“Yes; you have finished my anecdote for me. It is too soon yet for the Indians to begin to crow. They are still outside our place, and the powder is plentiful yet.”
I shivered a little at the mention of the powder, and tried to tell him what I had heard, but somehow the words would not come, and soon after as he dropped asleep I went down into the open space about the block-house.
To reach it I had to pass the powder, which still lay covered as before, and it seemed to me that some fresh place might be found for it, since if the Indians began to send their fiery arrows into the camp again, one might fall there, and the destruction talked of befall us at once.
But a little thought told me that if arrows came now, they would be aimed at men and not at buildings. There was nothing more within for the fire to burn, so I went in and walked round the pile of smouldering ashes, and tried to recall the scene of the previous night, and the position of the magazine. But it was rather hard to do now, there being nothing left by which I could judge, and I was going on, when I caught sight of something which made me alter my course, and walk softly up behind where Pomp was busy with a shovel at the edge of a great heap of smouldering ashes.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Eh? Mass’ George ’top bit and see.”
“No, I can’t stop,” I cried. “What are you doing with that shovel?”
“Dat to ’crape de fire up. You no see? Pomp bake cake for de capen.”
“What?”
“Oh yes. Plenty cake in de hot ash. Hot bread for um. ’Top see if um done.”