“Pomp,” he said, “what yer doin’? Yer’ll get skinned alive, sartin sure. Yer ole daddy never said he’d do it, dat he didn’t. Lor’ Almighty, how he licked yer, Pomp, dat last time; and de more yer cried ‘murder,’ the more he said he’d giv’ yer ‘somethin’ to cry murder fur,’ deed he did.” And Pomp rubbed sympathetically that portion of his person which had felt most keenly his sire’s wrath.
It would have moved even the most serious to mirth to have seen Pomp’s countenance, as he thus alternated in his fears. Twice he turned the colt’s head towards the fatal road, and twice altered his mind, the whimsical contortions of his face, all the time, exceeding anything that Hogarth ever painted. At last there arose, out of the heart of the forest on the left, one of those low, long wails, which, on a summer day, is often the precursor of a coming storm. Pomp’s already excited imagination needed only the smallest circumstance to decide him. The moan of the rising wind was to him irresistible proof of the presence of the Arch Enemy. He dug his heels into the flanks of the colt instinctively, and sped over the bridge, as yet with no fixed determination where to go, but only to escape as well from parental vengeance at Sweetwater, as from the supernatural foe: and as he galloped off, his eyes were dilated to the size of saucers, his dark visage positively paled, and his teeth chattered, as if they would drop out of his jaws.
When Mrs. Warren found that Pomp did not return, all her old fears came back. It was night before she and her attendants finally abandoned the hope of seeing him, and then it was too late to take further action. Besides, her servants were, by this time, nearly as incapacitated as herself. This was especially true of Dinah, who filled the house with her lamentations, declaring that Pomp had been carried off by Satan himself, “deed he had.”
All that night Mrs. Warren walked her room, wringing her hands and sobbing, and occasionally falling into fits of hysterics.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE PRISONERS
Be just, and fear not!
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s and truth’s, then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell!
Thou fall’st a blessed martyr. —Shakespeare.
Seek not to know to-morrow’s doom,
That is not ours which is to come. —Congreve.
Though Major Gordon had been pinned to the earth by a bayonet, in the breach of the fortification, he was fortunately not killed. For a moment, indeed, he believed his last hour had come. He would, in fact, have perished, had it not been for Uncle Lawrence. When he saw all hope of victory gone, he dexterously threw himself down, across the prostrate body of our hero; by this stratagem, both covering his friend, and inducing the belief that he also was dead.
In the hurry and confusion of the melee it was not difficult to carry out this deception. The eager soldiery, fired with emulation of their comrades, hurried to be within the works as soon as possible, and consequently did not care to stop, in order to examine in whom of their fallen enemies life yet remained. It was enough for the victors that the way was now clear before them, and accordingly they rushed forward, pell-mell, with loud shouts, over the prostrate heap of wounded and slain.
In this way our hero escaped with only a bayonet thrust in his left arm, while Uncle Lawrence received only a few bruises, the result of being trodden upon. Others, however, of the brave band were less fortunate. Charley Newell lay stark and stiff, with a bullet through his heart, having fallen in the early part of the conflict; while Mullen was seriously injured by a wound in the side, from a bayonet. Three others also paid the forfeit of their lives for their gallant defence.