At last the cartridge goes home, and Tom advances now. But where to fire is the difficulty. His aim must be a steady one, else he may kill his little protector.
Bang! at last, and the bull drops. Dead? Yes, dead; for the bullet has entered behind and below the ear, torn through the carotid artery, and lodged in the brain itself.
The cat comes singing up now and rubs himself against his master’s knee, and the two walk home together.
The very next day another huge black bull was seen to quietly possess himself of the dead monarch’s flock. Where he had come from Tom could not even guess, but the probability is he had been condemned to a life in the woods during his predecessor’s reign.
“Do cats go to heaben w’en dey dies, sah?” asked Brandy one evening as the three friends lounged near the camp fire.
“What makes you speak so, Brandy?”
“’Cause, sah, I ’spects dat cat is one angel, sah. I ’spects some day he talk.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder a great deal. Indeed, I would not wonder at anything that happened in this strange island.”
It may be as well mentioned that never an evening did Tom lie down without reading a portion of the Bible that his mother had given him, and praying a simple but earnest little prayer for their own safety during the silent watches of the night, and for those who were far, far away in their homes beyond the sea.
No work was ever done on Sunday, and no stories told except those of Bible lands or the sweet old story of our salvation, which the negro boy was never tired listening to.