midnight
To me it is -- and was -- little more than a dim haze of strange leaping figures , of fierce dark faces , of maddened cries of hate , of uplifted hands , of dull-clashing weapons . I seemed to see it all through a red fog whence the blood dripped , and I lost consciousness of everything save my unswerving duty to strike hard until I fell . At last out from the maelstrom of that wild mêlée but a single warrior seemed to face me ; and some instinct of the fight caused me to draw back a pace and wipe the obscuring blood away , that I might see him better . It came to me that this was to be the end , -- the final duel which was to decide that midnight battle . He and I were there alone ; and the stars bursting through the clouds gave me faint view of him , and of those dark , silent forms that lined the shore where they had fallen . A chief , a Pottawattomie , -- this much I knew even in that hasty shrouded glance . Writers of history affirm my opponent was Peesotum , the same fierce warrior whose cruel hand slew the brave Captain Wells and wrenched his still beating heart from out the mutilated body .