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And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo's arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their young mistress.
At our appointed time we left the homestead, taking the north-west track for over a mile to continue the dust-throwing; and for the whole length of that mile Dan reiterated the "advantages of surprise parties," and his opinion that "things were just about properly fixed up for one"; and when we left the track abruptly and set off across country at right angles to it, Sambo's quick questioning, suspicious glance made it very evident that he, for one, had gleaned no inkling of the patrol, which naturally filled Dan with delight.
The night, although not absolutely gloomy, was yet sufficiently obscure to aid their enterprize; and notwithstanding they could distinctly hear the tread of the American sentinels, as they paced the deck of their flotilla, such was the stillness of Sambo's practised paddle, that the little canoe glided past them unheard, and, stealing along the shore, was enabled to gain the farther extremity of the town, where however, despite of the most scrupulous inspection, not the slightest evidence of a collective movement was to be observed.
"The wind blew 'em right out, an' there they were." "Well, they wan't Sambo's sheep tails," retorted the boy, conclusively, "'cause Sambo's sheep ain't got any tails." Brought to bay, the little girl looked doubtfully up and down the turnpike. "Maybe she conjured 'em on first," she suggested at last. "Oh, you're a regular baby, Betty," exclaimed the boy, in disgust.
A change of guard often forms a trap for Sambo, when he is lugged to the guard-house, kept all night, his master informed in the morning, and requested to step up and pay a fine, or Sambo's back catches thirty-nine, thus noting a depression of value upon the property.
"Missus knock up?" he asked, and the Maluka nodding, Sambo's question was forgotten until the next mid-day.
She made haste to lock her door, and they walked side by side to the Widdiehill. As they crossed the end of it she cast a look down Jink Lane, and thought of her altered condition with a sigh. Then the memory of the awful time amongst the sailors, in which poor Sambo's frightful death was ever prominent, came back like a fog from hell.
During their meal, at the service of which he assisted, his eyes scarcely quitted her whom be appeared to regard with a mingled feeling of awe and adoration; nay, such was his abstraction that, in attempting to place a dish of game on the rude table at which the party sat, he lodged the whole of the contents in the lap of Middlemore, a gaucherie that drew from the latter an exclamation of horror, followed however the instant afterwards by Sambo's apology.
The memory of old nights in the street, as he watched for his father, and then helped him home; of his father's last prayer, drinking and imploring; of his white, motionless face the next morning; of the row at Lucky Croale's, and poor black Sambo's gaping throat all these terrible things came back upon him, as he stood staring at the tumblers and the wine glasses and the steaming kettle.
Gerald found her leaning over the gangway, at which he had left her, gazing intently on the water, through which the schooner was now gliding at an increased rate. From the moment of his being compelled to quit her side, to inquire into the cause of Sambo's exclamation and rapidly succeeding fall, he had not had an opportunity of again approaching her.
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