"We had to tap him, Miss, a leetle upon the head, to bring him quiet. He's tame and innocent now, but you should see him when he's going to break out. Only just hear him when he laughs."
I could not resist the temptation. The last remark of my keeper fell on my ears like a suggestion, and suddenly shooting up my head, and glaring fiercely at the spectators, I gave them a yell of laughter as terrible as I could possibly make it.
"Ah!" was the shriek of Susannah, as she dashed back from the logs. Before the sounds had well ceased, they were echoed from without and in more fearful and natural style from the practised lungs of Col. Nelson. His yells following mine, were enough to startle even me.
"What!" he cried, thrusting his fingers through the crevice, "you would come out, would you,—you would try your strength with mine. Let him out,—let him out! I am ready for him, breast to breast, man against man, tooth and nail, forever and forever. You can laugh too, but— Ha! Ha! Ha!—what do you say to that? Shut up, shut up, and be ashamed of yourself. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
There was a sensation without. I could see that Emmeline recoiled from the side of her companion. He had thrown himself into an attitude, had grappled the logs of my dungeon, and exhibited a degree of strange emotion, which, to say the least, took everybody by surprise. My chief custodian was the first to speak.
"Don't be scared, Mr.—there's no danger—he can't get out."
"But I say let him out—let him out. Look at him, ladies—look at him. You shall see what a madman is—you shall see how I can manage him. Hark ye, fellow,—out with him at once. Give me your whip—I know all about his treatment. You shall see me work him. I'll manage him,—I'll fight with him, and laugh with him too—how we shall laugh—Ha! Ha! Ha!"
His horrible laughter—for it was horrible—was cut short by an unexpected incident. He was knocked down as suddenly as I had been, with a blow from behind, to the astonishment of all around. The assailant was the sheriff of Hamilton jail, who had just arrived and detected the fugitive, Archy Dargan—the most cunning of all bedlamites, as he afterwards assured me—in the person of the handsome Col. Nelson.
"I knew the scamp by his laugh—I heard it half a mile," said the sheriff, as he planted himself upon the bosom of the prostrate man, and proceeded to leash him in proper order. Here was a concatenation accordingly.
"Who hev' I got in the pen?" was the sapient inquiry of my captor—the fellow whose whip had been so potent over my imagination.