but more distant, as if it were the response to a challenge.
“Don’t it carry you home again sergeant, dear?”
“Silence in the – How, Dinny?” said the sergeant, good-humouredly, for the men were laughing.
“Why, my mother had a cow – a Kerry cow, the darlint – and Farmer Magee, half a mile across the bog, had a bull, and you could hear him making love to her at toimes just like that, and moighty plisant it was.”
“And used he to come across the bog,” said the sergeant, “to court her?”
“And did he come across the bog to court her!” said Dinny, with a contemptuous tone in his voice. “And could you go across the bog courting if Farmer Magee had put a ring through your nose, and tied you up to a post, sergeant dear? Oh, no! The farmer was moighty particular about that bull’s morals, and niver let him out of a night.”
“Silence in the ranks! ’Tention!” said the serjeant. “Half left!”
Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp, and the men passed round the end of the building just as the alligator bellowed again.
Abel drew a long breath and rapidly drew himself through the hole – no easy task and Bart began follow, but only to stick before he was half-way through.
“I’m at it again,” he whispered. “Natur’ made me crooked o’ purpose to go wrong at times like this.”
Abel seized his hands, as he recalled the incident at the cottage.
“Now,” he whispered, “both together – hard!”
Bart gave himself a wrench as his companion tugged tremendously, and the resistance was overcome.
“Half my skin,” growled Bart, as he struggled to his feet and stood by his companion. “Now, lad, this way.”
“No, no; that’s the way the soldiers have gone.”
“It’s the only way, lad. The dogs are yonder, and we couldn’t get over the palisade. Now!”
They crept on in silence, seeing from time to time glints of the lantern, and in the midst of the still darkness matters seemed to be going so easily for them that Abel’s heart grew more regular in its pulsation, and he was just asking himself why he had not had invention enough to contrive this evasion, when a clear and familiar voice cried, “Shtand!” and there was the click of a musket-lock.
What followed was almost momentary.
Bart struck aside the bayonet levelled at his breast, and leaped upon the sentry before him, driving him backward and clapping his hand upon his mouth as he knelt upon his chest; while, ably seconding him, his companion wrested the musket from the man’s hand, twisted the bayonet from the end of the barrel, and, holding it daggerwise, pressed it against the man’s throat.
“Hold aside, Bart,” whispered Abel, savagely.
“No, no,” growled Bart. “No blood, lad.”
“’Tis for our lives and liberty!” whispered Abel, fiercely.
“Ay, but – ” growled Bart. “Lie still, will you!” he muttered, as fiercely as his companion, for the sentry had given a violent heave and wrested his mouth free.
“Sure, an’ ye won’t kill a poor boy that how, gintlemen,” he whispered, piteously.
“Another word, and it’s your last!” hissed Abel.
“Sure, and I’ll be as silent as Pater Mulloney’s grave, sor,” whispered the sentry; “but it’s a mother I have over in the owld country, and ye’d break her heart if ye killed me.”
“Hold your tongue!” whispered Bart.
“Sure, and I will, sor. It’s not meself as would stop a couple of gintlemen from escaping. There’s the gate, gintlemen. Ye’ve got my mushket, and I can’t stop you.”
“Yes, come along,” whispered Bart.
“What! and leave him to give the alarm?” said Abel. “We’re wasting time, man. ’Tis his life or ours.”
“Not at all, sor,” whispered the sentry, pleadingly. “I won’t give the alarm, on my hanner; and you can’t kill a boy widout letting him just say, ‘How d’ye do?’ and ‘Which is the way yander?’ to the praste.”
“Shall we trust him?” said Bart, in a low growl.
“No!”
“Then take me wid ye, gintlemen. Faix, ye might force me to go, for the divil a bit do I want to shtay here.”
“Look here,” whispered Bart; “it’s neck or nothing, my lad. If you give the alarm, it will be with that bayonet struck through you.”
“And would a Kelly give the alarm, afther he said on his hanner? Sure, you might thrust me.”
“Over with you, then, Bart,” whispered Abel; “I’ll stand over him here. Take the gun.”
Bart obeyed, and Abel stood with one hand upon the sentry’s shoulder, and the bayonet close to his throat.
“An’ is that the way you thrust a gintleman?” said Dinny, contemptuously, as Bart, with all a sailor’s and rock-climber’s activity, drew himself up, and dropped from the top of the wall at the side.
“Now, you over,” whispered Abel. “We shall take you with us till we’re safe; but so sure as you give warning of our escape, you lose your life!”
“Ah! ye may thrust me,” said the sentry, quickly. “Is it over wid me?”
“Yes; quick!”
The man scaled the gate as easily as Bart had done before him, and then Abel followed; but as he reached the top and shuffled sidewise to the wall, which he bestrode, there was the sound of a shot, followed by another, and another, and the fierce baying of dogs.
“Bedad, they’ve seen ye,” said the sentry, as Abel dropped down.
“They’ve been in the barrack,” whispered Bart.
“To be sure they have, sor; the sergeant was going round.”
“Quick, take his hand!” said Bart.
“No!” whispered Abel, levelling the bayonet.
“No, no; for my mother’s sake, sor!” cried the sentry, piteously. “She has only six of us, and I’m one.”
“Put away that bagnet!” said Bart, hoarsely. “Take his hand, and run!”
“That’s it, sor, at the double,” said the sentry, rising from his knees, where he had flung himself. “I’m wid ye to the end of the world. It’s a place I know, and – ”
“Silence!” hissed Abel, as there was the loud clanging of a bell with the fierce yelping of dogs, and they dashed off, hand joined in hand, for the coffee-plantation, away down by the cane-brake and the swamp.
Chapter
