inging; I passed it in silence and
prayer. I felt convinced that we were to die, and I feared that it
would be by fire or torture, for I had heard something of the manners
and customs of these Indians. I made my peace with God as well as a
poor sinner could, prayed for mercy through Jesus Christ, sighed my
adieu to Amy, and made up my mind to die.

Early the next morning the Indians brought firewood, and placed it in
bundles round the stakes, at a distance of about fourteen yards from
the centre. They then went to the Portuguese, tied his hands behind
him, and exchanged the rope by which he had been fastened for a much
stronger one, one end of which they fastened to his wrists behind him,
and the other to the stake. As they left me as I was before, it was
plain that the Portuguese was to suffer first. They then set fire to
the piles of wood which were round the stake, which were too far from
him to burn him, and I could not imagine what they intended to do, but
you may conceive that I was in a state of awful suspense and anxiety,
as I was well convinced that his fate, whatever it might be, would be
my own.

During these appalling preparations, the Portuguese appeared as if he
really enjoyed the scene.

"Now, my good friend," said he to me, "you shall see how I can suffer
for the true faith. Even a heretic like you shall be converted by my
example, and I shall ascend to Heaven with you in my arms. Come on, ye
fiends; come on, ye heathens, and see how a Christian can suffer."

Much as I felt for him and for myself, I could not lament that his
reason had left him, as I thought his sufferings would be less; but
his exclamations were soon drowned by a loud yell from the Indians,
who all rushed upon my unfortunate companion.

For a moment or two they were crowded so thick round him that I could
not perceive what they were doing, but after that they separated, and
I beheld him bleeding profusely, his ears and nose having been cut
off, and a broken iron ramrod passed through both cheeks. And now a
scene took place, at the remembrance of which, even now, my blood
curdles. Some caught up the burning sticks and applied them to his
flesh, others stuck him full of small splints, the ends of which they
lighted. The Indian warriors shot at him with muskets loaded with
powder only, so as to burn him terribly on every part of the body. The
women took up handfuls of lighted ashes and showered them down on him,
so that the ground he