Before this catastrophe occurred, the other Indians and the assailants met at the fire; and each singling out his opponent, and thinking no more of the rifles, they met as men whose only business was to kill or to die.  With his axe flourished over his head, Nathan rushed against the tallest and foremost enemy, who, as he advanced, swung his tomahawk, in the act of throwing it.  Their weapons parted from their hands at the same moment, and with perhaps equal accuracy of aim; but meeting with a crash in the air, they fell together to the earth, doing no harm to either.  The Indian stooped to recover his weapon; but it was too late:  the hand of Nathan was already upon his shoulder:  a single effort of his vast strength sufficed to stretch the savage at his feet; and holding him down with knee and hand, Nathan snatched up the nearest axe.  “If the life of thee tribe was in thee bosom,” he cried, with a look of unrelenting fury, of hatred deep and ineffaceable, “thee should die the dog’s death, as thee does!” And with a blow furiously struck, and thrice repeated, he despatched the struggling savage as he lay.

He rose, brandishing the bloody hatchet, and looked for his companion.  He found him upon the earth, lying upon the breast of his antagonist, whom it had been his good fortune to over-master.  Both had thrown their hatchets, and both without effect, Roland because skill was wanting, and the Shawnee because, in the act of throwing, he had stumbled over the body of one of his comrades, so as to disorder his aim, and even to deprive him of his footing.  Before he could recover himself, Roland imitated Nathan’s example, and threw himself upon the unlucky Indian,—­a youth, as it appeared, whose strength, perhaps at no moment equal to his own, had been reduced by recent wounds,—­and found that he had him entirely at his mercy.  This circumstance, and the knowledge that the other Indians were now overpowered, softened the soldier’s wrath; and when Nathan, rushing to assist him, cried aloud to him to move aside, that he might “knock the assassin knave’s brains out,” Roland replied by begging Nathan to spare his life.  “I have disarmed him,” he cried—­“he resists no more—­Don’t kill him.”

“To the last man of his tribe!” cried Nathan, with unexampled ferocity; and, without another word, drove the hatchet into the wretch’s brain.

The victors now leaping to their feet, looked round for the fifth savage and the prisoner; and directed by a horrible din under the bank of the stream, which was resounding with, curses, groans, heavy blows, and the plashing of water, ran to the spot, where the last incident of battle was revealed to them in a spectacle as novel as it was shocking.  The Indian lay on his back suffocating in mire and water; while astride his body sat the late prisoner, covered from head to foot with mud and gore, furiously plying his fists, for he had no other weapons, about the head and face of his foe, his blows falling like sledge-hammers