The night was cold; the ground was covered with snow, and a piercing wind swept the icy eminence. Mrs. Rowlandson, holding her wounded and moaning child in her arms, and with the group of wretched captives around her, sat during the long hours of the dreadful night, shivering with cold, appalled at the awful fate which had befallen her and her family, and endeavoring in vain to soothe the anguish of her dying daughter. "This was the dolefullest night," she exclaims in her affecting narrative, "that my eyes ever saw. Oh, the roaring and singing, dancing and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell."
Her sufferings.
Her wounded child.
The next morning the Indians commenced their departure into the wilderness. Mrs. Rowlandson toiled along on foot, with her dying child in her arms. The poor little girl was in extreme anguish, and often cried out with pain. At length the mother became so exhausted that she fell fainting to the ground. The Indians then placed her upon a horse, and again gave her her child to carry. But the horse was furnished with neither saddle nor bridle, and, in going down a steep hill, stumbled, and they both were thrown over his neck. This incident was greeted by the savages with shouts of laughter. To add to their sufferings, it now began to snow. All the day long the storm wailed through the tree-tops, and the snow was sifted down upon their path. The woe-stricken captives toiled along until night, when the Indians again encamped upon the open ground.
"And now," writes Mrs. Rowlandson, "I must sit in the snow by a little fire, and a few boughs behind me, with my sick child in my lap, and calling much for water, being now, through the wound, fallen into a violent fever. My own wound, also, growing so stiff that I could scarce sit down or rise up, yet so it must be that I must sit all this cold winter's night upon the cold snowy ground, with my sick child in my arms, looking that every hour would be the last of its life, and having no Christian friend near me either to comfort or help me."
Friendly aid from an Indian.
Arrival at head-quarters.
In the morning the Indians resumed their journey, marching, as was their custom, in single file through trails in the forest. A humane Indian mounted a horse and took Mrs. Rowlandson and her child behind him. All the day long the poor little sufferer moaned with pain, while the savages were constantly threatening to knock the child in the head if she did not cease her moaning. In the evening they arrived at an Indian village called Wenimesset. Here, upon a luxuriant meadow upon the banks of the River Ware, within the limits of the present town of New Braintree, the savages had established their head-quarters. It was about thirty-six miles from Lancaster. A large number of savages were assembled at this place, and they remained here for several days, gathering around their council fires, planning new expeditions, and inflaming their passions with war dances and the most frantic revels. The Indians treated their captives with comparative kindness. No violence or disrespect was offered to their persons. They reared a rude wigwam for Mrs. Rowlandson, where she sat for five days and nights almost alone, watching her dying child. At last, on the night of the 18th of February, the little sufferer breathed her last, at the age of six years and five months. The Indians took the corpse from the mother and buried it, and then allowed her to see the grave.
CAPTIVITY OF MRS. ROWLANDSON.