they caught us, even before we reached the timber, and
threw us to the ground, tying us up like basted capons with straps from
their saddles. Maltreated, struck, kicked, mauled, and dragged out to
the road, I looked for instant death; but a lank creature flung me
across his saddle, face downward, and, in a second, the whole band had
mounted, wheeled about, and were galloping westward, ventre a terre.

Almost dead from the saddle-pommel which knocked the breath from my
body, suffocated and strangled with dust, I hung dangling there in a
storm of flying sticks and pebbles. Twice consciousness fled, only to
return with the blood pounding in my ears. A third time my senses left
me, and when they returned I lay in a cleared space in the woods beside
Sir George, the sun shining full in my face, flung on the ground near a
fire, over which a kettle was boiling. And on every side of us moved
McCraw's riders, feeding their horses, smoking, laughing, playing at
cards, or coming up to sniff the camp-kettle and poke the boiling meat
with pointed sticks.

Behind them, squatted in rows, sat two dozen Indians, watching us in
ferocious silence.

XXI

THE CRISIS

For a while I lay there stupefied, limp-limbed, lifeless, closing my
aching eyes under the glittering red rays of the westering sun.

My parched throat throbbed and throbbed; I could scarcely stir, even to
close my swollen hands where they had tied my wrists, although somebody
had cut the cords that bound me.

"Sir George," I said, in a low voice.

"Yes, I am here," he replied, instantly.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, Ormond. Are you?"

"No; very tired; that is all."

I rolled over; my head reeled and I held it in my benumbed hands,
looking at Sir George, who lay on his side, cheek pillowed on his arms.

"This is a miserable end of it all," he said, with calm bitterness. "But
that it involves you, I should not dare blame fortune for the fool I
acted. I have my deserts; but it's cruel for you."

The sickening whirling in my head became unendurable. I lay down, facing
him, eyes closed.

"It was not your fault," I said, dully.

"There is no profit in discussing that," he muttered. "They took us
alive instead of scalping us; while there's life there's hope, ... a
little hope.... But I'd sooner they'd finish me here than rot in their
stinking prison-ships.... Ormond, are you awake?"

"Yes, Sir George."

"If they--if the Indians get us, and--and begin their--you