Because each of us in turn interrupted the lad here or there in his story that we might ask for some unimportant details which he had neglected to mention, thereby prolonging the sad tale, I will make no attempt at setting it down as he related it; but, rather, put in few words that account which is already a matter of history. As we already knew, many of the fugitives from the field of battle fled to Monocasy Island, believing there to find a safe refuge; but Colonel Zebulon Butler’s men told Daniel that fully an hundred Indians, and nearly as many Tories, hid themselves on the river banks until such of the fugitives as were aiming for the island gained that poor place of refuge, and then did they hunt them down like wild animals. It was even said, and I have no question as to the truth because the man Pensil himself boasted of it, that he, who was a Tory and had joined John Butler’s force, found his brother on the island and slew him, even while the poor man pleaded to his own flesh and blood for aid. Daniel’s voice trembled and his cheeks paled as he related the horrors which the savage horde boasted of as having taken place on Monocasy Island that night. Colonel Zebulon Butler, with perhaps fifteen or twenty men, escaped to reach Wilkesbarre fort, and Colonel Dennison, accompanied by a small number, gained Forty Fort. Both these officers made preparations to defend the stockades so long as life lasted, knowing full well what would be in store if there was a surrender at that time. When night was come, John Butler’s wolves, red and white alike, assembled to dispose of their prisoners, and one has a feeling near akin to shame at setting down all that was done before the sun rose again. Captain Bidlack, who had led one of our companies in the battle and was wounded, was thrown alive upon the burning timbers of Wintermoot’s Fort, and there held down with sticks and pitchforks until he was dead. Squads of prisoners were ranged in line, bound hand and foot, while their savage captors began with the first, deliberately murdering one after the other until the last had fallen. A half-breed woman, who was called Queen Esther, herself, with maul and tomahawk, butchered sixteen, who were forced to kneel around that boulder which in later days has been called “Queen Esther’s rock.” I am minded to set down here that which was written afterward, by one who was a witness of the terrible scene in which the half-breed squaw supped on blood: