The eyes of the prisoner followed the Indian’s hand, as he pointed, with savage triumph, to the shrivelled scalps that had once crowned the heads of childhood and innocence, and then sank to the floor, while his whole frame shivered as with an ague-fit.

“My brother is a great medicine-man,” iterated the chief:  “he shall show me the Jibbenainosay, or he shall die.”

“The chief lies!” cried Nathan, with a sudden and taunting laugh:  “he can talk big things to a prisoner, but he fears the Jibbenainosay!”

“I am a chief and warrior.  I will fight the white-man’s devil!”

“The warrior shall see him then,” said the captive, with extraordinary fire.  “Cut me loose from my bonds, and I will bring him before the chief.”

And as he spoke, he thrust out his legs, inviting the stroke of the axe upon the thongs that bound his ankles.

But this was a favour, which, stupid or mad as he was, Wenonga hesitated to grant.

“The chief,” cried Nathan, with a laugh of scorn, “would stand face to face with the Jibbenainosay, and yet fears to loose a naked prisoner!”

The taunt produced its effect.  The axe fell upon tho thong, and Nathan leaped to his feet.  He extended his wrists.  The Indian hesitated again.  “The chief shall see the Jibbenainosay!” cried Nathan; and the cord was cut.

The prisoner turned quickly round; and while his eyes fastened with a wild but joyous glare upon his jailer’s, a laugh that would have become the jaws of a hyena lighted up his visage, and sounded from his lips.  “Look!” he cried, “thee has thee wish!  Thee sees the destroyer of thee race,—­ay, murdering villain, the destroyer of thee people, and theeself!”

And with that, leaping upon the astounded chief with rather the rancorous ferocity of a wolf than the enmity of a human being, and clutching him by the throat with one hand, while with the other he tore the iron tomahawk from his grasp, he bore him to the earth, clinging to him as he fell, and using the wrested weapon with such furious haste and skill that, before they had yet reached the ground, he had buried it in the Indian’s brain.  Another stroke, and another, he gave with the same murderous activity and force; and Wenonga trode the path to the spiritland, bearing the same gory evidences of the unrelenting and successful vengeance of the white-man that his children and grand-children had borne before him.

“Ay, dog, thee dies at last! at last I have caught thee!”

With these words, Nathan, leaving the shattered skull, dashed the tomahawk into the Indian’s chest, snatched the scalping-knife from the belt, and with one grinding sweep of the blade, and one fierce jerk of his arm, the gray scalp-lock of the warrior was torn from the dishonoured head.  The last proof of the slayer’s ferocity was not given until he had twice, with his utmost strength, drawn the knife over the dead man’s breast, dividing skin, cartilage, and even bone, before it, so sharp was the blade and so powerful the hand that urged it.