Frank Reade, Jr., took in the situation at a glance, and cried despairingly:
“Barney, we are lost! Our end has come, and we are as good as dead men already!”
Poor Pomp saw no way out of the awful situation in which he was placed.
Death in its most awful form was upon him.
A worse fate could not be imagined.
The savages piled the brushwood about him, and danced with demoniac yells about the pile.
If Pomp could have turned pale, he would have been whiter than chalk at that moment.
But for all this, the darky’s fears were even now more for his friends than for himself.
“Golly Massy!” he chattered, shivering like one with the ague. “Whatebber will be de end ob all dis. Yere Ise gwine fo’ to be burned to death, and Marse Frank in de clutches ob dat rascal Cliff, an’ nobody to rescue him. Oh, good Lor’ it am dretful.”