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Page 30
The door was cautiously opened and again shut as soon as
the men had entered. They looked up at the window, which,
in the darkness that prevailed around, was distinctly
enough visible, but although open, nothing met their
glance of a nature to startle them, nor could any movement
be heard without.
"Hold my firelock," whispered Cass to his companion,
"while I try and get a look out. I know poor Le Noir's
bed is directly under the window, and I don't think THAT
is too high, if I stand on the pillow."
He now cautiously groped his way to the bed, on ascending
which, being a tall man, he found the top of his head to
be on a level with the sill of the window. This was not
sufficient for his purpose, and he sought to elevate
himself still more. In attempting, with this view, to
place himself on the head-board, he missed his footing,
and fell with some force between the head of the bed,
and the rode log wall. To his dismay, he found that his
feet had rested not upon the hard floor of the apartment,
but upon something soft and yielding, which his imagination,
strongly excited by the events of the day, led him
unhesitatingly to conclude, was the flesh of a human
body.
"A light corporal--a light!" he shouted, regardless of
every thing, but his desire to release himself from his
present situation. "Bring a light. Here's a fellow, who
has got hold of me by the leg!"
"Take your musket then and bayonet him," said Philips,
coolly, as he pushed towards the struggling man the butt
end of his firelock, which at length reached his hands.
At the same time, Corporal Nixon, rendered equally
imprudent by the suddenness of the demand for his presence,
entered, followed by Weston, bearing the candle.
CHAPTER VI.
Nothing can, we conceive, be in worse taste in a fictitious
narrative, than the wanton introduction of the ludicrous
upon the solemn, but when in an historical tale these
extremes do occur, fidelity forbids the suppression of
the one, lest it should mar the effect of the other. Such
is the necessity under which we find ourselves.
The first act of the corporal, on seeing how matters
stood, was to pull back the bedstead behind which Cass
was imprisoned, so as wholly to uncover him and his
assailant, but the surprise of all may be imagined, when,
instead of an Indian, with whom they believed him to be
struggling, they beheld an immense turkey-cock, well
known to them all, which was partly under the foot of
the soldier--partly in a boarded drain or reservoir which
passed from the apartment into a large hog trough, that
lay along the wall and daily received the refuse of the
various meals. The bird, furious with pain, was burying
its beak into the leg of the soldier, while he, with the
butt end of his musket aloft, and the bayonet depressed,
offered the most burlesque representation of St. George
preparing to give his mortal thrust to the dragon.
In spite of the danger by which they were beset, it was
impossible for the men to restrain the indulgence of
their humor at this singular sight, nor was the disposition
at all checked, when they saw the bayonet descend and
actually transfix the intruder to the floor-causing him
to droop his head, and thus free Cass from his furious
attacks.
"If that's the way you kill your enemies, Nutcrackers,
we promise to eat them up for you--as many as you like,"
and as he spoke, Green advanced and seized the dying bird
by the throat; but as he pulled it suddenly away, a dark
human hand was observed to relinquish its hold of the
feet, and rapidly disappear.
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