There was something so ludicrous in the contrast of this bravery with his actual terror, that again I burst out a-laughing; upon which he sprang up, and brandishing his sabre, vowed vengeance on me if I stirred. After a considerable time spent thus, I at last succeeded in impressing him with the fact, that if I had all the will in the world to tear him to pieces, my strength would not suffice to carry me to the door,—an assurance which, however sorrowfully made by me, I perceived to afford him the most unmixed satisfaction.
“That's right, quite right,” said he; “and mad should he be indeed who would measure strength with me. The red men of Tuscarora always called me the 'Great Buffalo.' I used to carry a bark canoe with my squaw and nine little black devils under one arm, so as to leave the other free for my tomahawk. 'He, how, he!' that 's the war step.”
Here he stooped down to his knees, and then sprang up again, with a yell that actually made me start, and brought a new actor on the scene in the person of Anna Maria, whose name I had so frequently heard the night before.
“What is the matter?” said the lady, a short, squablike woman, of nearly the captain's age, but none of his personal attractions. “We can't have him screaming all day in that fashion.”
“It isn't he; it was I who was performing the war dance. Come, now, let down your hair, and be a squaw,—do. What trouble is it? And bring in Saladin; we'll get up a combat scene. Devilish fine thought that!”
The indignant look of the lady in reply to this modest proposal again overpowered me, and I sank back in my bed exhausted with laughter,—an emotion which I was forced to subdue as well as I might on beholding the angry countenance with which the lady regarded me.
“I say, Burke,” cried the captain, “let me present you to my sister, Miss Anna Maria Bubbleton.”
A very dry recognition on Miss Anna Maria's part replied to the effort I made to salute her; and as she turned on her heel, she said to her brother, “Breakfast's ready,” and left the room.
Bubbleton jumped up at this, rubbed his mouth pleasantly with his hand, smacked his lips; and then dropping his voice to a whisper, muttered, “Excuse me, Tom; but if I have a weakness it is for Yarmouth bloaters, and anchovy toast, milk chocolate, marmalade, hot rolls, and reindeer tongue, with a very small glass of pure white brandy as a qualifier.” So saying, he whisked about and made his exit.
While my host was thus occupied, I was visited by the regimental surgeon, who informed me that my illness had now been of some weeks' duration; severe brain fever, with various attending evils, and a broken arm, being the happy results of my evening's adventure at the Parliament House.