CHAPTER IX
SUSPENSE
Pierre and I flung ourselves down at Uncle 'Rasmus's feet as if by such close companionship we could the better dull that deadly pain in our hearts, or lessen the horrible suspense which was about us like a dark, threatening cloud.
We had no inclination for conversation, because if we gave words to the fearful thoughts in our minds it was as if we were making of the possibility a reality. Therefore we lay on the puncheon planks alternating between faint hope and blackest despair, feeling that there was one chance in mayhap a thousand that something had occurred to call the lad out of the village, yet at the same time knowing that he must be in the hands of the enemy, otherwise would we have received some token from him by this time.
I said to myself again and again that if the red-coated gentry held him in their power a prisoner, he would be treated with some fair consideration, for these soldiers of the king were not red Indians, and would not proceed to extremities at least until after the semblance of a military trial.
I could account for the dear lad's absence only that by giving way to his ill temper he had unwittingly revealed the reason for being in the town of York, and had been arrested as a spy. That seemed the worst of the possibilities, for surely if such was the case they could prove him guilty, and I knew only too well the fate which would be his.
On looking at the matter more hopefully, I prayed that he might have gotten into a brawl with some of the soldiers, and been carried to the guard-house simply as a disturber of the peace, in which case nothing more serious than his own distress of mind and discomfort of body would occur.
It was Horry Sims who broke the long silence, and on hearing the voice of that Tory cur it was with difficulty I could prevent myself from leaping upon him, choking from his worthless carcass the last breath of life, because he was responsible for all our suffering at that moment.