ached an additional cord
to his neck; and this, when they lay down beside him to sleep, one of the
young warriors wrapped several times round his own arm, so that the
slightest movement of the prisoner, were such a thing possible, must
instantly rouse the jealous savage from his slumbers.

These preparations being completed, the young men lay down, one on each
side of the prisoner, and were soon fast asleep.

The old Piankeshaw, meanwhile, sat by the fire, now musing in drunken
revery,--"in cogibundity of cogitation,"--now grumbling a lament for his
perished son, which, by a natural licence of affliction, he managed to
intermingle with regrets for his lost liquor, and occasionally heaping
maledictions upon the heads of his wasteful companions, or soliciting
the prisoner's attention to an account, that he gave him at least six
times over, of the peculiar ceremonies which would be observed in burning
him, when once safely bestowed in the Piankeshaw nation. In this manner,
the old savage, often nodding, but always rousing again, succeeded in
amusing himself nearly half the night long; and it was not until near
midnight that he thought fit, after stirring up the fire, and adding a
fresh log to it, to stretch himself beside one of the juniors, and
grumble himself to sleep. A few explosive and convulsive snorts, such as
might have done honour to the nostrils of a war-horse, marked the
gradations by which he sank to repose; then came the deep, long-drawn
breath of mental annihilation, such as distinguished the slumber of
his companions.

To the prisoner, alone, sleep was wholly denied; for which the renewed
agonies of his bonds, tied with the supreme contempt for suffering which
usually marks the conduct of savages to their captives, would have been
sufficient cause, had there even been no superior pangs of spirit to
banish the comforter from his eyelids. Of his feelings during the journey
from the river,--which, in consequence of numberless delays caused by the
old Piankeshaw's drunkenness, could scarce have been left more than eight
or ten miles behind,--we have said but little, since imagination can only
picture them properly to the reader. Grief, anguish, despair, and the
sense of degradation natural to a man of proud spirit, a slave in the
hands of coarse barbarians, kept his spirit for a long time wholly
subdued and torpid; and it was not until he perceived the old
Piankeshaw's repeated potations, and their effects, th