ke that they had left, opened into a wider bottom-land,
the bed of a creek, which they could see shining among the trees that
overshadowed the rich alluvion; and into this poured a rivulet that
chattered along through the glen at their feet, in which it had its
sources. The hill on the other side of the little vale, which was of an
oval figure, narrowest at its outlet, was rough and precipitous, like
that on which they lay; but the two uniting above, bounded the head of
the vale with a long, bushy, sweeping slope--a fragment of a natural
amphitheatre--which was evidently of an easy ascent, though abrupt and
steep. The valley thus circumscribed, though broken, and here and there
deeply furrowed by the water-course, was nearly destitute of trees,
except at its head, where a few young beeches flung their silver boughs
and rich green foliage abroad over the grassy knolls, and patches of
papaws drooped their loose leaves and swelling fruit over the stream. It
was in this part of the valley, at the distance of three or four hundred
paces from them, that the eyes of the two adventurers, directed by the
sound of voices, which they had heard the instant they reached the crest
of the ridge, fell, first, upon the smoke of a huge fire curling merrily
up into the air, and then upon the bodies of no less than five Indian
warriors, all zealously and uproariously engaged in an amusement highly
characteristic of their race. There was among them a white man, an
unfortunate prisoner, as was seen at a glance, whom they had bound by the
legs to a tree; around which the savages danced and leaped, yelling now
with rage, now in merriment, but all the while belabouring the poor
wretch with rods and switches, which, at every turn round the tree, they
laid about his head and shoulders with uncommon energy and zest. This was
a species of diversion better relished, as it seemed, by the captors than
their captive; who, infuriated by his pangs, and perhaps desiring, in the
desperation of the moment, to provoke them to end his sufferings with the
hatchet, retaliated with his fists, which were at liberty, striking
fiercely at every opportunity, and once with such effect as to tumble one
of the tormentors to the earth--a catastrophe, however, that the others
rewarded with roars of approving laughter, though without for a moment
intermitting their own cruelties.

This spectacle, it may be well supposed, produced a strong effect upon
the minds of the trave