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Updated: June 19, 2025
"Tucket assures me that he and the rest were more to blame than you. But, for the sake of your friends, Frank, take warning by this experience, and never be betrayed into any thing of the kind again. I trust you. And here, my boy, are your letters." He put half a dozen into Frank's hands. And Frank, as he took them, felt his very heart melt within him with gratitude and contrition.
I take some little pride in him myself," added the private. "We was almost like brothers, me and Frank was! 'In the desert, in the battle, in the ocean-tempest's wrath, we stood together, side by side; one hope was ours, one path!" "This, then, is Seth Tucket!" exclaimed Mrs. Manly, who knew him by his poetry. "That's my name, ma'am, at your service!" And Seth made another tremendous bow.
He knew that his turkeys were going, and, muttering a parting malediction at Frank, he set off at a run to protect his poultry-yard. "Now's our time," said Tucket, starting for the rendezvous, and striking into another quotation from his favorite minstrel, parodied for the occasion. "'Speed, Manly, speed! the cow's tough hide on fleeter foot was ne'er tied.
As for Frank, with triumph in his heart and money in his fist, he ran barefoot to where Seth Tucket lay sprawled before the blazing rails, feeling of his stockings, to see if they were dry enough to put on. "Hello, young chap! how goes it? 'Stranger what dost thou require? Rest, and a guide, and food and fire. Get down here and have a toasting. It comes cheap."
Of his two friends, Atwater and the old drummer, only one, as Seth Tucket said, remains. One was carried out last night in a coffin his cold form is laid life's fitful fever is over with him. And the other? Very still, very pale, stretched on his narrow bed, no motion of breathing perceptible, behold him! What is it we see in that sculptured, placid face? Is it life, or is it death?
He looked up all around overhead. "What's the trouble, Manly?" screamed Tucket. "What do you see?" "There!" Frank shouted, pointing upwards; "there! the man that killed Atwater!" And in the branches of a tree, which stood but a few paces in front of them, he showed, half hidden by the thick masses, the figure of a rebel. The sharpshooter was loading his piece.
"I tell ye, boys!" remarks Seth Tucket, "this is a leetle ahead of any game of bluff ever I took a hand in! The battery is about used up. S'pose you look at your my our watch, Frank, and see how often the darned rebels fire." "Once in about ten minutes now," Frank informs him. "O! did you see that shell burst? Right over one of our gunboats!" "She's aground," says Gray, with the glass.
"Look! there come the rebel steamers again, down the western shore. They think they can get down at us, now our gunboats are busy off there." "When the cat's away the mice will play," says Tucket. "But the kittens are after 'em!" "There goes Burnside's tug to see what the row is!" "The battery scarcely fires at all now," says Frank, looking at his watch.
But the men of Belsaye have stubborn memories; Sir Gui and his butchers slumber in a false security, for stern men are they and strong, and wait but God's appointed time. Pray God that time be soon!" "Amen!" said Beltane. Now, even as he spake came the sound of a distant tucket, the great gates of Belsaye swung wide, and forth rode a company of men-at-arms, their bascinets agleam 'neath the moon.
"Here, you old clodhopper, you; don't you shoot! don't you shoot!" screamed Seth Tucket, rushing wildly out of the bushes just as the rebel pulled the trigger. In the mean time the boys watching from their ambush, and seeing that the rebel had gone off with Frank, but left his dog and negro behind, armed themselves with clubs.
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