The work of death was done. The slain were sepulchred in the ashes of their cottage homes; the captives were divided as spoils among the warriors, and toward morning they started for the northeast. Amy Wakefield and three other prisoners were the especial care of two Abenakis and a Frenchman, Jean Mordaunt. The whole party moved rapidly, lest the neighboring settlements should see the light of the burning village, and pursue them; but this little company were the foremost. The other captives with Amy were men, but she kept pace with them and the Indians.
She hurried along as if she were fleeing from enemies. All that day she traveled on, taking no food, uttering no complaint; and at last, when night came, she sunk down unconcernedly to sleep. It was one of their former stopping places, and the Indians rekindled the fires, which had scarcely expired. The poor captives gathered around them and welcomed the burning heat, though hardly more comfortable than the chilling blasts to which they had been exposed. Oh, the sorrows of that weary journey—cold, hunger and thirst were among the least of them. The Indians returned by the trail in which they came; but the snow was untrodden and deep, and the path lay through forests and across rivers. Some drooped by the way and received beatings for their manifestations of fatigue, whilst many found snowy graves. For many days they traveled on together, but finally separated in little bands for the settlements where they belonged, each carrying with them their captives. This last sad comfort of friends and neighbors traveling together in their misery, was now denied them, and they looked each other a last adieu.
I said Amy slept. It was a blessed sleep, for it carried her back to childhood’s days; now she was gathering violets with her little brothers on the river’s bank; now she saw her brother’s angel face, and heard her father’s “dear little Amy.” Then time flew by, and she felt her lover’s warm kisses; years seemed moments, and moments years—and still she slept on. Would that she might have slept “that sleep from which none ever wake to weep.”