save myself from any fate it pleases God to send upon me."

"And you will not be an honorable bride, then?"

"Yours,--_never_!"

"Fire the fagots!" he commanded in a voice of rage, and the order was
instantly obeyed by the Indian who stood impatiently awaiting the word.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BURNING STAKE

The material around the stake was the most highly inflammable that could be
collected, and a mighty blaze soon spread along the pile, with its fiery
spires leaping high in air, and its forked tongues hissing like serpents!
Snapping, crackling, roaring! the devouring flames rushed to their work of
death!

The stake was in the center of the heap, the wood being piled around it at
a distance of some feet, leaving an open space on all sides, in which the
prisoner could walk, being fastened with a cord, some ten feet in length,
one end of which was lashed to the stake, a large post, driven firmly into
the ground. This vacant space was purposely left, that the sufferings of
the doomed might be prolonged, a species of cruelty common in Indian
tortures. As it would be some time before the flames would touch Hamilton,
though his sufferings from heat would be excruciating in a little while,
murdering him by slow inches, Durant hoped that the sufferings and
reflections of this interval would bring repentance at the eleventh hour,
and cause his victim to plead for mercy on his own terms.

The fiery circle kept drawing nearer and nearer, narrowing the space
between life and death at every moment; yet no groan escaped the lips of
Hamilton; and he evinced the steady and unflinching heroism of a martyr. At
a sign from Durant, the Indians prepared themselves with long splinters,
which were to be fired at one end, and then driven into the flesh of the
sufferer; the guns were loaded with powder, to be fired against the naked
person of the prisoner when the signal should be given. Hamilton saw all
these preparations, but they shook not his firm resolve for a moment. His
proud soul rose above all the horrors of the scene, and remained calm in
the dignity of its earthly despair and eternal hopes. He knelt down by the
stake and engaged in prayer:

"Oh, Father! give me strength to endure this trial by fire! Forsake me not
in this hour of extremity, but send Thy ministering angels to strengthen
and sustain my spirit, that it faint not with the consuming flesh! And, oh,
God! protect Thy persecuted daughter, and save, oh, save her