"No!" Terry roared.
"Oh, oh, Terry, dear!" the mother wailed, observing the preparations that were making behind Terry's back. "If you'd only——"
Terry screamed in a furious passion:
"Have done, woman! I tells you I won't have none o' my fiddle fingers cut off!"
It was the end. Tom Lute gave the signal. Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson pounced upon little Terry Lute and carried him bawling and struggling from his mother's knee towards the block of birch in the middle of the kitchen floor. Tom Lute stood waiting there with the axe.
As for Terry Lute's mother, she flew to the stove, tears streaming from her eyes, her mouth grim, and fetched the pot of tar. And then all at once the Little Fiddler of Amen Island wriggled out of the clutches of his captors—they were too tender with him—and dived under the kitchen table.
[CHAPTER XXVII]
In Which Doctor Luke's Flesh Creeps, Billy Topsail Acts Like a Bob-Cat, and the Little Fiddler of Amen Island Tells a Secret