Crouched in a corner of a little recess half way up the irregular wall, we found Mose, shivering with fear and looking down at us with dumb, animal eyes. We had to drag him out by main force. The poor fellow was nearly famished and so weak he could scarcely stand. What little sense he had ever possessed seemed to have left him, and he jabbered in a tongue that was scarcely English.
We bolstered him up with a few drops of whisky from Mattison's flask, and half carried him out into the light. The guide ran ahead to get a carriage, spreading the news as he ran, that Cat-Eye Mose had been found. Half the town of Luray came out to the cave to escort us back, and I think the feeling of regret was general, in that there had not been time enough to collect a brass band.
CHAPTER XXIII
MOSE TELLS HIS STORY
We took Mose back to the hotel, shut out the crowd, and gave him something to eat. He was quite out of his head and it was only by dint of the most patient questioning that we finally got his story. It was, in substance, as Terry had sketched it in the cave.
In obedience to my request, Mose had gone back after the coat, not knowing that the Colonel was before him. Suddenly, as he came near the pool he heard a scream and looked up in time to see a big negro—the one my uncle had struck with his crop—spring upon the Colonel with the cry, "It's my tu'n, now, Cunnel Gaylord. You whup me, an' I'll let you see what it feels like."
The Colonel turned and clinched with his assailant, and in the struggle the light was dropped. Mose, with a cry, ran forward to his master's assistance, but when the negro saw him climbing up the bank he suddenly screamed, and hurling the old man from him, turned and fled.
"The fellow must have taken him for the devil when he saw those eyes, and I don't wonder!" Terry interpolated at this point.