as
singularly blended with disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure
as by his good-fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were
succeeded by shrill, piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw, who had
taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles, made her way through
the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front of the captive. The
squalid and withered person of this hag might well have obtained for her
the character of possessing more than human cunning. Throwing back her
light vestment, she stretched forth her long, skinny arm, in derision,
and using the language of the Lenape, as more intelligible to the
subject of her gibes, she commenced aloud:

"Look you, Delaware," she said, snapping her fingers in his face; "your
nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted to your hands
than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; but if a bear, or
a wildcat, or a serpent were born among you, ye would flee. The Huron
girls shall make you petticoats, and we will find you a husband."

A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which the soft
and musical merriment of the younger females strangely chimed with
the cracked voice of their older and more malignant companion. But the
stranger was superior to all their efforts. His head was immovable; nor
did he betray the slightest consciousness that any were present, except
when his haughty eye rolled toward the dusky forms of the warriors, who
stalked in the background silent and sullen observers of the scene.

Infuriated at the self-command of the captive, the woman placed her arms
akimbo; and, throwing herself into a posture of defiance, she broke
out anew, in a torrent of words that no art of ours could commit
successfully to paper. Her breath was, however, expended in vain; for,
although distinguished in her nation as a proficient in the art of
abuse, she was permitted to work herself into such a fury as actually to
foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless
figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend
itself to the other spectators; and a youngster, who was just quitting
the condition of a boy to enter the state of manhood, attempted to
assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim,
and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the women. Then, indeed,
the captive turned his face toward the light, and looked down on the
stripling with an expressi