"Here's a catastrophe, Tom, my boy" quoth Aaron, who, now that he had
satisfied himself that the pistols were properly loaded and primed, had
resumed all his wonted coolness in danger. "Ask that fellow who is
enacting the statue on the top of the rock what he wants. I am a
tolerable shot, you know; and if he means evil, I shall nick him before
he can carry his carabine to his shoulder, take my word for it."
"Who is there, and what do you want?" No answer, the man above us
continued as still as if he had actually been a statue of bronze.
Presently one of the three men in the wood sounded a short snorting note
on a bullock's horn.
It would seem that until this moment their comrade above us had not been
aware of their vicinity, for he immediately called out in the patois of
St Domingo, "advance, and seize the travellers;" and thereupon was in
the act of raising his piece to his shoulder, when crack--Bang tired his
pistol. The man uttered a loud hah, but did not fall.
"Missed him, by all that is wonderful!" said my companion. "Now, Tom,
it is your turn."
I levelled, and was in the very act of pulling the trigger, when the
dark figure fell over slowly and stiffly on his back, and then began to
struggle violently, and to cough loudly, as if he were suffocating. At
length he rolled over and down the face of the rock, where he was caught
by a strong clump of brushwood, and there he hung, while the coughing
and crowing increased, and I felt a warm shower, as of heated water,
sputter over my face.
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