Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/133

DELAWARE COUNTY. 109 off; before assistance could be procured from any quarter ; ac- cordingly, lie answered : There are three hundred continental troops now at the forts, who arrived there about three days since.^' The whole of this statement was untrue, yet who will condemn the Captain, or say the circumstances did not justify him. On hearing this, the countenance of Brant changed from the fierceness of his peculiar look to a milder expression ; a coun- cil of war was immediately held, and the eleven surviving pri- soners were securely pinioned and confined in a pig-pen until morning. A guard of tories was placed over them, among whom was one Beacraft, a blood-thirsty villain : a large fire was built, around which their captors assembled, and held a long and , fierce consultation in the Indian dialect, involving the fate of their prisoners. "While this question was pending, says Patchin in his narrative, " we could see every act through the chinks of the pen, and hear every word, though none of us understood their language but our captain, whose countenance, we could per- ceive by the light of the fire, from time to time change to the alternate expressions of hope and fear, while the perspiration stood in large drops upon his forehead, from the labor of his mind, although it was a cold night ; and added to this, the bloody Beacraft would every now and then console us with the imprecation, ' You will all he in hell before morning.' " In the morning the Colonel was again paraded before Brant and his associate chiefs, who informed him that they were sus- picious he had lied to them the night before. The Colonel, with an expression indicating scorn, at having his word disbe- lieved by them, replied : " That what he had said to them was wholly true, and if they any longer disbelieved the statement, they should go there and see." Not a muscle of the brave man's countenance moved with hesitation or apprehension, and his statements — fortunately for 10