The shriek of the wretched maiden, as she beheld the deplorable, the maddening sight, might have melted hearts of stone, had there been even such among the Indians.  But Indians, engaged in the delights of torturing a prisoner, are, as the dead chief had boasted himself, without heart.  Pity, which the Indian can feel at another moment, as deeply, perhaps, and benignly as a white man, seems then, and is, entirely unknown, as much so, indeed, as if it had never entered into his nature.  His mind is then voluntarily given tip to the drunkenness of passion; and cruelty, in its most atrocious and fiendish character, reigns predominant.  The familiar of a Spanish Inquisition has sometimes moistened the lips of a heretic stretched upon the rack,—­the Buccaneer of the tropics has relented over the contumacious prisoner gasping to death under his lashes and heated pincers; but we know of no instance where an Indian, torturing a prisoner at the stake, the torture once begun, has ever been moved to compassionate, to regard with any feelings but those of exultation and joy, the agonies of the thrice-wretched victim.

The shriek of the maiden was unheard, or unregarded; and Braxley,—­himself so horrified by the spectacle that, while pausing to give it a glance, he forgot the delay was also disclosing it to Edith,—­grasping her tighter in his arms, from which she had half leaped in her frenzy, turned his horse’s head to fly, without seeming to be regarded or observed by the savages, which was perhaps in part owing to his having resumed his Indian attire.  But, as he turned, he could not resist the impulse to snatch one more look at his doomed rival.  A universal yell of triumph sounded over the square; the flames were already bursting from the pile, and the torture was begun.

The torture was begun,—­but it was not destined long to endure.  The yell of triumph was yet resounding over the square, and awakening responsive echoes among the surrounding hills, when the explosion of at least fifty rifles, sharp, rattling, and deadly, like the war-note of the rattle-snake, followed by a mighty hurrah of Christian voices, and the galloping of horse into the village from above, converted the whole scene into one of amazement and terror.  The volley was repeated, and by as many more guns; and in an instant there was seen rushing into the square a body of at least a hundred mounted white men, their horses covered with foam and staggering with exhaustion, yet spurred on by their riders with furious ardour; while twice as many footmen were beheld rushing after, in mad rivalry, cheering and shouting, in reply to their leader, whose voice was heard in front of the horsemen thundering out,—­“Small change for the Blue Licks!  Charge ’em, the brutes! give it to ’em handsome!”