Certainly nothing was visible to me, but the fact that it was quite possible for a man to have crawled from the forest, keeping the patches of shrubby growth between him and us, till he reached the bushes, through which he could have cautiously stolen, and passing a hand over softly, lifted the gun and its pouches from where I had stood them, and then stolen away as he had come.
One thing was evident, we had an enemy not far away; and, unarmed as we were, saving that we had our knives, the sooner we took flight the better.
All this was plain to me, but as I gazed in Pomp’s face I found it was not so clear to him; there was a strange look in his eyes, his skin did not seem so black as usual, and he was certainly trembling.
“Why, Pomp,” I said, “don’t look like that.” For though I felt a little nervous, I saw no cause for the boy’s abject dread, having yet to learn that anything not comprehensible to the savage mind is set down at once as being the work of some evil spirit.
He caught my arm and looked round, the whites of his eyes showing strangely, and his thick lips seemed drawn in as if to make a thin line.
“Come ’way,” he whispered. “Run, Mass’ George, run, ’fore um come and cotch us.”
“Who? What?” I said, half angrily, though amused.
“Hush! Done holler, Mass’ George, fear um hear. Come take us bofe, like um took de gun.”
“I have it,” I said suddenly. “Your father has come up the river after us, and he has taken the gun to tease us. Hi! Hannibal—Vanity—Van!”
“Oh, Mass’ George! Oh, Mass’ George, done, done holler. Not fader. Oh, no. It somefing dreffle. Let run.”