Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 3Sylvester, Charles Herbert
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Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 3
Sylvester, Charles Herbert
Children's literature; Literature -- Collections
I could not understand them, yet I thought they were pleasant to
hear; for they were the first sound of a man's voice that I had heard,
my own excepted, for above twenty-five years.
But there was no time for such reflections now; the savage who was
knocked down recovered himself so far as to sit up upon the ground,
and I perceived that my savage began to be afraid; but when I saw
that, I presented my other piece at the man, as if I would shoot him;
upon this, my savage, for so I called him now, made a motion to me to
lend him my sword, which hung naked in a belt by my side; so I did, He
no sooner had it, but he runs to his enemy, and at one blow cut off
his head so cleverly that no executioner in Germany could have done it
sooner or better; which I thought very strange for one who, I had
reason to believe, never saw a sword in his life before, except their
own wooden swords: however, it seems, as I learned afterward, they
make their wooden swords so sharp, so heavy, and the wood is so hard,
that they will even cut off heads with them, ay, and arms, and that at
one blow, too. When he had done this, he comes laughing to me in sign
of triumph, and brought me the sword again, and with abundance of
gestures which I did not understand, laid it down, with the head of
the savage that he had killed, just before me.
But that which astonished him most was to know how I killed the other
Indian so far off; so, pointing to him, he made signs to me to let him
go to him; and I bade him go, as well as I could; when he came to him,
he stood like one amazed, looking at him, turning him first on one
side, then on the other, looked at the wound the bullet had made,
which it seems was just in his breast, where it had made a hole, and
no great quantity of blood had followed; but he had bled inwardly, for
he was quite dead. He took up his bow and arrows, and came back, so I
turned to go away, and beckoned him to follow me, making signs to him
that more might come after them. Upon this he made signs to me that he
should bury them with sand, that they might not be seen by the rest,
if they followed; and so I made signs to him again to do so. He fell
to work; and in an instant he had scraped a hole in the sand with his
hands, big enough to bury the first in, and then dragged him into it,
and covered him; and did so by the other also; I believe he had buried
them both in a quarter of an hour. Then calling him away, I carried
him, not to my castle, but quite away to my cave on the further part
of the island: so I did not let my dream come to pass in that part,
that he came into my grove for shelter. Here I gave him bread and a
bunch of raisins to eat, and a draught of water, which I found he was
indeed in great distress for, from his running: and having refreshed
him, I made signs for him to go and lie down to sleep, showing him a
place where I had laid some rice straw, and a blanket upon it, which I
used to sleep upon myself sometimes; so the poor creature lay down,
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