“Really, Thomas,” said I, persuasively, “I believe they intend to go. Go to bed, and I will watch for you. If they do not leave on that car when it goes, and offer to come this way, I will wake you and tell you. Depend on me.” “Will you?” “Yes, indeed I will. Lie down.” “I will, then; but, mind, don’t let ’em get near. They’re sly as foxes. Watch ’em.” “Don’t fear,” I replied. “Go to bed, and I will wake you in good time if I see them coming.” Thereupon Thomas, who was a large strong man of thirty years, returned somewhat reluctantly to his bed, while some of the other boys of the “ward” began to wake up, and swear moderately because their slumbers had been disturbed. The murmur soon subsided, however, Thomas seemed to sleep, all grew quiet, and I lay down again. I was just getting into a comfortable doze, when Thomas started suddenly, sprung out upon the floor, between his bed and mine, making the whole house quiver, placed his hands upon my stomach, and leaped clear over me and my bed at a bound. At first, I thought my “time had come,” for I fancied he was about to “slash” me in two with a knife; but having executed the gymnastic feat just described, he withdrew his hands, and stood in a kind of crouching position, trembling like a leaf—especially like an aspen leaf. “What’s the matter?” I asked, trembling about as much as he. “Hush!” he whispered, in an awful manner. “They’re at the window! They were pointing their muskets in! One of them touched me on the head. Look! See their bayonets at the window! Where’s my knife? Reach and get it for me from my pants’ pocket! Do!” “Wait a moment,” I replied, “till I go to the door and look out. I want to see how many there are.” My object was to get out into the hall, go and wake the Doctor, and inform him of this sad case. “No, no, no, no, no, no!” he said, quickly, at the same time jumping about four feet high, and coming down on the floor like a thunderbolt; “don’t open the door! They would all rush in!” “Only the hall-door,” I persisted, beginning to rise. “They’re not in the hall. Stay here, and I’ll get you a musket to defend yourself with.” The muskets belonging to the guards off duty were kept on a kind of rack in the hall, immediately adjoining the room I was in. I did not wait to hear any further remonstrances on the part of Thomas, but leaving him standing there trembling, as only a man suffering from delirium tremens can tremble, I seized my two crutches—for I used two then—stalked to the door, went out into the hall, closed the door after me and hastened to the room in which the Doctor slept, which was on the same floor. It was some little time before I succeeded in getting him awake, and when I did, he growled out in an ill humor, asked what in the deuce I wanted, imagined I was some one come to rob him, seized his revolver, cocked it, threatened to blow my unhappy brains out, called to me to “halt, or I was a dead man;” and, in fact, he was, altogether, quite playful.