Chapter X. The Bloody Rock

The Scouts of the Valley

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Seeing that all was lost, the five drew farther away into the
woods. They were not wounded, yet their faces were white despite the
tan. They had never before looked upon so terrible a scene. The
Indians, wild with the excitement of a great triumph and thirsting
for blood, were running over the field scalping the dead, killing
some of the wounded, and saving others for the worst of tortures.
Nor were their white allies one whit behind them. They bore a full
part in the merciless war upon the conquered. Timmendiquas, the
great Wyandot, was the only one to show nobility. Several of the
wounded he saved from immediate death, and he tried to hold back the
frenzied swarm of old squaws who rushed forward and began to practice
cruelties at which even the most veteran warrior might shudder. But
Queen Esther urged them on, and "Indian" Butler himself and the
chiefs were afraid of her.

Henry, despite himself, despite all his experience and powers of
self-control, shuddered from head to foot at the cries that came from
the lost field, and he was sure that the others were doing the same.
The sun was setting, but its dying light, brilliant and intense,
tinged the field as if with blood, showing all the yelling horde as
the warriors rushed about for scalps, or danced in triumph, whirling
their hideous trophies about their heads. Others were firing at men
who were escaping to the far bank of the Susquehanna, and others were
already seeking the fugitives in their vain hiding places on the
little islet.

The five moved farther into the forest, retreating slowly, and
sending in a shot now and then to protect the retreat of some
fugitive who was seeking the shelter of the woods. The retreat had
become a rout and then a massacre. The savages raged up and down in
the greatest killing they had known since Braddock's defeat. The
lodges of the Iroquois would be full of the scalps of white men.

All the five felt the full horror of the scene, but it made its
deepest impress, perhaps, upon Paul. He had taken part in border
battles before, but this was the first great defeat. He was not
blind to the valor and good qualities of the Indian and his claim
upon the wilderness, but he saw the incredible cruelties that he
could commit, and he felt a horror of those who used him as an ally,
a horror that he could never dismiss from his mind as long as he
lived.

"Look!" he exclaimed, "look at that!"

A man of seventy and a boy of fourteen were running for the
forest. They might have been grandfather and grandson. Undoubtedly
they had fought in the Battalion of the Very Old and the Very Young,
and now, when everything else was lost, they were seeking to save
their lives in the friendly shelter of the woods. But they were
pursued by two groups of Iroquois, four warriors in one, and three in
the other, and the Indians were gaining fast.

"I reckon we ought to save them," said Shif'less Sol.

"No doubt of it," said Henry. "Paul, you and Sol move off to
the right a little, and take the three, while the rest of us will
look out for the four."

The little band separated according to the directions, Paul and
Sol having the lighter task, as the others were to meet the group of
four Indians at closer range. Paul and Sol were behind some trees,
and, turning at an angle, they ran forward to intercept the three
Indians. It would have seemed to anyone who was not aware of the
presence of friends in the forest that the old man and the boy would
surely be overtaken and be tomahawked, but three rifles suddenly
flashed among the foliage. Two of the warriors in the group of four
fell, and a third uttered a yell of pain. Paul and Shif'less Sol
fired at the same time at the group of three. One fell before the
deadly rifle of Shif'less Sol, but Paul only grazed his man.
Nevertheless, the whole pursuit stopped, and the boy and the old man
escaped to the forest, and subsequently to safety at the Moravian
towns.

Paul, watching the happy effect of the shots, was about to say
something to Shif'less Sol, when an immense force was hurled upon
him, and he was thrown to the ground. His comrade was served in the
same way, but the shiftless one was uncommonly strong and agile. He
managed to writhe half way to his knees, and he shouted in a
tremendous voice:

"Run, Henry, run! You can't do anything for us now!"

Braxton Wyatt struck him fiercely across the mouth. The blood
came, but the shiftless one merely spat it out, and looked curiously
at the renegade.

"I've often wondered about you, Braxton," he said calmly. " I
used to think that anybody, no matter how bad, had some good in him,
but I reckon you ain't got none."

Wyatt did not answer, but rushed forward in search of the
others. But Henry, Silent Tom, and Long Jim had vanished. A
powerful party of warriors had stolen upon Shif'less Sol and Paul,
while they were absorbed in the chase of the old man and the boy, and
now they were prisoners, bound securely. Braxton Wyatt came back
from the fruitless search for the three, but his face was full of
savage joy as he looked down at the captured two.

"We could have killed you just as easily," he said, "but we
didn't want to do that. Our friends here are going to have their fun
with you first."

Paul's cheeks whitened a little at the horrible suggestion, but
Shif'less Sol faced them boldly. Several white men in uniform had
come up, and among them was an elderly one, short and squat, and with
a great flame colored handkerchief tied around his bead.

"You may burn us alive, or you may do other things jest ez bad
to us, all under the English flag," said Shif'less Sol, " but I'm
thinkin' that a lot o' people in England will be ashamed uv it when
they hear the news."

"Indian" Butler and his uniformed soldiers turned away, leaving
Shif'less Sol and Paul in the hands of the renegade and the Iroquois.
The two prisoners were jerked to their feet and told to march.

"Come on, Paul," said Shif'less Sol. "'Tain't wuth while fur us
to resist. But don't you quit hopin', Paul. We've escaped from many
a tight corner, an' mebbe we're goin' to do it ag'in."

"Shut up!" said Braxton Wyatt savagely. "If you say another
word I'll gag you in a way that will make you squirm."

Shif'less Sol looked him squarely in the eye. Solomon Hyde, who
was not shiftless at all, had a dauntless soul, and he was not afraid
now in the face of death preceded by long torture.

"I had a dog once, Braxton Wyatt," he said, "an' I reckon he wuz
the meanest, ornierest cur that ever lived. He liked to live on
dirt, the dirtier the place he could find the better; he'd rather
steal his food than get it honestly; he wuz sech a coward that he wuz
afeard o' a rabbit, but ef your back wuz turned to him he'd nip you
in the ankle. But bad ez that dog wuz, Braxton, he wuz a gentleman
'longside o' you."

Some of the Indians understood English, and Wyatt knew it. He
snatched a pistol from his belt, and was about to strike Sol with the
butt of it, but a tall figure suddenly appeared before him, and made
a commanding gesture. The gesture said plainly: "Do not strike; put
that pistol back!" Braxton Wyatt, whose soul was afraid within him,
did not strike, and he put the pistol back.

It was Timmendiquas, the great White Lightning of the Wyandots,
who with his little detachment had proved that day how mighty the
Wyandot warriors were, full equals of Thayendanegea's Mohawks, the
Keepers of the Western Gate. He was bare to the waist. One shoulder
was streaked with blood from a slight wound, but his countenance was
not on fire with passion for torture and slaughter like those of the
others.

"There is no need to strike prisoners," he said in English.
"Their fate will be decided later."

Paul thought that he caught a look of pity from the eyes of the
great Wyandot, and Shif'less Sol said:

"I'm sorry, Timmendiquas, since I had to be captured, that you
didn't capture me yourself. I'm glad to say that you're a great
warrior."

Wyatt growled under his breath, but he was still afraid to speak
out, although he knew that Timmendiquas was merely a distant and
casual ally, and had little authority in that army. Yet he was
overawed, and so were the Indians with him.

"We were merely taking the prisoners to Colonel Butler," he
said. "That is all."

Timmendiquas stared at him, and the renegade's face fell. But
he and the Indians went on with the prisoners, and Timmendiquas
looked after them until they were out of sight.

"I believe White Lightning was sorry that we'd been captured,"
whispered Shif'less Sol.

"I think so, too," Paul whispered back.

They had no chance for further conversation, as they were driven
rapidly now to that point of the battlefield which lay nearest to the
fort, and here they were thrust into the midst of a gloomy company,
fellow captives, all bound tightly, and many wounded. No help, no
treatment of any kind was offered for hurts. The Indians and
renegades stood about and yelled with delight when the agony of some
man's wound wrung from him a groan. The scene was hideous in every
respect. The setting sun shone blood red over forest, field, and
river. Far off burning houses still smoked like torches. But the
mountain wall in the east, was growing dusky with the coming
twilight. From the island, where they were massacring the fugitives
in their vain hiding places, came the sound of shots and cries, but
elsewhere the firing had ceased. All who could escape had done so
already, and of the others, those who were dead were fortunate.

The sun sank like a red ball behind the mountains, and darkness
swept down over the earth. Fires began to blaze up here and there,
some for terrible purpose. The victorious Iroquois; stripped to the
waist and painted in glaring colors, joined in a savage dance that
would remain forever photographed on the eye of Paul Cotter. As they
jumped to and fro, hundreds of them, waving aloft tomahawks and
scalping knives, both of which dripped red, they sang their wild
chant of war and triumph. White men, too, as savage as they, joined
them. Paul shuddered again and again from head to foot at this sight
of an orgy such as the mass of mankind escapes, even in dreams.

The darkness thickened, the dance grew wilder. It was like a
carnival of demons, but it was to be incited to a yet wilder pitch.
A singular figure, one of extraordinary ferocity, was suddenly
projected into the midst of the whirling crowd, and a chant, shriller
and fiercer, rose above all the others. The figure was that of Queen
Esther, like some monstrous creature out of a dim past, her great
tomahawk stained with blood, her eyes bloodshot, and stains upon her
shoulders. Paul would have covered his eyes had his hands not been
tied instead, he turned his head away. He could not bear to see
more. But the horrible chant came to his ears, nevertheless, and it
was reinforced presently by other sounds still more terrible. Fires
sprang up in the forest, and cries came from these fires. The
victorious army of "Indian" Butler was beginning to burn the
prisoners alive. But at this point we must stop. The details of
what happened around those fires that night are not for the ordinary
reader. It suffices to say that the darkest deed ever done on the
soil of what is now the United States was being enacted.

Shif'less Sol himself, iron of body and soul, was shaken. He
could not close his ears, if he would, to the cries that came from
the fires, but he shut his eyes to keep out the demon dance.
Nevertheless, he opened them again in a moment. The horrible
fascination was too great. He saw Queen Esther still shaking her
tomahawk, but as he looked she suddenly darted through the circle,
warriors willingly giving way before her, and disappeared in the
darkness. The scalp dance went on, but it had lost some of its fire
and vigor.

Shif'less Sol felt relieved.

"She's gone," he whispered to Paul, and the boy, too, then
opened his eyes. The rest of it, the mad whirlings and jumpings of
the warriors, was becoming a blur before him, confused and without
meaning.

Neither he nor Shif'less Sol knew how long they had been sitting
there on the ground, although it had grown yet darker, when Braxton
Wyatt thrust a violent foot against the shiftless one and cried:

"Get up! You're wanted!"

A half dozen Seneca warriors were with him, and there was no
chance of resistance. The two rose slowly to their feet, and walked
where Braxton Wyatt led. The Senecas came on either side, and close
behind them, tomahawks in their hands. Paul, the sensitive, who so
often felt the impression of coming events from the conditions around
him, was sure that they were marching to their fate. Death he did
not fear so greatly, although he did not want to die, but when a
shriek came to him from one of the fires that convulsive shudder
shook him again from head to foot. Unconsciously he strained at his
bound arms, not for freedom, but that he might thrust his fingers in
his ears and shut out the awful sounds. Shif'less Sol, because he
could not use his hands, touched his shoulder gently against
Paul's.

"Paul," he whispered, "I ain't sure that we're goin' to die,
leastways, I still have hope; but ef we do, remember that we don't
have to die but oncet."

"I'll remember, Sol," Paul whispered back.

"Silence, there!" exclaimed Braxton Wyatt. But the two had said
all they wanted to say, and fortunately their senses were somewhat
dulled. They had passed through so much that they were like those
who are under the influence of opiates. The path was now dark,
although both torches and fires burned in the distance. Presently
they heard that chant with which they had become familiar, the
dreadful notes of the hyena woman, and they knew that they were being
taken into her presence, for what purpose they could not tell,
although they were sure that it was a bitter one. As they
approached, the woman's chant rose to an uncommon pitch of frenzy,
and Paul felt the blood slowly chilling within him.

"Get up there!" exclaimed Braxton Wyatt, and the Senecas gave
them both a push. Other warriors who were standing at the edge of an
open space seized them and threw them forward with much violence.
When they struggled into a sitting position, they saw Queen Esther
standing upon a broad flat rock and whirling in a ghastly dance that
had in it something Oriental. She still swung the great war hatchet
that seemed always to be in her hand. Her long black hair flew
wildly about her head, and her red dress gleamed in the dusk. Surely
no more terrible image ever appeared in the American wilderness! In
front of her, lying upon the ground, were twenty bound Americans, and
back of them were Iroquois in dozens, with a sprinkling of their
white allies.

What it all meant, what was about to come to pass, nether Paul
nor Shif'less Sol could guess, but Queen Esther sang:

We have found them, the Yengees Who built their houses in
the valley, They came forth to meet us in battle, Our rifles and
tomahawks cut them down, As the Yengees lay low the forest.
Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children, The Mighty Six
Nations, greatest of men. There will be feasting in the lodges of
the Iroquois, And scalps will hang on the high ridge pole, But
wolves will roam where the Yengees dwelt And will gnaw the bones of
them all, Of the man, the woman, and the child. Victory and glory
Aieroski gives to his children, The Mighty Six Nations, greatest of
men. Such it sounded to Shif'less Sol, who knew the tongue of the
Iroquois, and so it went on, verse after verse, and at the end of
each verse came the refrain, in which the warriors joined:

"Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children. The mighty
Six Nations, greatest of men."

"What under the sun is she about?" whispered Shif'less Sol.

"It is a fearful face," was Paul's only reply.

Suddenly the woman, without stopping her chant, made a gesture
to the warriors. Two powerful Senecas seized one of the bound
prisoners, dragged him to his feet, and held him up before her. She
uttered a shout, whirled the great tomahawk about her head, its blade
glittering in the moonlight, and struck with all her might. The
skull of the prisoner was cleft to the chin, and without a cry he
fell at the feet of the woman who had killed him. Paul uttered a
shout of horror, but it was lost in the joyful yells of the Iroquois,
who, at the command of the woman, offered a second victim. Again the
tomahawk descended, and again a man fell dead without a sound.

Shif'less Sol and Paul wrenched at their thongs, but they could
not move them. Braxton Wyatt laughed aloud. It was strange to see
how fast one with a bad nature could fall when the opportunities were
spread before him. Now he was as cruel as the Indians themselves.
Wilder and shriller grew the chant of the savage queen. She was
intoxicated with blood. She saw it everywhere. Her tomahawk clove a
third skull, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, and eighth. As
fast as they fell the warriors at her command brought up new victims
for her weapon. Paul shut his eyes, but he knew by the sounds what
was passing. Suddenly a stern voice cried:

"Hold, woman! Enough of this! Will your tomahawk never be
satisfied?"

Paul understood it , the meaning, but not the words. He opened
his eyes and saw the great figure of Timmendiquas striding forward,
his hand upraised in protest.

The woman turned her fierce gaze upon the young chief.
"Timmendiquas," she said, "we are the Iroquois, and we are the
masters. You are far from your own land, a guest in our lodges, and
you cannot tell those who have won the victory how they shall use it.
Stand back!"

A loud laugh came from the Iroquois. The fierce old chiefs,
Hiokatoo and Sangerachte, and a dozen warriors thrust themselves
before Timmendiquas. The woman resumed her chant, and a hundred
throats pealed out with her the chorus:

Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children The mighty Six
Nations, greatest of men.

She gave the signal anew. The ninth victim stood before her,
and then fell, cloven to the chin; then the tenth, and the eleventh,
and the twelfth, and the thirteenth, and the fourteenth, and the
fifteenth, and the sixteenth-sixteen bound men killed by one woman in
less than fifteen minutes. The four in that group who were left had
all the while been straining fearfully at their bonds. Now they bad
slipped or broken them, and, springing to their feet, driven on by
the mightiest of human impulses, they dashed through the ring of
Iroquois and into the forest. Two were hunted down by the warriors
and killed, but the other two, Joseph Elliott and Lebbeus Hammond,
escaped and lived to be old men, feeling that life could never again
hold for them anything so dreadful as that scene at "The Bloody
Rock."

A great turmoil and confusion arose as the prisoners fled and
the Indians pursued. Paul and Shif'less Sol; full of sympathy and
pity for the fugitives and having felt all the time that their turn,
too, would come under that dreadful tomahawk, struggled to their
feet. They did not see a form slip noiselessly behind them, but a
sharp knife descended once, then twice, and the bands of both fell
free.

"Run! run!" exclaimed the voice of Timmendiquas, low but
penetrating. "I would save you from this!"

Amid the darkness and confusion the act of the great Wyandot was
not seen by the other Indians and the renegades. Paul flashed him
one look of gratitude, and then he and Shif'less Sol darted away,
choosing a course that led them from the crowd in pursuit of the
other flying fugitives.

At such a time they might have secured a long lead without being
noticed, had it not been for the fierce swarm of old squaws who were
first in cruelty that night. A shrill wild howl arose, and the
pointing fingers of the old women showed to the warriors the two in
flight. At the same time several of the squaws darted forward to
intercept the fugitives.

"I hate to hit a woman," breathed Shif'less Sol to Paul, "but
I'm goin' to do it now."

A hideous figure sprang before them. Sol struck her face with
his open hand, and with a shriek she went down. He leaped over her,
although she clawed at his feet as he passed, and ran on, with Paul
at his side. Shots were now fired at him, but they went wild, but
Paul, casting a look backward out of the corner of his eye, saw that
a real pursuit, silent and deadly, had begun. Five Mohawk warriors,
running swiftly, were only a few hundred yards away. They carried
rifle, tomahawk, and knife, and Paul and Shif'less Sol were unarmed.
Moreover, they were coming fast, spreading out slightly, and the
shiftless one, able even at such a time to weigh the case coolly, saw
that the odds were against them. Yet he would not despair. Anything
might happen. It was night. There was little organization in the
army of the Indians and of their white allies, which was giving
itself up to the enjoyment of scalps and torture. Moreover, he and
Paul were, animated by the love of life, which is always stronger
than the desire to give death.

Their flight led them in a diagonal line toward the mountains.
Only once did the pursuers give tongue. Paul tripped over a root,
and a triumphant yell came from the Mohawks. But it merely gave him
new life. He recovered himself in an instant and ran faster. But it
was terribly hard work. He could hear Shif'less Sol's sobbing breath
by his side, and he was sure that his own must have the same sound
for his comrade.

"At any rate one uv 'em is beat," gasped Shif'less Sol. "Only
four are ban-in' on now."

The ground rose a little and became rougher. The lights from
the Indian fires had sunk almost out of sight behind them, and a
dense thicket lay before them. Something stirred in the thicket, and
the eyes of Shif'less Sol caught a glimpse of a human shoulder. His
heart sank like a plummet in a pool. The Indians were ahead of them.
They would be caught, and would be carried back to become the
victims of the terrible tomahawk.

The figure in the bushes rose a little higher, the muzzle of a
rifle was projected, and flame leaped from the steel tube.

But it was neither Shif'less Sol nor Paul who fell. They heard
a cry behind them, and when Shif'less Sol took a hasty glance
backward he saw one of the Mohawks fall. The three who were left
hesitated and stopped. When a second shot was fired from the bushes
and another Mohawk went down, the remaining two fled.

Shif'less Sol understood now, and he rushed into the bushes,
dragging Paul after him. Henry, Tom, and Long Jim rose up to receive
them.

"So you wuz watchin' over us! "exclaimed the shiftless one
joyously. "It wuz you that clipped off the first Mohawk, an' we
didn't even notice the shot."

"Thank God, you were here!" exclaimed Paul. "You don't know
what Sol and I have seen!"

Overwrought, he fell forward, but his comrades caught him.