Sidney had his rifle in hand, and the expression on his face told me that he had no intention of going to Hillsborough as Sandy Wells' prisoner.
CHAPTER II.
A TREASONABLE ACT.
So great was my excitement, knowing Sidney meditated an attack upon the king's officer, which could be called neither more nor less than rank treason and would put us beyond the pale of ordinary offenders, that I could not understand one word Sandy Wells was reading.
His voice came to me like the droning of bees in the summer, and it sounded far off. I could neither hear nor think; but all my faculties were centered in my eyes as I watched Sidney's stealthy movements.
Without really having the power of connected thought, I realized that to resist the sheriff's officer was an offense which Governor Tryon would never pardon, particularly since that officer was engaged in the effort to collect taxes. From the moment we made forcible resistance we would be the same as outlawed, and shut off from the possibility of returning again to our homes until the king's rule had been set aside in the Carolinas.
Desperate indeed would be our position once an overt act against the recognized authority of the colony had been committed, and yet I would not have checked Sidney by so much as a hair's breadth had it been possible.
Sandy Wells continued to read as if delighting in the sound of his own voice, and my comrade made his preparations leisurely, being slightly in the rear of the sheriff's officer where he could not well be seen, while the latter's eyes were fixed upon the paper.
When Sidney cautiously drew himself up to his feet by aid of an overhanging bough, clutching his rifle firmly, I knew the struggle was about to begin, and during an instant there was a film before my eyes, red like blood.
Then everything came plain within my line of vision; the tremor of fear passed away, and I was on the alert to second anything Sidney should attempt, even though our lives might be the forfeit.
Sandy Wells had nearly come to an end of the warrants which had been filled out that two lads who could not pay the sum of three dollars might be thrust into jail, when Sidney, his rifle leveled at the officer's head, said sharply and sternly: