In a twinkling Ebony had been disarmed.
Darting low, Tom grappled with the negro's legs. Then Reade rose swiftly, toppling Sambo over backward.
Dick Prescott bounded upon the prostrate foe, beating him with both fists.
Tom also threw himself into the melee.
While the black might have thrashed either youth alone he was not equal to handling both at the same time.
"I've got him, now, and he'll behave, I guess," panted Tom Reade, at last.
"Slip off, Dick, and gather in the pistols."
As Prescott did so Sambo made the last few efforts of which he was capable. He had been hammered so hard, however, that Tom did not have extreme difficulty in holding him down.
"Now, lie still and take orders," warned Dick, pressing one of the pistols against the black man's temple, "or I'll get excited and send you out of this world for keeps!"
Sambo Ebony thereupon dropped into sullen muttering, but did not offer to resist. Prescott, as a soldier, had a businesslike way of handling weapons that cowed the black man.
Tom got up leisurely from the prostrate foe.
"Now, you can stand a little farther off, Dick," he suggested, "and then the fellow won't get a chance to tip you over with any trick. If he tries to get up before he's told you can easily bring him to earth again, for you've been taught the exact use of firearms."