Nothing decisive, however, came to pass until the long-expected entrance of the great Hellitisplit himself eventuated.
I must confess that I was awed by the terrific yet serene majesty of his appearance. When I saw the tragic, codfishy expression of his eyes, I was surprised; when I observed the flexibility of his capacious mouth, opening and shutting, like a dying mud sucker, I was amazed. When my eye turned to his fingers, which worked and clutched, as if feeling for coppers in a dark closet, I was wonder-stricken—but when my attention was called to the magnitude of his legs, I was fairly electrified with admiration, and could not forbear asking Bull Dogge if those calves were capable of locomotion.
What-a-bore-O, is supposed to be an Indian Chief, and although it is the prevailing impression that Indians are beardless, the face of this celebrated performer proved this opinion to be a physiological fallacy.
For upon his chin he wore a tuft of hair, a round black hirsute knob, neither useful nor ornamental, but which looked as if somebody had hit him in the face with a blacking-brush, and a piece had stuck to his lower jaw.
The admiring audience, who had kicked up perfect young earthquake when he came on, only ceased when he squared himself, put out his arm and prepared to speak.
That voice! Ye Gods! that voice! It went through gradations that human voice never before attempted, imitating by turns the horn of the City Hall Gabriel, the shriek of the locomotive, the soft and gentle tones of a forty-horse-power steam sawmill, the loving accents of the scissor-grinder's wheel, the amorous tones of the charcoal-man, the rumble of the omnibus, the cry of the driver appertaining thereto—rising from the entrancing notes of the infuriated house-dog to the terrific cry of the oyster vender—causing the "supes" to tremble in their boots, making the fiddlers look around for some place of safety, and moving the assembled multitude to echo back the roar, feebly, it is true, but still with all their puny strength.
(Bull Dogge says he got that awful voice by eating pebble-stone lunches, like the man in the book.)
Several times during the piece I was much affected—when he wound his arms round his wife, stuck his head over her shoulder, and kissed the back of her neck—when he made a grand exit, with three stamps, a hop, a run, and two long straddles—when he talked grand about the thunder, shook his fist at the man in the flies—when he killed the soldiers in the council room, shouted for them to "come one and all," and then ran away for fear they would—when he swore at the man who did not give him his cue—when he knelt down and said grace over his dead boy, and then got up and stuck his wife with the butcher-knife; but at no part of the whole piece was I so impressed with his pathetic power, his transcendent genius, as when he laid his hand solemnly on his stomach, and said "What a bore O, cannot lie!" (Damphool asked, in a whisper, if Othello's occupation was gone).
And at the death scene, when he was shot, I was again touched to the heart; first he wabbled about like a top-heavy liberty pole in a high wind; then he stuck out one leg, and wiggled it, after the manner of a galvanic bull-frog; then sat down on the floor, opened his eyes and looked around; then grappled an Indian on one side, clutched a soldier on the other, struggled to his feet, staggered about like a drunken Dutchman, made a rush forwards, then a leap sideways, stiffened out like a frozen pig, collapsed like a wet dish-cloth, exerted himself till his face was the color of an underdone beefsteak, then sank back into the arms of the Indians, whispered to let him down easy, rolled up the whites of his eyes, settled himself to die—concluded to have a parting curse at the surrounding people, took a long swear, laid down, and with a noise in his throat like castanets, a couple of vigorous kicks and a feeble groan, gave up the ghost.
Bull Dogge asserted that he would resuscitate, brush the dust off his legs (take some gin and sugar, and come out and make a speech), all of which he did; the butcher boys in the gallery (Damphool says Hellitisplit commenced life as a respectable butcher-boy, but has degenerated into the man he is,) gave three cheers, Hellitisplit opened his mouth four times, shut it thrice (he went off with it wide open), and backed off with a grace which we may suppose would be exhibited by a mudturtle on the tight-rope.