These consultations took up our people no less than two or three days, in all which time they heard nothing of the supposed garrison within this wooden castle, nor any noise within. William's project was first gone about, and a large strong ladder was made, to scale this wooden tower; and in two or three hours' time it would have been ready to mount, when, on a sudden, they heard the noise of the Indians in the body of the tree again, and a little after, several of them appeared at the top of the tree, and threw some lances down at our men; one of which struck one of our seamen a–top of the shoulder, and gave him such a desperate wound, that the surgeons not only had a great deal of difficulty to cure him, but the poor man endured such horrible torture, that we all said they had better have killed him outright. However, he was cured at last, though he never recovered the perfect use of his arm, the lance having cut some of the tendons on the top of the arm, near the shoulder, which, as I supposed, performed the office of motion to the limb before; so that the poor man was a cripple all the days of his life. But to return to the desperate rogues in the tree; our men shot at them, but did not find they had hit them, or any of them; but as soon as ever they shot at them, they could hear them huddle down into the trunk of the tree again, and there, to be sure, they were safe.
Well, however, it was this which put by the project of William's ladder; for when it was done, who would venture up among such a troop of bold creatures as were there, and who, they supposed, were desperate by their circumstances? And as but one man at a time could go up, they began to think it would not do; and, indeed, I was of the opinion (for about this time I was come to their assistance) that going up the ladder would not do, unless it was thus, that a man should, as it were, run just up to the top, and throw some fireworks into the tree, and come down again; and this we did two or three times, but found no effect of it. At last, one of our gunners made a stink–pot, as we called it, being a composition which only smokes, but does not flame or burn; but withal the smoke of it is so thick, and the smell of it so intolerably nauseous, that it is not to be suffered. This he threw into the tree himself, and we waited for the effect of it, but heard or saw nothing all that night or the next day; so we concluded the men within were all smothered; when, on a sudden, the next night we heard them upon the top of the tree again shouting and hallooing like madmen.
We concluded, as anybody would, that this was to call for help, and we resolved to continue our siege; for we were all enraged to see ourselves so baulked by a few wild people, whom we thought we had safe in our clutches; and, indeed, never were there so many concurring circumstances to delude men in any case we had met with. We resolved, however, to try another stink–pot the next night, and our engineer and gunner had got it ready, when, hearing a noise of the enemy on the top of the tree, and in the body of the tree, I was not willing to let the gunner go up the ladder, which, I said, would be but to be certain of being murdered. However, he found a medium for it, and that was to go up a few steps, and, with a long pole in his hand, to throw it in upon the top of the tree, the ladder being standing all this while against the top of the tree; but when the gunner, with his machine at the top of his pole, came to the tree, with three other men to help him, behold the ladder was gone.
XXIII.
This perfectly confounded us; and we now concluded the Indians in the tree had, by this piece of negligence, taken the opportunity, and come all down the ladder, made their escape, and had carried away the ladder with them. I laughed most heartily at my friend William, who, as I said, had the direction of the siege, and had set up a ladder for the garrison, as we called them, to get down upon, and run away. But when daylight came, we were all set to rights again; for there stood our ladder, hauled up on the top of the tree, with about half of it in the hollow of the tree, and the other half upright in the air. Then we began to laugh at the Indians for fools, that they could not as well have found their way down by the ladder, and have made their escape, as to have pulled it up by main strength into the tree.
We then resolved upon fire, and so to put an end to the work at once, and burn the tree and its inhabitants together; and accordingly we went to work to cut wood, and in a few hours' time we got enough, as we thought, together; and, piling it up round the bottom of the tree, we set it on fire, waiting at a distance to see when, the gentlemen's quarters being too hot for them, they would come flying out at the top. But we were quite confounded when, on a sudden, we found the fire all put out by a great quantity of water thrown upon it. We then thought the devil must be in them, to be sure. Says William, "This is certainly the cunningest piece of Indian engineering that ever was heard of; and there can be but one thing more to guess at, besides witchcraft and dealing with the devil, which I believe not one word of," says he; "and that must be, that this is an artificial tree, or a natural tree artificially made hollow down into the earth, through root and all; and that these creatures have an artificial cavity underneath it, quite into the hill, or a way to go through, and under the hill, to some other place; and where that other place is, we know not; but if it be not our own fault, I'll find the place, and follow them into it, before I am two days older." He then called the carpenters, to know of them if they had any large saws that would cut through the body; and they told him they had no saws that were long enough, nor could men work into such a monstrous old stump in a great while; but that they would go to work with it with their axes, and undertake to cut it down in two days, and stock up the root of it in two more. But William was for another way, which proved much better than all this; for he was for silent work, that, if possible, he might catch some of the fellows in it. So he sets twelve men to it with large augers, to bore great holes into the side of the tree, to go almost through, but not quite through; which holes were bored without noise, and when they were done he filled them all with gunpowder, stopping strong plugs, bolted crossways, into the holes, and then boring a slanting hole, of a less size, down into the greater hole, all of which were filled with powder, and at once blown up. When they took fire, they made such a noise, and tore and split up the tree in so many places, and in such a manner, that we could see plainly such another blast would demolish it; and so it did. Thus at the second time we could, at two or three places, put our hands in them, and discovered a cheat, namely, that there was a cave or hole dug into the earth, from or through the bottom of the hollow, and that it had communication with another cave farther in, where we heard the voices of several of the wild folks, calling and talking to one another.
When we came thus far we had a great mind to get at them; and William desired that three men might be given him with hand–grenadoes; and he promised to go down first, and boldly he did so; for William, to give him his due, had the heart of a lion.
They had pistols in their hands, and swords by their sides; but, as they had taught the Indians before by their stink–pots, the Indians returned them in their own kind; for they made such a smoke come up out of the entrance into the cave or hollow, that William and his three men were glad to come running out of the cave, and out of the tree too, for mere want of breath; and indeed they were almost stifled.
Never was a fortification so well defended, or assailants so many ways defeated. We were now for giving it over, and particularly I called William, and told him I could not but laugh to see us spinning out our time here for nothing; that I could not imagine what we were doing; that it was certain that the rogues that were in it were cunning to the last degree, and it would vex anybody to be so baulked by a few naked ignorant fellows; but still it was not worth our while to push it any further, nor was there anything that I knew of to be got by the conquest when it was made, so that I thought it high time to give it over.