“You idle pig!” cried Fred, angrily, as he administered a kick; “get up!”
Snore!
A long-drawn, deep-toned snore.
“Samson! I want you.” No response. Samson’s senses were so deeply steeped in sleep that nothing seemed to rouse him.
“I wish I had a pin,” muttered Fred, as he kicked and shook again, without effect. “And there isn’t a thorn anywhere near. Spurs!” he exclaimed. “No,” he added in a disappointed tone—“too blunt. There’s no water to rouse him nearer than the lake; and if there was, it would be too bad to let him go about drenched. What shall I do? Samson, get up; I want you. I’ll prick you with my sword, if you don’t wake up.”
“Tell him the enemy’s here, sir,” said a sleepy man lying close by.
“Wouldn’t wake him, if he did,” grumbled another.
The men’s remarks suggested an idea which made Fred smile, as he went down on one knee, placed his lips close to Samson’s ear, and whispered—
“Well, I wouldn’t let him meddle with my garden. Your brother Nat.”
That one word, “Nat,” seemed to run echoing through all the convolutions of Samson Dee’s brain, and he started up at once, full of eagerness and thoroughly awakened, as if by a magic touch.