et him or have the others about my ears upon
his shoutings.

That done, I snatched the musket that had cost the man his life, and,
staying not to see what should befall, ran back to cover. In the
interval of weapon-getting the fire against the cabin wall had gnawed
its way from log to log and now was lapping with its yellow tongues
beneath the eaves. But lest the victim should not suffer long enough,
the Indians were at work in yelling frenzy, flogging the blaze with
green branches broken from the trees so that the fire itself should not
be merciful.

I waited till the slowly spinning figure of the black should turn and
make a mark I could not miss. The pause gave space for some swift
steadying of the nerves, but with the colder thought it also brought a
fierce and terrible temptation. The finger on the musket's trigger held
a life in pawn, and I might pick and choose and say what life I'd take.

I glanced aside at Falconnet. He was a fairer mark than my poor Tomas,
and by the laws of God and man had earned his death. The tortured slave
had little time to suffer at the worst, and with the bullet that would
give him surcease I could well avenge him. More than this; that bullet
planted in my enemy's heart would save my lady Margery harmless, leaving
me free to go to my own place and so to right the wrong that I had done.

All in the pivoting instant of the pause the musket swung slowly round
as of its own volition, and through its sights I saw the slashings, gold
on red, across the breasting of his captain's riding coat. One little
crooking of the trigger-finger and the lead had gone upon its errand.
But at the balancing instant that piteous cry was lifted once again: "O
Massa! Massa Cap'm! God 'a' mussy--shoot po' nigga and let 'um die!"

I did as any other man would do, as you have guessed. The great king's
musket swept another arc, and roared and belched and spat its messenger
of death; and my poor Tomas had the boon he prayed for.

And then, as if the musket flash and roar had been a lodestone and these
fierce Cherokees so many bits of steel to cluster thick upon it, I was
surrounded in the twinkling of an eye, and whizzing hatchets and rifle
bullets whining sibilant were but an earnest of the fate I had invited.

XV

IN WHICH A HATCHET SINGS A MAN TO SLEEP

In such a coil as this I'd looped about me there was nothing for it, as
it seemed, but to draw the steel and die as a soldier should. So I broke