He would have fallen headlong with fear and exhaustion upon the turf, had not a gentle female caught the slender youth in her arms, and embraced him with all the energetic affection of a boa-constrictor.
Peter trembled like a little inoffensive mouse in the claws of a tabby!
At the same time one of the Indians stepped forward, brandishing his scalping knife.
He was the very prototype of an animated bronze Hercules; and, seizing the poor middy's lank locks, with a peculiar twist, in his iron grasp— Peter fainted!
PETER SIMPLE'S FOREIGN ADVENTURE. No. II.
“O! what a lost mutton am I!”—Inkle and Yarico.
MOST luckily for poor Peter was it, that he fell into the hands, or rather the arms, of the Indian maid; for she not only preserved his crop, but his life. When he recovered from his swoon, he found himself seated beside his preserver, who, with one arm round his waist, was holding a cocoa-nut, filled with a refreshing beverage, to his parched and pallid lips. A large fire blazed in the middle of the wide space occupied by the Indians, and he beheld the well-known coats and jackets of the brave crew of the Firefly scattered on the greensward.
His heart palpitated-he thought at first that the villainous Indians had stripped them, and left them to wander in a state of nature through the tangled and briery woods. He was, however, soon—too soon—convinced that the savages had dressed them! Yes, that merry crew—who had so often roasted him—had been roasted by the Indians!