The nails of the victims were pulled out, their fingers bitten off or crushed between stones, their skin scorched with fire-brands or torches, pieces of flesh cut from their bodies, and every ;

kind of slow torture that savage ingenuity could suggest, in flicted ; and, as one by one they were released by death, their bodies were cast into the blazing fire and consumed. Terror folded her wings in the hearts of the people who beheld the spectacle which they could not prevent j fathers gathered upon

the ramparts, and mothers pressed their children to their arms, not knowing how soon the frail palisades might yield, and themse Ives be exposed to the pitiless mercy of the frenzied children

of the forest.

For three weeks the village was held in siege, the little stock ade fort on the brow of the hill resisting the skill of Indian war Relief at length came. The express to Stuy vesant reached Fort Amsterdam on the 23d of September ; but everything there was in the greatest consternation. The settlements on Long

fare.

7HE INDIAN TRIBES

island were being ravaged, and another general Indian war was Considerable time was lost in enlisting a company to feared.

proceed to the assistance of the Esopus settlers, and it was not until the loth of October, that Stuyvesant set sail. He arrived

Esopus on the nth, with a force of nearly two hundred men.

at

Indian runners had preceded him and apprised their friends of his approach, and, a few hours previous to his arrival, the siege