"Ay!" exclaimed the prisoner, and his eyes shot fire as he spoke, "they fell under his hand, man and boy—there was not one of them spared—they were of the blood of Wenonga!"
"Wenonga is a great chief!" cried the Indian: "he is childless; but childless he has made the Long-knife."
"The Long-knife, and the son of Onas!" said Nathan.
The chief staggered back, as if struck by a blow, and stared wildly upon the prisoner.
"My brother is a medicine-man,—he knows all things!" he exclaimed. "He speaks the truth: I am a great warrior; I took the scalp of the Quakel[13]—"
[Footnote 13: Quakels—a corruption of Quakers, whom the Indians of Pennsylvania originally designated as the sons of Onos, that being one of the names they bestowed upon Penn.]
"And of his wife and children—you left not one alive!—Ay!" continued
Nathan, fastening his looks upon the amazed chief, "you slew them all!
And he that was the husband and father was the Shawnees' friend, the
friend even of Wenonga!"
"The white-men are dogs and robbers!" said the chief: "the Quakel was my brother; but I killed him. I am an Indian—I love white-man's blood. My people have soft hearts; they cried for the Quakel: but I am a warrior with no heart. I killed them: their scalps are hanging to my fire-post! I am not sorry; I am not afraid."
The eyes of the prisoner followed the Indian's hand, as he pointed, with savage triumph, to the shrivelled scalps that had once crowned the heads of childhood and innocence, and then sank to the floor, while his whole frame shivered as with an ague-fit.
"My brother is a great medicine-man," iterated the chief: "he shall show me the Jibbenainosay, or he shall die."