They heard the angry voice of the young lieutenant raised now and then in a shower of horrible oaths, apparently urging his men to the commission of something which they were reluctant to do. At length a dreadful scream sounded--a sharp, agonizing cry that caused the planter and his son to turn pale and stare at one another with eyes filled with horror. Then the sergeant and his file were hurriedly called from the house; as they were mounting in the yard, Tom and his father rushed out; Cole hung limp against the ropes that bound him to the tree, covered with blood. As the hoofs of the dragoons’ chargers grew faint down the road, it was discovered what had occurred. Wild with rage at what he considered Cole’s defiance the brutal officer had had the slave’s jaws pried open, and had cut his tongue with the point of his sabre. The great strength of the giant negro and his superb condition carried him through the effects of this barbarous act; in a remarkably short time he had recovered; but he was deprived of speech forever; it was only in gestures such as that which he had made against Fort Johnson that he could convey the longing that filled him, to come to hand-grips with those who had treated him so inhumanly. They had reached the wharf and were running in alongside; Cole loosed the halyard and lowered the sail. While he was furling it, he stopped suddenly, and by his gestures, which Tom could read very plainly, he called the attention of his companion to a strange stillness on the river. Tom gazed up and down the stream for a moment and his eyes snapped. “All the shipping has dropped down the river,” cried he. “That can only mean one thing! Colonel Moultrie is about to attack----” “Belay there, nevvy,” growled a rough voice, almost in his ear. “Not quite so slack with the jaw tackle.” “Uncle Dick,” exclaimed Tom, in surprise. “Yes, it’s the old sea-horse,” responded the owner of the voice, from above them on the wharf. “You frightened me,” laughed Tom, as he climbed up over the wharf log. “My frightening you, nevvy,” said the other, “will be nothing to the scare you’ll get if any of Governor Campbell’s spying swabs heard what you were just now going to say.” Uncle Dick, or as the world knew him, Capt. Richard Deering of the schooner Defence, nodded in a friendly fashion to Cole, who grinned back, from his seat in the bow of the skiff. The captain of the Defence was a sturdy-looking man of about fifty, with his long, gray hair gathered in a cue, sailor-fashion; his weather-tanned face was smoothly shaven; he wore a round, glazed hat, a short pilot coat with metal buttons and long leather boots. “What is going on, Uncle Dick?” asked Tom, seating himself at the old salt’s side. “I heard a drum beat while we were sailing in the shallows below the town and noticed the Cherokee and the Tamar standing up and down, with all hands ready.”