Trath that’s just what owld Zeb sayed.”
“He has been here, then?”
“Yis—yis—but not till long afther the others.”
“The others?”
“Yis, miss.
Zeb only arroived yestherday marnin’.
The others paid their visit the night afore, an at a very unsayzonable hour too, wakin’ me out av the middle av my slape.”
“But who?—what others?”
“Why the Indyens, to be shure.”
“There have been Indians, then?”
“Trath was there—a whole tribe av thim.
Well, as I’ve been tillin’ yez, miss, jest as I wus in a soun’ slape, I heerd talkin’ in the cyabin heern, right over my hid, an the shufflin’ av paper, as if somebody was dalin’ a pack av cards, an—Mother av Moses! fwhat’s that?”
“What?”
“Didn’t yez heear somethin’?
Wheesht! Thare it is agane!
Trath, it’s the trampin’ av horses!
They’re jist outside.”
Phelim rushed towards the door.
“Be Sant Pathrick! the place is surrounded wid men on horseback.
Thare’s a thousand av them! an more comin’ behind!
Be japers! them’s the chaps owld Zeb—Now for a frish spell av squeelin!
O Lard!
I’ll be too late!”
Seizing the cactus-branch—that for convenience he had brought inside the hut—he dashed out through the doorway.
“Mon Dieu!” cried the Creole, “’tis they!
My father, and I here!
How shall I explain it?
Holy Virgin, save me from shame!”
Instinctively she sprang towards the door, closing it, as she did so. But a moment’s reflection showed her how idle was the act.
They who were outside would make light of such obstruction.
Already she recognised the voices of the Regulators! The opening in the skin wall came under her eye. Should she make a retreat through that, undignified as it might be?
It was no longer possible. The sound of hoofs also in the rear! There were horsemen behind the hut! Besides, her own steed was in front—that ocellated creature not to be mistaken. By this time they must have identified it!
But there was another thought that restrained her from attempting to retreat—one more generous. He was in danger—from which even the unconsciousness of it might not shield him! Who but she could protect him?
“Let my good name go!” thought she. “Father—friends—all—all but him, if God so wills it!
Shame, or no shame, to him will I be true!”
As these noble thoughts passed through her mind, she took her stand by the bedside of the invalid, like a second Dido, resolved to risk all—even death itself—for the hero of her heart.
Chapter Sixty Two. Waiting for the Cue.
Never, since its erection, was there such a trampling of hoofs around the hut of the horse-catcher—not even when its corral was filled with fresh-taken mustangs.
Phelim, rushing out from the door, is saluted by a score of voices that summon him to stop.
One is heard louder than the rest, and in tones of command that proclaim the speaker to be chief of the party.
“Pull up, damn you!
It’s no use—your trying to escape.
Another step, and ye’ll go tumbling in your tracks.
Pull up, I say!”
The command takes effect upon the Connemara man, who has been making direct for Zeb Stump’s mare, tethered on the other side of the opening. He stops upon the instant.
“Shure, gintlemen, I don’t want to escyape,” asseverates he, shivering at the sight of a score of angry faces, and the same number of gun-barrels bearing upon his person; “I had no such intinshuns.
I was only goin’ to—”
“Run off, if ye’d got the chance.
Ye’d made a good beginning.
Here, Dick Tracey! half-a-dozen turns of your trail-rope round him.