"
"Why, then, are you here idle when all that he holds most dear are in
danger?" cried a voice with startling abruptness. "Mount, mount, and
follow your captain; arm and mount, and that instantly, or you will be
too late!"
This unexpected interruption produced an instantaneous confusion amongst
the tipplers. Caesar fled instinctively into the fireplace, where he
maintained his position in defiance of a heat that would have roasted a
white man. Sergeant Hollister turned promptly on his heel, and seizing
big saber, the steel was glittering by the firelight, in the twinkling
of an eye; but perceiving the intruder to be the peddler, who stood
near the open door that led to the lean-to in the rear, he began to fall
back towards the position of the black, with a military intuition that
taught him to concentrate his forces. Betty alone stood her ground, by
the side of the temporary table. Replenishing the mug with a large
addition of the article known to the soldiery by the name of
"choke-dog," she held it towards the peddler. The eyes of the
washerwoman had for some time been swimming with love and liquor, and
turning them good-naturedly on Birch, she cried,--
"Faith, but ye're wilcome, Mister Piddler, or Mister Birch, or Mister
Beelzeboob, or what's yeer name.
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