acceded to their solicitations, in all probability I should, at this
time, have been in the enjoyment of much happiness." I was aroused from
this reverie by the most direful screams from the united voices of the
whole tribe, they having drunk largely of the rum, and become so much
intoxicated that a general fight ensued. Many of them lay stretched on
the ground, with tomahawks deeply implanted in their skulls: and many
others, as the common phrase is, were "dead drunk." This was an
exceedingly fortunate circumstance for us. With their senses benumbed,
of course they had forgotten their avowal to roast us, or, it may be,
the Indian to whom I proposed ransom had conferred with the others, and
they, no doubt, agreed to spare our lives until the morning. It was a
night, however, of pain and terror, as well as of the most anxious
suspense; and when the morning dawn broke upon my vision, I felt an
indescribable emotion of gratitude, as I had fully made up my mind, the
night previous, that long before this time I should have been sleeping
the sleep of death. It was a pitiable sight, when the morning light
appeared, to see twenty human beings stripped naked, with their bodies
cut and lacerated, and the blood issuing from their wounds; with their
hands and feet tied, and their bodies fastened to stakes, with brushwood
piled around them, expecting every moment to be their last. My feelings,
on this occasion, can be better imagined than described; suffice it to
say, that I had given up all hopes of escape, and gloomily resigned
myself to death. When the fumes of the liquor had in some degree worn
off from the benumbed senses of the savages, they arose and approached
us, and, for the first time, the wily Indian informed me that the tribe
had agreed to ransom us. They then cast off the lashings from our bodies
and feet, and, with our hands still secure, drove us before them to the
beach. Then another difficulty arose; the privateer was out of sight,
and the Indians became furious. To satiate their hellish malice, they
obliged us to run on the beach, while they let fly their poisoned arrows