Several bayonets were directed against him, and more than one musket was clubbed butt-end uppermost to close his career, when Mary interposed and begged that his life might be spared, on which the Highlanders drew back. The glittering eyes of the Iroquois were fixed upon her, and though he knew not the language in which she spoke, he was aware that to her intercession he owed his life, and smiled; for, Indian like, he despised the manhood of men who could be swayed by a woman. Thus he evinced neither surprise nor gratitude, nor even pain, though his wounded limb bled freely, and must have occasioned him exquisite torment. By Mary's desire the limb was bound up, and in a few minutes the astonished savage found himself placed across four muskets, and borne towards the fort, which was now little more than a quarter of a mile distant. From time to time he glanced keenly and sharply into the adjacent thickets, as if expecting a rescue, but none appeared; and on finding himself clear of the forest he doubtless gave himself up for lost. "We are close to the gates," said MacGillivray to the piper; "play up, Alisdair Bane." "Bodoich n' m briogois?" suggested the piper, assuming his drones. The officer assented, and soon the far-stretching dingles of American forest were ringing to the stirring notes of Lord Breadalbane's march, while the tones of the instrument seemed to astonish and excite the terror of the Indian, in front of whom the piper was strutting with that lofty port peculiar to his profession. Considering this to be probably a prelude to his being scalped and slain, the Iroquois smiled disdainfully, remembered that he was a warrior, and relapsed into his previous state of apathetic indifference, resolved that in the death of torment for which he doubted not he was reserved, to perish with the phlegmatic coolness and iron resolution of his race. These Iroquois were a confederation of tribes, who supported each other in battle in a manner not unlike the sixteen confederated clans known in Scotland as the Clan Chattan. The chief of the Iroquois were the Mohawks, who resided on the Mohawk River and the banks of those lakes which still bear their name, and from thence they extended their conquests beyond the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, subduing the Eries, the Hurons, the Ottawas and five other tribes, till they became the terror of their enemies by their ferocity and valour; but even these were forced to yield at last to British rule.* * In the Army List of the 15th September, 1816, will be found among _officers_ having the local rank of _Major_ in Canada, "John Norton, _alias_ Teyoninhakawaren, Captain and leader of the Indians of the Five Nations."