I had crawled away a few yards in my half insensible condition, but now a shuddering desire came over me to creep back, and find out who it was that lay there dead or dying.
It was terrible, that feeling, for I felt that I must go, and as I crept back, it was with the idea that it was probably one of those who would be the first to rush to the defence of the palisade, and in a confused, half-dreamy way, I found myself combating the fancy that it might be my father.
I paused when about half-way back, afraid to go farther, but the intense desire to know the worst came over me again, and I crept on and then stopped with my hand raised, and held suspended over the prostrate figure, afraid to move it and touch the body.
At last, and I uttered a faint sigh full of relief, for my hand had fallen upon the bare breast of a man, and I knew that it must be one of the Indians. It was puzzling that he and I should be there, and no one near, for I could not detect the presence of either of the sentries. Where was everybody? Some one was coming, though, the next minute, for I heard soft footsteps, and then the murmur of voices, which came nearer and nearer till I heard a familiar voice say—
“Oh, Mass’ George, do ’peak.”
I tried to obey, but no sound would come, even now that I felt a vast sense of relief, for I knew that I must have been hurt, and the two blacks were in search of me.
“Ah, here him are,” suddenly cried Pomp, and I next felt two great hands lifting me gently, and I was carried through the darkness to what I knew must be the block-house, where I had some recollection of being laid down. Then I directly went off to sleep, and did not awake till nearly day, to see a black face close to the rough pallet on which I lay, and as the day grew broader, I made out that it was Pomp watching by my side.
“Mass’ George better now?”
“Better? Yes; I am not ill,” I said, and I tried to get up, but lay still again, for the effort seemed to give me a violent pain in the head which made me groan.
“Mass’ George not seem very better.”