Once I heard a man plead for mercy, shrieking the words forth as if his intensity of agony had robbed him of all manliness; I saw a young woman fall headlong, the haft of a tomahawk cleaving open her head, as a brawny red arm gripped her by the throat; a child, with long yellow hair, and face distorted by terror, ran past my narrow outlook, a naked savage grasping after her scarcely a foot behind.

I heard her wild scream of despair and his shout of triumph as he struck her down.

Then I lost consciousness, overwhelmed by the multiplying horrors of that field of blood.
It is hard to tell how long I lay there, or by what miracle of God's great mercy I had escaped death and mutilation.

It was still day, the sun was high in the heaven, and the heat almost intolerable, beating down upon the dry and glittering sand.

I could distinguish no sound near at hand, not even a moan of any kind.