358

ESCAPE OF

posite the dwelling-house, I discharged my muskets in succession among them, which put them in some confusion ; they then, for the second time, began their horrid yells, and in a minute no sash or glass was left at the window, for they vented their rage at that spot. I fired at them from some of the other windows, and from the top of the house; in fact, I fired whenever I could get an Indian for a mark. I kept them from the house until dark.

They then poured in a heavy fire at all the windows and lantern ; that was the time they set fire to the door and window even with the ground. The window was boarded up with plank and filled up with stone inside ; but the flames spread fast, being fed with yellow pine wood. Their balls had perforated the tin tanks of oil, consisting of two hundred and twenty-five gallons ; my bedding, clothing, and in fact every thing I had, was soaked in oil. I stopped at the door until driven away by the flames. I then took a keg of gunpowder, my balls, and one musket to the top of the house, then went below, and began to cut away the stairs about half way up from the bottom. I had difficulty in getting the old negro up the space I had already cut; but the flames now drove me from my labor, and I retreated to the top of the house. I covered over the scuttle that leads to the lantern, which kept the fire from me for some time; at last the awful moment arrived, the crackling flames burnt around me, the savages at the same time began their hellish yells. My poor old negro looked to me with tears in his eyes, but could not speak; we went out of the lantern, and lay down on the edge of the platform, two feet wide; the lantern now was full of flame, the lamps and glasses bursting and flying in all directions, my clothes on fire, and to move from the place where I was would be instant death from their rifles. My flesh was roasting, and to put an end to my horrible suffering, I got up, threw the keg of gunpowder down the scuttle    instantly it exploded, and shook the tower from the top to the bottom. It had not the desired effect of blowing me into eternity, but it threw down the stairs and all the wooden work near the top of the house ; it damped the fire for a moment, but it soon blazed as fierce as ever ; the negro man said he was wounded, which was the last word he spoke.

By this time I had received some wounds myself; and finding no chance for my life, for I was roasting alive, I took the determination to jump off. I got up, went outside the iron railing, recommending my soul to God, and was on the point of going head foremost on the rocks below, when something dictated to me to return and lie down again. I did so, and in two minutes the fire fell to the bottom of the house.   It is a