speaker with the intentness of a man totally deaf, who tries earnestly to understand the speaker’s meaning from the motion of his lips and the expression of his face; while his daughter was wading about in the stream a hundred yards off. Suddenly they were all startled by hearing the child scream fearfully, and all got up to see what was the matter, and to their utter astonishment they saw her in the midst of a party of men, and struggling with all her little strength to get free. Geoffrey rushed to rescue her without staying to arm himself, and his father and Arthur ran into their encampment to get their rifles. Geoffrey’s strength and impetuosity was such that he easily pushed his way among them, took the little girl in his arms, and after addressing them in a few energetic words, he turned to leave them, when several of the ruffians drew their revolvers and shot him in the back, killing the child at the same time. Arthur and his father, on seeing the murder of Geoffrey, fired at his murderers, and had just time to throw down their rifles and snatch up a revolver before the rest of the party were upon them. There was a fearful struggle, for the Englishmen were strong, and fought with the fury inspired by the sight of Geoffrey’s blood, and the feeling that they had themselves no other fate to hope for if they were beaten; but it was hopeless against the number opposed to them. Arthur was shot to death, and his father, after receiving several wounds, fell to the ground, and was bruised and trampled upon till he was insensible. The gang of murderers suffered severely, as much very likely from each other’s shots as from those of their victims, and it took the survivors some time to bind up their wounds, before they could begin to collect and load the mules. When all this was done, and they were prepared to start, they took the elder Rawlinson, who had in the meantime recovered his senses, and putting a rope loosely round his neck, they drew him up a little way from the ground, and fastening the end of the rope securely to the branch of the tree, they left him hanging there with his hands tied to his heels to increase the torment of his position; first raking the embers of the fire beneath him, and throwing on some wood. They were apparently so certain that nothing could save him that they did not even wait to see if the wood took fire. Being full of turpentine when it took fire it blazed furiously, but from not being exactly beneath him, or from the current of air running along the valley, the body of the flame did not touch him, and he was still further protected by being clothed in flannel. A tongue of flame, as probably everybody knows, is susceptible of being drawn out of a perpendicular line by the presence of a body near it. It was so in this case; but not quite reaching the head, which was inclined towards the opposite shoulder, it kept darting at intervals round the cord by which he was suspended until it sank lower and lower and gradually burnt itself out. The cord, however, had been kindled, and the fire slowly ate its way nearly through, until it became too weak to sustain the sufferer’s weight, when it gave way and he fell to the ground, the side of his face lying on the red hot embers. He was unable to move an inch, and to add to his sufferings the cord continued to burn like a fusee, and he had to lie there while the fire crept round his neck like a serpent.
I know little of such matters, but it occurs to me as possible that his having to lie there for several hours after the fire had gone out, may, while it increased his sufferings, have assisted his recovery, for he simply states that on being released from his bonds, the Indians tied cloths round his head and neck, first laying ashes on the wound in the latter, his face being already thickly coated with them, and nothing else was done that he mentions.
As no mention is made of the Indian having been concerned in the fight, it is to be presumed that he ran away at the first onset; and it was, perhaps, well that he did, for it may have been owing to his going off to fetch his friends that Rawlinson escaped with his life, and lived to assist at the punishment of the murderers of his children. His recovery was slow, but he did recover, and as soon as he was well able to walk he made signs to the Indians that he wished to go in search of those who had wounded him. They understood him with a readiness which showed what their own feelings would have been in such a case; and giving him his rifle, and dividing the rest of the arms among them, they set out. The father of the murdered girl walked always first, and as though travelling a road with which he was familiar; and subsequent events would seem to prove that he had tracked the ruffians to Norris’s house, for it was to that place he directed his companions. It was a misfortune that Rawlinson could not comprehend their language, nor they his; and he was quite staggered when the Indians led him up a little hill and pointed to Norris’s house, for he could scarcely believe the murderers lived there, and he fancied their intention was to attack the house as a measure of retaliation. There was only one way of setting his mind at ease, and this was by seeing some of the inhabitants, for he had a perfect recollection of the faces of some of his assailants—and those seen in a life or death encounter are never forgotten.
The Indians hid themselves to wait his return, as he supposed, and he walked cautiously towards the house, and hid himself among the shrubs near the entrance. First he recognised one of the murderers, then another, and then others, and the first moment he could get away without risk of being seen, he made his way back to the Indians. In his impatience he made signs to them to begin the attack at once, but they easily made him understand that they would wait until after sunset.
It was a dark night out of doors, but there was no want of light in the dining-room and billiard-room where Norris and his associates were enjoying themselves, never thinking of the Nemesis that was so close at hand. The very precautions they had taken to make the house defensible, viz., by closing every window and opening with iron bars, and having but one way of ingress or egress, the door which opened in the front directly into the billiard-room, made the certainty of their destruction more complete.
