CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH A BATTERING RAM IS USED
The announcement that the frontiersman made filled Dave and the others who heard it with horror. For the moment the youth could not believe the evidence of his senses.
“Going to blow us up?” he queried.
“Yes—look for yourself, if you don’t believe it!” And the man ran further away than ever.
“What does he say?” asked Joseph Morris, who had just come up.
“He says the Indian you wounded is in the storehouse and is going to set fire to the casks of powder stored there.”
“In there?” returned the planter.
“Let us stop him—if we can,” went on Dave, and rushed forward, without considering the great risk he was assuming by such action.
He ran into the storehouse, and his uncle came at his heels. Sure enough, the wounded Indian was there, firebrand in hand. He was waving it over a powder keg that was broken open and muttering a weird chant. He knew that he was mortally wounded, and if he had to die he wanted his hated enemies to die with him.
Dave and his uncle gazed on the scene as if bound by a spell. A single spark from that torch dropped into the powder would mean death and destruction to nearly everybody and everything in the post. The Indian was calm and continued to chant.