GENERAL PETER SLAM.
The whole party was what is technically called “half-seas-over,” and welcomed me with that large liberality which is inseparable from that condition. The general was slapped on the back, and told to “bring in more girls, you bloody rascal, no skulking now!” Whereupon his hat was facetiously crushed down over his eyes by each one of his guests in succession, and he was kicked out of the door by the English captain, a rough brute of a man, who only meant to be playful.
I had barely time to observe that General Slam’s house was not entirely without evidences of civilization. Upon one side was a folding table, and ship’s sideboard, or locker, both probably from some wreck. In the latter were a quantity of tumblers, decanters, plates, and other articles of Christian use; and on the walls hung a few rude lithographs, gaudily colored. Among them—strange juxtaposition!—was a picture of Washington.
My survey was interrupted by a great tumult near the hut, and a moment after, half a dozen Sambos, reeking with their filthy mishla, staggered in at the door, dragging after them a full-blooded Indian, quite naked, and his body bleeding in several places, from blows and scratches received at the hands of his savage assailants. The Sambos pushed him toward the English captain, ejaculating, “Him! him!” while the Indian himself stood in perfect silence, his thin lips compressed, and his eyes fixed on the captain. The conduct of the latter was in keeping with that of the drunken wretches who had dragged the Indian to the hut, and who, vociferating some unintelligible jargon, were brandishing their clubs over his head, and occasionally hitting viciously with them at his feet.
“That’s the bloody villain, is it!” said the captain, leaping from his crickery, and striking the Indian a terrible blow in the face, which felled him to the ground. “I’ll learn him proper respect for the King!” This act was followed by stamping his foot heavily on the fallen and apparently insensible Indian.
The entire proceeding was to me inexplicable; but this last brutality roused my indignation. I grasped the captain by the collar of his coat, and hurled him across the hut. “Do you pretend to be an Englishman,” I said, “and yet set such an example to these savages? What has this Indian done?” “I’ll let you know what he has done,” he shrieked, rather than spoke, in a wild paroxysm of rage; and, grasping a knife from the table, he drove at me, with all his force. Maddened and drunk as he was, I had only to step aside to avoid the blow. Missing his mark, he stumbled over the fallen Indian, and fell upon the knife, which pierced through and through his left arm, just below the shoulder. Quick as lightning the Indian leaped forward, tore the knife from the wound, and in another instant would have driven it to the captain’s heart, had I not arrested his arm. He glanced up in my face, dropped the knife, and folding his arms, stood erect and silent.
The captain’s companions, with the exception of Mr. H., were much inclined to be belligerent, but the revolver in my belt inspired them with a wholesome discretion.