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Page 15
My answer was, "I think, sir, I would recommend you next, to order
down such heavy furniture and lumber as can be moved, and make a
barricade within the gate."
"That's good again," says he: "will you see it done?"
"I'll willingly help to do it," says I, "unless or until my
superior, Sergeant Drooce, gives me other orders."
He shook me by the hand, and having told off some of his companions
to help me, bestirred himself to look to the arms and ammunition. A
proper quick, brave, steady, ready gentleman!
One of their three little children was deaf and dumb, Miss Maryon
had been from the first with all the children, soothing them, and
dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought out of
their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of play, so
that some of them were now even laughing. I had been working hard
with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good
breast-work within the gate. Drooce and the seven men had come
back, bringing in the people from the Signal Hill, and had worked
along with us: but, I had not so much as spoken a word to Drooce,
nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too
busy. The breastwork was now finished, and I found Miss Maryon at
my side, with a child in her arms. Her dark hair was fastened round
her head with a band. She had a quantity of it, and it looked even
richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than I had
seen it look when it was carefully arranged. She was very pale, but
extraordinarily quiet and still.
"Dear good Davis," said she, "I have been waiting to speak one word
to you."
I turned to her directly. If I had received a musket-ball in the
heart, and she had stood there, I almost believe I should have
turned to her before I dropped.
"This pretty little creature," said she, kissing the child in her
arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down,
"cannot hear what we say--can hear nothing. I trust you so much,
and have such great confidence in you, that I want you to make me a
promise."
"What is it, Miss?"
"That if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being
taken, you will kill me."
"I shall not be alive to do it, Miss. I shall have died in your
defence before it comes to that. They must step across my body to
lay a hand on you."
"But, if you are alive, you brave soldier." How she looked at me!
"And if you cannot save me from the Pirates, living, you will save
me, dead. Tell me so."
Well! I told her I would do that at the last, if all else failed.
She took my hand--my rough, coarse hand--and put it to her lips.
She put it to the child's lips, and the child kissed it. I believe
I had the strength of half a dozen men in me, from that moment,
until the fight was over.
All this time, Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to make a
Proclamation to the Pirates to lay down their arms and go away; and
everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him, while
he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. Mrs. Pordage, too,
had some curious ideas about the British respectability of her
nightcap (which had as many frills to it, growing in layers one
inside another, as if it was a white vegetable of the artichoke
sort), and she wouldn't take the nightcap off, and would be angry
when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handing things
about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as her husband did.
But, as we were now forming for the defence of the place, they were
both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The children and ladies
were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house
(we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest
they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we
could. There was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of
tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. There were,
also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. Those were brought
out. To my astonishment, little Mrs. Fisher that I had taken for a
doll and a baby, was not only very active in that service, but
volunteered to load the spare arms.
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