United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


We were not wholly in obscurity inside our enclosure, for we had a couple of the boat's lanterns, which shed enough light to enable us to see each other, and to look to our weapons, without allowing any appreciable light to escape between the timbers of our fortification. Soon all our muskets were loaded again.

The mutilated bodies of the negroes, mingled with the black mud and water in the fort yard, added to the awfulness of the scene. Pieces of bombshells and other pieces of iron, and also large southern pine timbers were scattered all over the yard of the fort.

As the boys came near to the place called "The Three Bridges," where a rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards the stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which shook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from the hills through a thousand streamlets into the main torrent. Suddenly there came a shout and a scream.

Then it was that the probable truth came to me that flash and roar; that last impression imprinted on my brain before utter darkness descended upon me, must have meant an explosion, an upheaval shattering the cabin, bringing the roof down upon the struggling mob within, the heavy timbers crushing out their lives. And the cause!

There was a slight pause and a creaking of timbers; then the ice slipped upwards and rose above the roof. More ice came down from above slowly grinding. Again there was a pause. The creaking timbers began to groan, the hut leaned gently over.

"`A varmint! cried Abe; and the next moment appeared the dog, running up full tilt among the maize plants and up to the fence. I could see some dark object before him, that passed over the rails with a sudden spring, and bounded into the timbers. "`A varmint, massa! repeated Abe, as he lifted the dog over, and followed himself.

Doubtless the ones in peril may have been praying for rescuers to heave in sight, but certainly it could never have entered into their heads to conjure up such a strange way for assistance to come to them, in the shape of a raft composed of the timbers of the wrecked Carson bridge.

A piece of board or a nail were treasures then, and when the timbers of the craft were covered, for oakum we had resort to tree-gum. For caulking, one spared a handkerchief, another a stocking, and another a piece of shirt, till she was stuffed in all her fissures. In this labour we passed eight days, and then were ready for the launch again.

But albeit ludicrous in his own plight and position, there was nothing of that character in the scene around him, or in his own contemplations. The fire raged with amazing fury and power, stimulated to madness as it were, by the pitch, and tar, and dried timbers, and other combustible materials used in the constriction of the boat.

He weepeth, he flingeth, he runneth, he jostleth, he thrusteth under the galleries where the people stand to look at him, endeavouring all he can to kill some of them, but the posts and timbers are all so strong that he cannot do harm to any one, yet he sometimes breaks his teeth in his rage.