Hannibal laughed.
“Those toad-stickers aren’t meant to be sharp. They’re just for looks. But I keep mine sharp, all right. To-morrow I’ll capture a Mexican with it.”
Jerry found the tent. Everything here was quiet, except Pompey, and he was snoring. So Jerry snuggled down upon Lieutenant Grant’s cot, under a blanket, intending to stay awake to make certain that it was all right; but while listening to Pompey, and to the steady cannonade, dulled by distance, he drowsed off—dreamed of charging and throwing shells while he ran, with Hannibal beating a drum and the Mexican army lying flat and shooting bullets that burst like little bombs.
In the morning he was aroused by drums and fifes. He was still in the cot. Pompey was about to shake him, and a tall officer in undress was laughing.
“Hi, you white boy! Wha’ fo’ you sleepin’ in an offercer’s bed?” Pompey accused. “Hain’t you manners? Heah dat reveille—an’ me cookin’ all the breakfus! Turn out. When Lieutenant Grant come, what he gwine to do fo’ a place to sleep?”
“You’re Grant’s boy, are you?” the tall officer asked. “I’m Lieutenant Smith. And in absence of your superior officer I politely request that you help Pompey with the breakfast. Lieutenant Grant will be here at any moment. He’ll appreciate a warm bed, but he’ll want it for himself.”
VII
HURRAH FOR THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE!
“A truce! A truce! They’ve surrendered!”
It was afternoon again. All this morning the cannon of both sides had been hammering away; but the new army battery, Number 4, of four twenty-four-pounders and two sixty-eight-pounder shell guns or Paixhans, had joined with the naval battery. The fire seemed to be battering the walls to pieces. The men from the trenches, and the officers who watched through their spy-glasses, declared that the shells and solid shot were dismounting the Mexican guns and tumbling the casemates and parapets upon the heads of the gunners. The mortars were still blowing up the buildings and the streets. The Mexican fire was growing weaker.