“Then ’ware sparks.”
The dread of a fresh explosion in the presence of the faint sparks that could be seen lying here and there for some distance about the front of the planter’s house set every one to work with bucket and water, and it was not until broad daylight that confidence began to reign, with the calmness which accompanied the knowledge that the door which had been blown in had been replaced by a strong barricade to act as a defence against a renewed attack.
Of this, however, there was no sign, the danger resting only in the imagination of the wearied-out and wounded men, several of whom had sunk into a stupor of exhaustion, while Murray, Tom May and the black were out exploring, and finding here and there at a distance from the front of the house traces of the havoc which could be produced by the explosion of a keg of gunpowder.
Not to dwell upon horrors, let it suffice to say that one of the discoveries made was by Tom May and the black, when the following words were uttered—
“Well, look ye here, darkie, you needn’t shiver like that. Y’arn’t afraid on him now?”
“No; not ’fraid; but he make niggah ’fraid all many years, and Caesar keep ’fraid still. But nebber any more. He dead now.”
“But are you sure this was him?”
“Yes, Caesar quite suah. Only ’fraid now poor Massa Allen dead too.”
“Ah, well, messmate—black messmate, I mean—we had nothing to do with that, and Master Huggins will never make an end of any more poor fellows; so don’t shiver like jelly, for I says it’s a blessing that the beggar’s gone.”
“Yes, Massa Tom. No ’fraid no more. All a blessing Massa Huggins gone.”