above all others. "I, at least, and those of my generation have never harmed you, yet now you have attacked my house like this."
"It is known to us, white woman," answered the chief, as I deemed him to be, "that you, the English woman ruling here, have harmed none, therefore you are unharmed now, you and this other. But it is the order of our great medicine chief, whose works are more wonderful than the works of any other man who dwells upon the earth, that you be kept prisoners until he comes; both you and this other with the dark eyes and skin."
"And who," exclaimed Mary, her eyes flashing angrily at the superbly handsome chief who stood before her, "who is your great medicine chief of whom we know nothing, yet who knows us?"
"He knows you as he knows everything that takes place from the rising of the sun until its setting, and who he is you soon will learn. Even now he comes from the destruction of other white men's houses like unto yours, he comes to claim you as his squaws who shall abide with him for ever."
I shrieked as he spoke, for I knew from tales and narratives told over many a winter's fire in Virginia what was the fate of those women who were borne away to be the squaws of these Indian chiefs; but, even as I did so, we heard shouts without as though those savages who had not entered the house were hailing some new arrival.