Still no reply. Although the last summons was delivered in a shout loud enough to have been heard half a mile off, there was no sign made by the slumberer to show that he even heard it.
A rude shaking administered by Zeb had no better effect. It only produced a grunt, immediately succeeded by a return to the same stentorous respiration.
“If ’twa’n’t for his snorin’ I mout b’lieve him to be dead. He air dead drunk, an no mistake; intoxerkated to the very eends o’ his toe-nails. Kickin’ him ’ud be no use. Dog-goned, ef I don’t try this.”
The old hunter’s eye, as he spoke, was resting upon a pail that stood in a corner of the cabin. It was full of water, which Phelim, for some purpose, had fetched from the creek. Unfortunately for himself, he had not wasted it.
With a comical expression in his eye, Zeb took up the pail; and swilled the whole of its contents right down upon the countenance of the sleeper.
It had the effect intended. If not quite sobered, the inebriate was thoroughly awakened; and the string of terrified ejaculations that came from his lips formed a contrasting accompaniment to the loud cachinnations of the hunter.
It was some time before sufficient tranquillity was restored, to admit of the two men entering upon a serious conversation.
Phelim, however, despite his chronic inebriety, was still under the influence of his late fears, and was only too glad to see Zeb Stump, notwithstanding the unceremonious manner in which he had announced himself.
As soon as an understanding was established between them, and without waiting to be questioned, he proceeded to relate in detail, as concisely as an unsteady tongue and disordered brain would permit, the series of strange sights and incidents that had almost deprived him of his senses.
It was the first that Zeb Stump had heard of the Headless Horseman.