His demand was almost accompanied by a couple more shots in close succession.
“One down, sir,” said Morgan, coolly; but his voice sounded to me distant and strange.
“Pull hard, George, my lad—your right. We must give that point as wide a berth as we can.”
I obeyed as well as I could, and half wondered at the singing noise in my ears.
Bang! Came from the foremost boat, and I seemed to know that Morgan had no one to load for him now, and that poor Sarah had uttered that shriek we had heard. Then I saw that my father was resting his gun on the foremost part of the boat, and he too fired at the woody point, from which arrow after arrow came in quick succession.
And still I rowed hard, with the perspiration streaming down to soak me.
Whizz—thud—whizz—whizz, and an angry ejaculation from my father; I did not know why, nor yet why Pomp uttered a shrill ejaculation, for I was pulling with all my might like one in a dream. I felt once as if I should like to look back and see how near we were to the point that I knew must be close at hand; but everything was getting dark, and a horrible sensation of sickness was coming on. Then the sharp report of my father’s piece made me start and pull harder, as I thought, and I tried to look toward the shore, where a wild yelling had arisen; but Pomp’s words uttered close to me took my attention, and in a dreamy way I supposed that another Indian had been killed.
Then the boy spoke again in a low whimpering way—
“Massa—massa—look at de blood. Oh, Mass’ George! Mass’ George!”