to tell the
tale of that fearful marriage feast. A second Judith had the Indian
girl proved. It was her plighted hand that had severed the head of her
unsuspecting bridegroom to complete the fearful vengeance that had been
devised in return for the merciless and horrible murder of her brother.

Nor was the sacrifice yet finished, for with fearful cries the Indians
seized upon the canoes of their enemies, and with the utmost speed,
urged by unsatisfied revenge, hurried down the lake to an island where
the women and children and such of the aged or young men as were
not included among the wedding guests, were encamped in unsuspecting
security. Panic-stricken, the Mohawks offered no resistance, but fell
like sheep appointed for the slaughter: the Ojebwas slew there the
grey-head with the infant of days. But while the youths and old men
tamely yielded to their enemies, there was one, whose spirit roused to
fury by the murder of her father, armed herself with the war club and
knife, and boldly withstood the successful warriors. At the door of the
tent of the slaughtered chief the Amazon defended her children: while
the war lightning kindled in her dark eye, she called aloud in scornful
tones to her people to hide themselves in the tents of their women, who
alone were _braves_, and would fight their battles. Fiercely she taunted
the men, but they shrank from the unequal contest, and she alone
was found to deal the death-blow upon the foe, till overpowered with
numbers, and pierced with frightful wounds, she fell singing her own
death-song and raising the wail for the dead who lay around her. Night
closed in, but the work of blood still continued, till not a victim was
found, and again they went forth on their exterminating work. Lower
down they found another encampment, and there also they slew all the
inhabitants of the lodges; they then returned back to the island, to
gather together their dead and collect the spoils of their tents. They
were weary with the fatigue of the slaughter of that fearful day; they
were tired of blood-shedding; the retribution had satisfied even their
love of blood: and when they found, on returning to the spot where the
heroine had stood at bay, one young solitary female sitting beside the
corpse of that dauntless woman, her mother, they led her away, and did
all that their savage nature could suggest to soften her anguish and dry
her tears. They brought her to the tents of their women, and clothed