'Ten to one,' he said, 'the
rascal with the tongs will not dare touch off the gun, and if he does,
why, 'tis but one shot.' But this seemed to us all a foolhardy thing;
for, though there were but one shot, who could tell whom it might hit?
It might be one of us as well as another. Your uncle Jahleel, as it
seemed, lest any should deem Squire Sedgwick braver than he, declared
that he was ready, but the others of us, by no means fell in with the
notion and General Patterson said flatly that he was responsible for
all our lives and would permit no such madness. And then, as no one
had any other plan to propose, we were in a quandary, and I noted that
each one had his eyes, as it were, fastened immovably upon the cannon
and the glowing coal which the fellow held in the tongs. For, in order
to keep it clear of ash, he kept waving it to and fro, and once or
twice when he brought it perilously close to the touchhole, I give you
my word I began to think in a moment of all the things I had done in
my life. And I remember, too, that if one of us was speaking when the
fellow made as if he would touch off the gun, there was an
interruption of a moment in his speech, ere he went on again.
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