“More don’t I, my lad,” he said, taking my hand; and I saw by the light of the burning building that the tears stood in his eyes. “I’d give anything to live, and go back yonder and work like a man to put everything straight again, and see my trees and plants growing more beautiful every day in God’s bright sunshine; but if it aren’t to be, Master George, why, it aren’t. I haven’t been a man who hasn’t done his duty.”
“No, no,” I said; “they’ve all fought bravely.”
“Ay, that they have, and are going to fight bravely to the very end. Why, look at those poor niggers too. See how they’ve fought, brave lads! No one would have thought they were slaves to see the way they’ve gone at it, just as if this was their own place, and they’d never been sold and bought. There, my lad, once more, don’t you go thinking we’re all going to turn cowards, because we’re not. Our officers have done their duty by us, and we’ve tried to do our duty by them; and if it comes to the worst, I say what’s been proposed is only doing our duty still; what say you?”
“Ay, ay,” came in a chorus; and I could not say a word. I felt choked as I looked round at the enclosure, all lit up by the glow, with black shadows cast here and there by the various piles of cases and the tents, and then I seemed to see beyond the great fence, and the black and pale-faced men, right away through the forest to our own bright home, close to the pleasant river, where all was sunshine, and glorious with bird and flower and tree. It was impossible to believe that I was never to see it all again, never to wander through the forest, never to ride on the stream and pause to watch the brightly-plumaged birds and the glittering insects or the gorgeously-scaled fish gliding through the clear waters, down where I had so often seen them amongst the roots of the overhanging trees.
It all came back like some bright dream—the creeper-covered house, my father seated at his window, about which the flowers bloomed, as he sat and studied some book, Morgan and Hannibal busy in their long fight with the weeds, and a magpie-like patch under some tree, where black Pomp lay asleep in his white shirt and short drawers, while from the end of the house came the busy sounds made by poor Sarah.
I think it was at that moment most of all that I quite thoroughly realised what a delightful home we had built up in the wilderness. And now it was a heap of ashes; my father, Hannibal, and poor Sarah seriously hurt; Pomp gone too for aught I could tell; and Morgan here talking so calmly and coolly of setting alight to the pile of destruction lying there by our side.
Was it all true? I asked myself, and felt ready to rub my eyes and try to rouse myself from the horrible nightmare dream from which I was suffering.
I was awakened sufficiently the next moment by Morgan’s words, as he said in a quiet, decided manner—
“Yes, Master George, we’ve done our duty as far as we can, and there’s only one more thing left to do—when the time comes, sir; when the time comes.”
Just then, to my utter astonishment, there was a movement among the men, and one of them came up close to me.