“You are impatient, man! impatient, I see. You think now, perhaps——”
“I am dying,” was all I could utter. In fact, my senses were leaving me from exhaustion, and I really thought my last hour was come.
“Pooh! dyin’! One don’t die so easy. And yet—d——n!—it might be true.”
He sprang off his horse, and was just in time to catch me in his arms as I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky, however, restored me to consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang, and after passing through a potato ground, a field of Indian corn, and a small grove of peach-trees, we found ourselves at the door of the blockhouse.
I was so utterly helpless, that my strange companion was obliged to lift me off my horse, and carry me into the dwelling. He set me down upon a bench, passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to say, I was never better able to observe all that passed around me, than during the few hours of physical debility that succeeded my immersion in the Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat, but my mental faculties, instead of participating in this weakness, seemed sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness.
The blockhouse in which we now were was of the poorest possible description; a mere log hut consisting of one room, that served as kitchen, sitting-room, and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swang heavily upon two hooks, which fitted into iron rings, and formed a clumsy substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to secure it; windows, properly speaking, there were none, but in their stead a few holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of clay, stamped hard and dry in the middle, but out of which, at the sides of the room, a crop of rank grass was growing, a foot or more high. In one corner stood a clumsy bedstead, in another was a sort of bar or counter, on which were half a dozen drinking glasses of various sizes and patterns. The table consisted of four thick posts, firmly planted in the ground, and on which were nailed three boards that had apparently belonged to some chest or case, for they were partly painted, and there was a date, and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A shelf fixed against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two, and three or four bottles, uncorked, and apparently empty; and from some wooden pegs wedged in between the logs, hung suspended a few articles of wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect.
Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace, was an individual, whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping with the wretched appearance of this Texan shebeen house. He was an undersized, stooping figure, red-haired and large-mouthed, with small reddish pig’s eyes, which he seemed totally unable to raise from the ground, and whose lowering, hang-dog expression corresponded fully with the treacherous, restless, panther-like stealthiness of his step and movements. Without greeting us either by word or look, this personage dived into a dark corner of the tenement, brought out a full bottle, and, placing it and glasses upon the table, resumed the monotonous exercise in which he had been indulging on our entrance.
My guide and deliverer said nothing whilst the tavern-keeper was getting out the bottle, although he watched all his movements with a keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of spirits, and tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done this, he spoke for the first time.
“Johnny!”
Johnny made no answer.