Trooper Tales — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

Shadow and the Cherub. 129 glitter. Then Shadow would go to him, and for a time Cherub would rest. The dusky boy was sad. The sentiment had been torn from him and an ugly wound was left behind. For the men from the North, Shadow would have been a martyr. The others he feared and tried bravely to serve. “Shadow’s no good on dis ship,”’ he said on the morn- ing of the fifth day. “We hated—can’t do right—pussy’s tom’s cross an’ Cherub’s crazy sick—ought to be back— wiv’ the niggers.” Many a sob with the preceding made it almost inco- herent. It was no morbid melancholy, but a helpless, hopeless expression of grief. No man would have smiled had he been present—poor little heartbroken Shadow! Even as I was thinking of men, black and white, the souls unsoiled, my ears were filled with the roar of a brute. It came from the deck below. There was some- thing hideous and fear-inspiring about it. I never heard such a sound. Cherub never made such a sound before. Yet I knew it came from his throat. The cavalrymen lounging and laughing upon deck stood erect now and felt for the six-shooters in their belts. But the weapons were all stacked below in the hammock com- partment by special order. Again was heard the cry of a tortured beast. Shadow moved toward the sound very slowly. Soldiers and sailors were running and shouting on the deck below. “Cherub is mad! Shoot the brute! Look out up there!” Eomichbooks: co