A pole was then laid upon his body, to the extremities of which his feet and neck were also bound; so that he was secured as upon, or rather _under_, a cross, without the power of moving hand or foot.

As if even this were not enough to satisfy his barbarous companions, they attached an additional cord to his neck; and this, when they lay down beside him to sleep, one of the young warriors wrapped several times round his own arm, so that the slightest movement of the prisoner, were such a thing possible, must instantly rouse the jealous savage from his slumbers.
These preparations being completed, the young men lay down, one on each side of the prisoner, and were soon fast asleep.
The old Piankeshaw, meanwhile, sat by the fire, now musing in drunken revery,--"in cogibundity of cogitation,"-- now grumbling a lament for his perished son, which, by a natural licence of affliction, he managed to intermingle with regrets for his lost liquor, and occasionally heaping maledictions upon the heads of his wasteful companions, or soliciting the prisoner's attention to an account, that he gave him at least six times over, of the peculiar ceremonies which would be observed in burning him, when once safely bestowed in the Piankeshaw nation.

In this manner, the old savage, often nodding, but always rousing again, succeeded in amusing himself nearly half the night long; and it was not until near midnight that he thought fit, after stirring up the fire, and adding a fresh log to it, to stretch himself beside one of the juniors, and grumble himself to sleep.

A few explosive and convulsive snorts, such as might have done honour to the nostrils of a war-horse, marked the gradations by which he sank to repose; then came the deep, long-drawn breath of mental annihilation, such as distinguished the slumber of his companions.
To the prisoner, alone, sleep was wholly denied; for which the renewed agonies of his bonds, tied with the supreme contempt for suffering which usually marks the conduct of savages to their captives, would have been sufficient cause, had there even been no superior pangs of spirit to banish the comforter from his eyelids.

Of his feelings during the journey from the river,--which, in consequence of numberless delays caused by the old Piankeshaw's drunkenness, could scarce have been left more than eight or ten miles behind,--we have said but little, since imagination can only picture them properly to the reader.