Another arrow fell with a faint plop into the river close to the edge of the boat. “They find our breastwork too much for them,” said my father; “and they are shooting up right over us, so as to try and hit us that way.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” came in wild yells of pain from Pomp, as I heard a dull thud just behind me; and turning sharply, there was the boy dancing about in his agony, and tugging to free his hand from an arrow which had fallen and gone right through, pinning it to one of the oars.
“Stop! Don’t struggle, boy,” cried my father, laying his gun across the box.
“But um hurt dreffle, massa. Oh, Mass’ George, lookye here—lookye dah.”
The boat was drifting now, and turning slowly side on to the shore, when my father made a sign, and I left my gun lying across the box and crept into Pomp’s place, while my father seized the boy’s hand, held it tightly, detached the arrow with a tug from where it stuck in the oar, and then as I began to row he pulled Pomp down into the bottom of the boat, the boy sobbing with the pain.
Whizz! An arrow made me duck my head, and I don’t know how I looked, but I felt as if I must have turned pale.
“Pull your right, George; pull your right,” said my father, coolly. “Now, Pomp, my boy, let me look. Come, be a man.”
My father took his hand, and the boy jumped and uttered a cry of pain, but he evidently mastered himself, and rising to his knees, he resigned himself to my father, but doubled his other fist and shook it in the direction of the shore as he shouted fiercely—
“Ah, you wait bit, great big coward—great big ugly Injum tief. You wait bit—Pomp and um fader get hold you, gib you de ’tick. Hab you flog—hab you—Oh! Oh, Mass’ Capen, done, done,” he cried piteously, changing his tone and appealing to my father, as he saw him take out and open his great gardening knife, which was as sharp as a razor.
“Be quiet,” said my father; “I will not hurt you much.”