roused to hope and
life by the sudden appearance of their countrymen, were neither released
from bonds nor perils. Though the savages fled, as described, from the
charge of the white men, there were some who remembered the prisoners,
and were resolved that they should never taste the sweets of liberty. The
beldam, who was still busy kindling the pile, roused from her toil by the
shouts of the enemy and the shrieks of her flying people, looked up a
moment, and then snatching at a knife dropped by some fugitive, rushed
upon Stackpole, who was nearest her, with a wild scream of revenge. The
horse-thief, avoiding the blow as well as he could, saluted the hag with
a furious kick, his feet being entirely at liberty; and such was its
violence that the woman was tossed into the air, as if from the horns of
a bull, and then fell, stunned and apparently lifeless, to perish in the
flames she had kindled with her own breath.

A tall warrior, hatchet in hand, with a dozen more at his back, rushed
upon the Virginian. But before he could strike, there came leaping with
astonishing bounds over the bodies of the wounded and dying, and into
the circle of fire, a figure that might have filled a better and braver
warrior with dread. It was the medicine-man, and former captive, the
Indian habiliments and paint still on his body and visage, though both
were flecked and begrimed with blood. In his left hand was a bundle of
scalps, the same he had taken from the tent of Wenonga; the grizzled
scalp-lock of the chief, known by the vulture-feathers, beak, and
talons, still attached to it, was hanging to his girdle; while the steel
battle-axe, so often wielded by Wenonga, was gleaming aloft in his right
hand.

The savage recoiled, and with loud yells of "The Jibbenainosay! the
Jibbenainosay!" turned to fly, while even those behind him staggered back
at the apparition of the destroyer, thus tangibly presented to their
eyes; nor was their awe lessened, when the supposed fiend, taking one
step after the retreating leader of the gang, drove the fatal hatchet
into his brain, with as lusty a whoop of victory as ever came from the
lungs of a warrior. At the same moment he was hidden from their eyes by a
dozen horsemen that came rushing up, with tremendous huzzas, some darting
against the band, while others sprung from their horses to liberate the
prisoners. But this duty had been already rendered, at least in the case
of Captain Forrester. The axe of W