“Yah, ’tuff! Nas’ ’tuff. Pomp too dreffle hungly eat any more bread. Why no go now and kill all Injum? Pomp fine de way.”
The boy looked quite vexed at his proposition being declined, and squatted down to gaze at the fire, till after a time he lay down to look at it, and at last Morgan said to me—
“Don’t trouble him much, lad. Fast asleep.”
It was quite true. There lay Pomp enjoying a good rest, while we watched the progress of the flames, which rose and fell and gleamed from the pieces of the watchful men dotted round the great place, then left them in shadow, while a terrible silence had now fallen upon the camp. The fierce fire crackled and roared, and the flames fluttered as a great storm of sparks kept floating far away, but no one spoke, and it was only when an officer went round to the various posts that there seemed to be the slightest motion in the camp.
“Takes a cleverer man than me to understand Injun,” said Morgan at last, just before daybreak, as I returned from the tent where my father was sleeping peacefully, and Hannibal outside wrapped in a blanket quite calmly taking his rest.
“What do you mean?” I said, wearily.
“I mean I can’t make out the ways of Injuns. Here have we been watching all night, expecting to have a big fight by way of finish up, and Pomp’s right after all. They seem to have gone.”
“If I could only think so!” I replied, with a sigh.
“Well, lad, I think they are,” said Morgan. “They might have had it all their own way, and beaten us pretty easy a time back, but they’ve let their chance go by; and I suppose they’re satisfied with the mischief they’ve done for one night, and have gone back to their camp to sing and dance and brag to one another about what brave fellows they all are.”
It soon proved to be as Morgan had said, for the day broke, and the sun rose soon after, to shine down warm and bright upon as dejected, weary-looking, and besmirched a body of men as could have been seen. For they were all blackened with powder and smoke; some were scorched, and in every face I could read the same misery, dejection, and despair. But the General, Colonel Preston, and several of the leading gentlemen soon sent a different spirit through the camp. A few orders were given, the sentries changed, three parts being withdrawn; the women, who looked one half-hour haggard, pale, and scared, wore quite a changed aspect, as they hurriedly prepared food for their defenders; and in a very short time cries and shouts from the children helped to make some of us think that matters were not quite so desperate after all.