And such stories! That of Captain John Smith laying his head upon the
block that it might be smashed by the Indians' clubs, and of his
rescue by the Indian girl, afterwards the 'Princess Rebecca'; the
massacre of three hundred and fifty men, women and children of the
infant colony of Virginia, a hundred stories of massacre. Or, that
story of the mother's revenge, told, I believe, by Thoreau. Her name
was Hannah Dunstan. Her house was attacked by Indians; her husband and
her elder children fled for their lives; she, with an infant of a
fortnight, and her nurse, were left behind. The Indians dashed out the
brains of the baby and forced the two women to march with them through
the forest to their camp. Here they found an English boy, also a
prisoner. Hannah Dunstan made the boy find out from one of the Indians
the quickest way to strike with the tomahawk so as to kill and to
secure the scalp. The Indian told the boy. Now there were in the camp
two men, three women, and seven children. In the dead of night Hannah
got up, awakened her nurse and the boy, secured the tomahawks, and in
the way the unsuspecting Indian had taught the boy, she tomahawked
every one--man, woman and child--except a boy who fled into the
woods--and took their scalps.
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