He quickly realized that he must act, and he had just turned about, prepared to run back in the road, when he heard several shots fired at the approaching men from the woods by the roadside.
The band instantly halted and prepared to defend themselves. Without waiting to watch the contest, he once more turned to run, when he obtained a glimpse of men behind him, partially concealed among the trees and standing with their guns raised to their shoulders, and with their attention fixed upon the advancing soldiers.
Were the men friends or foes? Tom could not determine; and, trembling with fear and excitement, he stopped. He was between the opposing bands, while off on his right it was evident that other men were concealed. Thoughts of the Mischianza and of the captain with the unfortunate name were all gone now. He could not advance; he dared not retreat.
CHAPTER XI
TO REFUGEE TOWN
When Little Peter reëntered the lonely house after his friend Tom departed, the full sense of his own sorrow for the first time swept over him. Up to this time the necessity of action had prevented him from fully realizing his loss. The death of his mother, the capture of his father, the provision he was compelled to make at once for his younger brothers and sisters, had so absorbed his thoughts that he had had but little time to dwell upon his own sorrow.
With the departure of Tom, however, there came the reaction, and for a few moments the heartbroken lad was almost overcome. The very silence was oppressive. The only sound he could hear was the loud and regular ticking of the tall clock which stood in one corner of the kitchen. How proud his mother had always felt of that ancient timepiece! Many a time had she told him of its history and the pride with which she had received it from her own father, when as a young bride she had first entered the new house which henceforth was to be hers. To Peter, it almost seemed as if the stately clock had been a member of the family, and its voice was almost human to him. On the summer afternoons, when he was a little fellow and his mother had been busied in her household duties, he had often stretched himself upon the sanded floor, and, resting his face upon his hands, with eager eyes had gazed up into the face of the old timepiece and listened to the swing of its long pendulum, which for him had had a language all its own.
And now in the light of the early morning the old clock still stood in the corner and regularly ticked off the passing hours, as if it were unmindful of all the sad scenes to which it had recently been a witness. And yet to Peter it almost seemed, too, as if there was a tone of sadness after all in the monotonous tickings that day. Perhaps the old clock was striving to express its sympathy for the sorrowing boy, but not even its sympathy must be permitted to interfere with its duty in marking the passage of the swiftly flying minutes.