Page:Surprising life and sufferings of Peter Williamson.pdf/14

 with no resistance, they scalped the unhappy wife and her four small children, before the good old man's eyes. Inhuman and horrid as this was, it did not satiate them; for when they had murdered the poor woman, they acted with her in such a brutal manner, as decency, or the remembrance of the crime will not permit me to mention; and this even before the unhappy husband, who, not being able to avoid the sight, and incapable of affording her the least relief, entreated them to put an end to his miserable being; but they were as deaf and regardless to the tears, prayers, and entreaties of this venerable sufferer, as they had been to those of the others, and proceeded in their cruel purpose of burning and destroying his house, barn, corn, bay, cattle, and every thing the poor man a few hours before was master of. Having saved what they thought proper from the flames, they gave the old man, feeble, weak, and in the miserable condition he then was, as well as myself, burdens to carry, and loading themselves likewise with bread and meat, pursued their journey on towards the Great Swamp; where being, arrived, they lay for eight or nine days, sometimes diverting themselves in exercising the most atrocious and barbarous cruelties on their unhappy victim, the old man. In vain, alas! were all his tears, for daily did they tire themselves with the various means they tried to torment him, sometimes tying him to a tree, and whipping him; at others scorching his furrowed cheeks with red hot coals, and burning his legs quite to the knees: but the good old man, instead of repining, or wickedly