He was started by a blow; but soon broke through
the files, and had almost reached the council house, when a stout
warrior knocked him down with a club. He was severely beaten in this
position, and taken back again into custody.
It seems incredible that they sometimes adopted their prisoners, and
treated them with the utmost lenity and even kindness. At other times,
ingenuity was exhausted to invent tortures, and every renewed endurance
of the victim seemed to stimulate their vengeance to new discoveries of
cruelty. Butler was one of these ill-fated subjects. No way satisfied
with what they had done, they marched him from village to village to
give all a spectacle of his sufferings. He run the gauntlet thirteen
times. He made various attempts to escape; and in one instance would
have effected it, had he not been arrested by some savages who were
accidentally returning to the village from which he was escaping. It was
finally determined to burn him at the Lower Sandusky, but an apparent
accident changed his destiny.
In passing to the stake, the procession went by the cabin of Girty, of
whom we have already spoken. This renegado white man lived among these
Indians, and had just returned from an unsuccessful expedition against
the whites on the frontiers of Pennsylvania. The wretch burned with
disappointment and revenge, and hearing that there was a white man going
to the torture, determined to wreak his vengeance on him. He found the
unfortunate Butler, threw him to the ground, and began to beat him.
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