So they went until rather more than half the distance had been covered, and then all at once a loud shout was raised behind them, and Ephraim, looking hastily round, uttered a groan of despair.
Out from the coverts at the far end of the clearing rushed Colonel Spriggs, his face aflame with excitement, and waving his sword as he drew near.
CHAPTER XVI.
OLD GRIZZLY’S SACRIFICE.
As Ephraim saw their terrible enemy running towards them, followed by a number of soldiers, his heart, stout as it was, sank within him; for Lucius, in the spasm of unreasoning terror which the mere sight of the balloon had induced in him, hung back, a dead-weight, and refused to move in response to either force or persuasion. It is said that a person in the grip of severe sea-sickness would, if informed that the ship was about to sink under him, calmly accept the fact, and welcome the change as a blessed relief from present suffering. If this be true, then Lucius was in very much the same state of mind. The recollection of his balloon experiences filled him with a hideous, incapacitating fear. To ascend, he believed, meant death. Death was behind him in another shape, but compared with the former it seemed absolutely enchanting. These were his thoughts, if he thought at all, and in answer to Ephraim’s wild entreaty that he would hurry on, he did but hang back the more, while he muttered huskily words which fell in broken, meaningless syllables from his pale and trembling lips.
While this struggle was going on, the colonel and his men drew nearer and nearer. Spriggs had not recognised the boys at first, but observing from his place of concealment two Federal soldiers, as he supposed, entering the open, had fixed his attention somewhat idly upon them. It was not until the argument began, and he got a good, though distant, look at Ephraim’s hairy face, that it was borne in upon him who these seeming Federals really were. A fierce joy filled his cruel heart. He should not have to return to camp empty-handed after all. ‘Don’t fire!’ he ordered his men. ‘Run them down and take them alive.’
Relaxing for a moment his efforts to drag Lucius to the balloon, Ephraim cast a glance over his shoulder. The colonel and his men were still a couple of hundred yards away, but coming on at top speed. Thirty paces ahead was the balloon—a veritable city of refuge. One vigorous spurt, and they could reach it and be safe. Life was very sweet, and Ephraim could save his—if he went on alone.
But that was not the Grizzly’s way. No such coward thought even entered his brain. Stooping down in front of Lucius, he drew the boy’s arms around his neck, humped him on to his back like a sack of potatoes, and staggering to his feet again, stumbled forward, his body bent almost double under the heavy weight and the effort to preserve the equilibrium of his well-nigh senseless burden.
‘Throttle me round the neck, Luce,’ he cried wildly. ‘Twine yer legs around me. Don’t give in, sonny! Keep up yer sperrits, and I’ll git ye thar!’