loor Atta-Kulla-Kulla reclined and smoked his
long-stemmed pipe and watched him with impenetrable eyes. Once he spoke
to him of the preparations making without, selecting the men for the
gunners of the expedition. Stuart lifted his head abruptly.

"I will not go!" he cried in sudden passion. "So help me, God! I will
die first!--a thousand deaths. So help me, God!" He lifted his clinched
right hand in attestation and shook it wildly in the air.

[Illustration: "He stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect."]

He had a momentary shame in thus giving way to his surcharged
feelings, but as he rose mechanically from his chair his restless eyes,
glancing excitedly about the room, surprised an expression of sympathy
in the face of the Cherokee as he lay coiled up on the rug.

"Atta-Kulla-Kulla!" Stuart exclaimed impulsively, holding out both arms,
"feel for me! Think of me! The poor remnant of the garrison! My 'young
men'! My own command! I will die first, myself, a thousand deaths!"

Atta-Kulla-Kulla began to argue, speaking partly in Cherokee and now and
again in fragmentary English. Neither the one nor the other might be the
victim. The commandant at Fort Prince George would yield under this
strong coercion.

"Never! Never!" cried Stuart. "His duty is to hold the fort. He will
defend it to the last man and the last round of ammunition and the last
issuance of rations. For his countrymen to be tortured and burned in his
sight and hearing would doubtless give him great pain. But his duty is
to his own command, and he will do it."

Atta-Kulla-Kulla seemed doubtful. "And then," argued Stuart, "would such
torturing and burning of the surrendered garrison of Fort Loudon before
the eyes of the garrison of Fort Prince George be an inducement to them
to surrender too, and perhaps meet the same fate? Be sure they will
sell their lives more dearly! Be sure they will have heard of the
massacre of the soldiers under the Cherokees' pledge of safe-conduct on
the plains of Taliquo."

"_To-e-u-hah!_" Atta-Kulla-Kulla broke out furiously. "_To-e-u-hah!_ It
is most true!"

His countenance had changed to extreme anger. He launched out into a
bitter protest that he had always contemned, and deprecated, and sought
to prevent this continual violation of their plighted word and the
obligations of their treaties on the part of the Cherokee nation. It
invariably hampered their efforts afterward, as it was hampering them
now. It too