helplessness
left him entirely at her mercy. Had it been better directed it might have proved
fatal before any relief could have been offered. As it was, she did succeed in
wrenching out two or three handsful of hair, before the young men could tear her
away from her victim.
    The insult that had been offered to the Sumach was deemed an insult to the
whole tribe; not so much, however, on account of any respect that was felt for
the woman, as on account of the honor of the Huron nation. Sumach, herself, was
generally considered to be as acid as the berry from which she derived her name,
and now that her great supporters, her husband and brother, were both gone, few
cared about concealing their aversion. Nevertheless, it had become a point of
honor to punish the pale face who disdained a Huron woman, and more particularly
one who coolly preferred death to relieving the tribe from the support of a
widow and her children. The young men showed an impatience to begin to torture,
that Rivenoak understood, and, as his older associates manifested no disposition
to permit any longer delay, he was compelled to give the signal, for the
infernal work to proceed.
 

                                  Chapter XXIX

 »The ugly bear now minded not the stake,
 Nor how the cruel mastiffs do him tear,
 The stag lay still unroused from the brake,
 The foamy boar feared not the hunter's spear:
 All thing was still in desert, bush, and briar:«
                                             Thomas Sackville, »The Complaint of
                                               Henry Duke of Buckingham,« lxxxi.
 
It was one of the common expedients of the savages, on such occasions, to put
the nerves of their victims to the severest proofs. On the other hand, it was a
matter of Indian pride to betray no yielding to terror, or pain, but for the
prisoner to provoke his enemies to such acts of violence as would soonest
produce death. Many a warrior had been known to bring his own sufferings to a
more speedy termination, by taunting reproaches and reviling language, when he
found that his physical system was giving way under the agony of sufferings
produced by a hellish ingenuity that might well eclipse all that has been said
of the infernal devices of religious persecution. This happy expedient of taking
refuge from the ferocity of his foes, in their passions, was denied Deerslayer
however, by his peculiar notions of the duty of a white man, and he had stoutly
made up his mind to endure every thing, in preference to disgracing his colour.
    No sooner did the young men understand that they were at liberty to
commence,