on, in order to ascertain if
any more of these betrayers of his fearful secret remained; after which
he seemed more at ease.

"Wyandotte's back don't ache now," he growled to himself. "Ole sore
heal up. Why Cap'in touch him? T'ink Injin no got feelin'? Good man,
sometime; bad man, sometime. Sometime, live; sometime, die. Why tell
Wyandotte he flog ag'in, just as go to enemy's camp? No; back feel
well, now--nebber smart, any more."

When this soliloquy was ended, Nick arose, cast a look up at the sun,
to ascertain how much of the day still remained, glanced towards the
Hut, as if examining the nature of its defences, stretched himself like
one who was weary, and peeped out from behind the bushes, in order to
see how those who were afield, still occupied themselves. All this
done, with singular deliberation and steadiness, he arranged his light
dress, and prepared to present himself before the wife and daughters of
the man, whom, three hours before, he had remorselessly murdered. Nick
had often meditated this treacherous deed, during the thirty years
which had elapsed between his first flogging and the present period;
but circumstances had never placed its execution safely in his power.
The subsequent punishments had increased the desire, for a few years;
but time had so far worn off the craving for revenge, that it would
never have been actively revived, perhaps, but for the unfortunate
allusions of the victim himself, to the subject. Captain Willoughby had
been an English soldier, of the school of the last century. He was
naturally a humane and a just man, but he believed in the military
axiom that "the most flogging regiments were the best fighting
regiments;" and perhaps he was not in error, as regards the lower
English character. It was a fatal error, however, to make in relation
to an American savage; one who had formerly exercised the functions,
and who had not lost all the feelings, of a chief. Unhappily, at a
moment when everything depended on the fidelity of the Tuscarora, the
captain had bethought him of his old expedient for insuring prompt
obedience, and, by way of a reminder, he made an allusion to his former
mode of punishment. As Nick would have expressed it, "the old sores
smarted;" the wavering purpose of thirty years was suddenly and
fiercely revived, and the knife passed into the heart of the victim,
with a rapidity that left no time for appeals to the tribunal of God's
mercy. In half a minute, Capta