on.

Arrived within the territories of their own tribe, the triumph of the
captors began. The whole nation was roused to revenge the death of their
lost heroes. In every village, as they passed along, the women and
children were permitted to beat and insult the unresisting captive, who
bore every indignity with stoical indifference, and proud disdain, never
indicating by word or look, the slightest sense of mortification or
pain, nor bating one jot of his lofty and scornful bearing.

Before the great council of assembled chiefs, he maintained the same
tone of fearless dignity and self-respect. His very look was defiance,
that quailed not before the proudest glance of his enemy, nor showed the
slightest symptom of disquietude, when the decision of the council was
announced, condemning him to die by the fiery torture. It might
reasonably be imagined that his past sufferings, his tedious marches,
his scanty fare, lying at night on the bare ground, exposed to the
changes of the weather, with his arms and legs extended and cramped in a
pair of rough stocks, the insulting treatment, and cruel scourgings of
the exasperated women and children, who were taught to consider it a
virtue to torment an enemy, along with the anticipation of those more
bitter sufferings which he was yet to endure, would have impaired his
health, and subdued his hitherto proud and unyielding spirit. Such would
have been the effect of similar circumstances upon the physical frame,
and stout-hearted fortitude of the great majority of the heroes of that
pale-faced race, who boast of a proud superiority over the unlettered
children of the forest. There are few so hardy, that they could endure,
not only without a murmur, but without shrinking, what Ash-te-o-lah had
already suffered--few so courageous, that they could hear, with an
unmoved countenance, the terrible doom which his enemies had prepared
for him, or witness undisturbed the fearful arrangements, and horrid
ceremonies, that were designed to give intensity and effect to its
infliction.

Ash-te-o-lah was insensible to fear, and would sooner have undergone a
thousand torturing deaths, than permit his enemies to see that he was
conscious even of suffering. So nobly did he sustain his courage amid
the trial, so well did he act his heroic part, that his enemies, who
admired and inculcated the same unflinching fortitude, were surprised
and vexed at his lofty superiority, and resolved, by every possible