The Indians now
worked in silence, and the matter was getting to be much too serious
for the corporal to indulge in any more words. The cold sweat
returned, and many an anxious glance was cast by the veteran on the
fell preparations. Still he maintained appearances, and when all was
ready, not a man there was aware of the agony of dread which
prevailed in the breast of the victim. It was not death that he
feared as much as suffering. A few minutes, the corporal well knew,
would make the pain intolerable, while he saw no hope of putting a
speedy end to his existence. A man might live hours in such a
situation. Then it was that the teachings of childhood were revived
in the bosom of this hardened man, and he remembered the Being that
died for HIM, in common with the rest of the human race, on the
tree. The seeming similarity of his own execution struck his
imagination, and brought a tardy but faint recollection of those
lessons that had lost most of their efficacy in the wickedness and
impiety of camps. His soul struggled for relief in that direction,
but the present scene was too absorbing to admit of its lifting
itself so far above his humanity.
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