Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1849-08-18

But IN an eVil hour band OF pltiless saya.
ges stole into this home of love and with
ruthless hand laid all its eden desolate.
The brothers were surprised while la
boring in the fields and carried away cap.
tive beyond the mountains. Tb"y suffer.
ed greatly, in their painful march, from
the cruelty of gigantic brave, the lead
er of the band; and when having arrived
at his village, his followers would have
adopted them as sons and brothers into
their families, he ordered them to be
burnt for the amusement of his women.
The youngest was to suffer first, and the
elder saw the brave and generous youth
bound to stake, round which faggots
were heaped, and slowly roasted to death.
was compelled to listen to his means and
cries, to watch the horrid contortions of
his consuming body and to hear the yells
of delight that burst from the exulting
savages as the human flesh burnt and
cracked in the flames. Twas thought
that the brother who was compelled to
look and to listen suffered more than he
who writhed In the fames-the desire to
save without the power to move finger
in defence--the horrid necessity of sight
and sound racked with thousand mad
ming feelings so chat he cursed and gnash-
cd his teeth and called on heaven for help,
but no help came, and then at evening,
when the lnoumful winds stole from the
melancholy woods and lifting the ashes
of the dead bore them gently away, the
flowing hair that love had kissed, dark as
the ravens wing, struggled loosly and grey
as if bleaohed by the winter of years ; and
it was more mournful to gaze on the liv-
ing wreck tben to think on the fate of the
dead,
He too had been condemned to the
same fate, and now he longed for the
hour to come that should release him
from the horrible recollection of what he
had seen, but In the stiffness of the night
when the Indians slept, his hands were
looscd and gentle voice, like the voice of
woman, whispered the name of his wife
and child, and then with the memory of
homo came tho desire to live, and he es-
capped INTO the wild woods, naked and
unarmed to find his way to the distant
settlement, or to perish of hunger and
cold in the trackless forests.
All night long, bleeding and torn, he
toilcd on his weary way, venomous rep
tiles Missed beneath his feet, the panther
glared fcrcely at him as he passed close
to her lair, often he heard the wild cats
scream or saw the rolling Of fiery eyes as
the mountain wolves gaunt and grim and
terrible'howled in hunger around him.
For days he wandered on, gradually
growing weaker and more weak as hope
sank in his heart; at times, overcome by
despair, he would lie down to die in the
lonesome woods, but then the thought of
his happy home would steal on his soul
and the forms of wife and child would rise
up before him blessing him with loving
smiles and filing with gladness his broken
heart, and again he would wander on
but, alas reason directed no longer his
tottering steps, for the fever of hunger
and exhaustion fiered his blood and burnt
in, his brain, and in its strange delusion
he could feel warm kisses on his cheek,
and hear soft voices that he knew to be
the voices of home, and they would
breathe into his ear, low and sweet and
spirit-like, the music Of hope aud peace,
as the savage shout would again burst up,
on him and he could see his brothers face,
distorted and black and burnt, grining
from the flames. AT length the shifting
scenes brought him once more to the
threshold of his home, his gentle wife
with the infant on her bosom came as &
yorc to meet him, busAs he stretched
out his arms to clasp them, the forms
of mother and child fadsd away and gil
ding around seemed to elude his touch.
Noisless and trackiess and shadow.iike
thew t,lided before hi n haSlo,,;,,cs h;,,, %,