“We’re safe!” cried Harrington, joyfully.
“Faith, yes,” returned Muriel, gaily, her golden eyes glowing in the faint pink flush of her face, “but it was warm work while it lasted.”
CHAPTER XX.
EXPLANATIONS.
For a few moments they all were silent.
“Mr. Brown,” said Muriel, breaking the pause, “we owe you the most cordial thanks. You have saved this man’s life.”
“I’m afeard, Miss Eastman, that his life’s not worth saving,” returned the negro, in an exhausted voice, wiping away, with his shirt-sleeve, as he spoke, the streaming moisture which shone on his swart visage. “He’s in a fit, aint he, Mr. Harrington?” he added, glancing at the slaveholder, who sat, flaccid and inanimate, between the young man and Muriel.
“No, he has only fainted,” replied Harrington. “We must revive him.”
He removed the Southerner’s hat, took off his neckcloth, and opened his shirt, to give him air, while Muriel busied herself with fanning him, using his hat for that purpose. She had dropped her fan and parasol on the steps at the time when Tugmutton had screamed to them what was going on in Roux’s room.
“I should just like to know the rights of this matter, Mr. Harrington,” said Brown, “for I’ve got no clar understandin’ of it, any way. The fust thing I knew, I heerd a hollerin’ in the street, and I caught a sight of that boy of Roux’s tearin’ like mad from house to house, bawlin’ somethin’ or other, and the folks comin’ out and runnin’ in all sorts of ways, shoutin’, till the street filled with ’em. I stood a minute, and then I run down to Tug. ‘Hullo, you young devil,’ says I, ‘what’s to pay.’ ‘There’s a kidnapper luggin’ off father,’ he bawls, and off he goes like a shot, hollerin’ that into the houses, and dodgin’ about like a Ingy rubber ball. I sung out, ‘come on, men,’ and I put for Roux’s, knife in hand, lickedy split. That’s all I know.”