A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 165: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

162 A QUEER RACE. “Charge again, quickly! Here is another cartridge.” But before we were ready for a second volley, the re- maining four, after staring at each other for an instant in evident consternation, disappeared into the forest. Mab threw down her rifle, knelt beside Buttercup, and raised his head. ; ‘“My poor, poor boy! They have killed him! they have killed him!” she cried, as the tears streamed down ‘her cheeks. ‘* Oh, how shall I tell his mother? Say, Mr. Erle! say, Marian! how shail I tell his mother? She had only him.”’ And then, closing Buttercup’s eyes and stroking his stiffening fingers, she wept silently. I waited several minutes, and then suggested as gently as I could that, as the poor Jad was past our help, it be- hooved us to think of our own safety, and the sooner we got away the better. «You are right,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘* God has taken him; his work is done, ours is not; Jet us be up and doing. Pity, though, we cannot bury him! But it would be risking too much. -What shall we do?” ‘‘ Make straight for the creek, and get through it some- how. There may be hundreds of these villains about, for anything we know. If we could only find that deer- track ‘‘ Here it is!” said Marian, who had been questing about; her eyes were, if possible, sharper than Mab’s. ‘© So it is; and plainly marked! Let us be off at once; we have not a moment to lose.” The track took us past the bodies of the two men we had killed. They were very tall, with long, muscular arms and broad, square shoulders. ‘Their skins were almost black-red, their features of a decidedly negro type, but their faces and breasts were so extensively painted and tattooed that it was impossible to distinguish at a glance—and we had not time for more—whether they were piebald or the reverse. ‘‘What are they?” I asked Mab, as we ran on. «‘ Fugitive slaves?” ‘If they were, there would be need for us torun. No; they are Cariberoes.” 3 Eeom C eo\o) SH (E(@)