A glance backward reveals to me a strange sight—I see the alligator diving to the bottom with the bold rider upon its back! He is lost—he is lost!
With painful thoughts, I swim on. I climb out, and place my fainting sister upon the bank. I again look back.
Joy, joy! the strange youth is once more above the surface, and swimming freely to the shore. Upon the further side of the pond, the hideous form is also above water, struggling by the edge—frantic and furious with the agony of its wounds.
Joy, joy! my sister is unharmed. The floating skirt has saved her; scarcely a scratch shows upon her delicate limbs; and now in tender arms, amidst sweet words and looks of kind sympathy, she is borne away from the scene of her peril.
Chapter Ten.
The “Half-Blood.”
The alligator was soon clubbed to death, and dragged to the shore—a work of delight to the blacks of the plantation.
No one suspected how the reptile had got to the pond—for I had not said a word to any one. The belief was that it had wandered there from the river, or the lagoons—as others had done before; and Yellow Jake, the most active of all in its destruction, was heard several times repeating this hypothesis! Little did the villain suspect that his secret was known. I thought that besides himself I was the only one privy to it; in this, however, I was mistaken.