Courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
Oh the doleful sight that now was to
behold at this house! "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what
desolations he has made in the earth." Of thirty-seven persons who were in
this one house, none escaped either present death, or a bitter captivity, save
only one, who might say as he, "And I only am escaped alone to tell the
News" (Job 1.15). There were twelve killed, some shot, some stabbed with
their spears, some knocked down with their hatchets. When we are in prosperity,
Oh the little that we think of such dreadful sights, and to see our dear
friends, and relations lie bleeding out their heart-blood upon the ground.
There was one who was chopped into the head with a hatchet, and stripped naked,
and yet was crawling up and down. It is a solemn sight to see so many
Christians lying in their blood, some here, and some there, like a company of
sheep torn by wolves, all of them stripped naked by a company of hell-hounds,
roaring, singing, ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our very
hearts out; yet the Lord by His almighty power preserved a number of us from
death, for there were twenty-four of us taken alive and carried captive.
I had often before this said that if the
Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken
alive, but when it came to the trial my mind changed; their glittering weapons
so daunted my spirit, that I chose rather to go along with those (as I may say)
ravenous beasts, than that moment to end my days; and that I may the better
declare what happened to me during that grievous captivity, I shall
particularly speak of the several removes we had up and down the wilderness.
Now away we must go with those barbarous
creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than
our bodies. About a mile we went that night, up upon a hill within sight of the
town, where they intended to lodge. There was hard by a vacant house (deserted
by the English before, for fear of the Indians). I asked them whether I might
not lodge in the house that night, to which they answered, "What, will you
love English men still?" This was the dolefulest night that ever my eyes
saw. Oh the roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black
creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell. And
as miserable was the waste that was there made of horses, cattle, sheep, swine,
calves, lambs, roasting pigs, and fowl (which they had plundered in the town),
some roasting, some lying and burning, and some boiling to feed our merciless
enemies; who were joyful enough, though we were disconsolate. To add to the
dolefulness of the former day, and the dismalness of the present night, my
thoughts ran upon my losses and sad bereaved condition. All was gone, my
husband gone (at least separated from me, he being in the Bay; and to add to my
grief, the Indians told me they would kill him as he came homeward), my
children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home and all our
comforts—within door and without—all was gone (except my life), and I knew not
but the next moment that might go too. There remained nothing to me but one
poor wounded babe, and it seemed at present worse than death that it was in
such a pitiful condition, bespeaking compassion, and I had no refreshing for
it, nor suitable things to revive it. Little do many think what is the
savageness and brutishness of this barbarous enemy, Ay, even those that seem to
profess more than others among them, when the English have fallen into their
hands.
Those seven that were killed at Lancaster
the summer before upon a Sabbath day, and the one that was afterward killed
upon a weekday, were slain and mangled in a barbarous manner, by one-eyed John,
and Marlborough's Praying Indians, which Capt. Mosely brought to Boston, as the
Indians told me.
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