The natives now began to help themselves to whatever articles suited them, and when some of them began to pull the tent down, an old man and his wife took hold of me, and after conducting me a few rods from the tent, sat down, keeping fast hold of my hands. Under the most fearful apprehensions I endeavoured to get from them, but they insisted upon detaining me. I endeavoured to console myself with the idea, that gratitude had prompted them to take care of me, as I had frequently taken the part of this old woman, when she had been teased by others; but alas! the reflection followed, that if this was the case, there was a probability that not only my bosom friend, was about to be sacrificed, but I should be left alone to drag out a weary existence, with beings, strangers to the endearing ties which bind the hearts of civilized man.
Whether Payne and his associates offered any resistance to the course now pursued by the natives or not, I do not know. Suffice it to say, that all at once my ears were astounded with the most terrifying whoops and yells; when a massacre commenced but little exceeded by the one perpetrated on board the Globe. Our men fled in all directions, but met a foe at every turn. Lilliston and Joe Brown (the Sandwich Islander,) fell within six feet of me, and as soon as down, the natives macerated their heads with large stones. The first whom I saw killed, was Columbus Worth. An old woman, apparently sixty years of age, ran him through with a spear, and finished him with stones!
My protectors, for now they were truly so, shut out the scene by laying down upon the top of me, to hide me from the view of the merciless foe! I was however discovered, and one of the natives attempted to get a blow at me with a handspike, which was prevented by them; when, after a few words, he hurried away.
As soon as the work of death had been completed, the old man took me by the hand and hurried me along towards the village. My feet were very much laccerated in passing over the causeways of sharp coral rock, but my conductor fearing we might be pursued, hurried me onward to the village, where we arrived about noon. In a few minutes the wigwam or hut of the old man, was surrounded, and all seeming to talk at once, and with great excitement, I anticipated death every moment. Believing myself the sole survivor, the reader must pardon any attempt to describe my feelings, when I saw a number of the natives approaching the hut, and in the midst, Cyrus M. Hussey, conducted with great apparent kindness.
Notwithstanding we had both been preserved much after the same manner, we could not divest ourselves of the apprehension, that we perhaps had been preserved, for a short time, to suffer some lingering death.
Our interview was only long enough to satisfy each other that we alone survived the massacre, when we were separated; Hussey being taken away, and it seemed quite uncertain, even if our lives were spared, whether we ever saw each other again.
CHAPTER IV.
On the following day, however, accompanied by natives, we met at the scene of destruction, and truly it was an appalling one to us. The mangled corpses of our companions, rendered more ghastly from the numerous wounds they had received, the provisions, clothing, &c. scattered about the ground, the hideous yells of exultation uttered by the natives, all conspired to render our situation superlatively miserable.