“Go back, Randolph! go back! By that symbol upon your breast your life has been spared; but my braves are chafed, and their blood is hot with fighting. Tempt not their anger. Away! away!”
Chapter Sixty Eight.
A Victory Ending in a Retreat.
I saw not the speaker, who was completely hidden behind the thick trellis of leaves. It was not necessary I should see him, to know who addressed me; on hearing the voice I instantly recognised it. It was Osceola who spoke.
I cannot describe my sensations at that moment, nor tell exactly how I acted. My mind was in a chaos of confusion—surprise and fear mingling alike in my emotions.
I remember facing once more towards my followers. I saw that they were not all dead—some were still lying where they had fallen, doubled up, or stretched out in various attitudes of death—motionless—beyond doubt, lifeless. Some still moved, their cries for help showing that life was not extinct.
To my joy, I observed several who had regained their feet, and were running, or rather scrambling, rapidly away from the ground; and still another few who had risen into half-erect attitudes, and were crawling off upon their hands and knees.
These last were still being fired upon from the bushes; and as I stood wavering, I saw one or two of them levelled along the grass by the fatal bullets that rained thickly around me.