As Fred Godfrey slowly raised his hand, as if it were the signal for his friends to open fire, Jake Golcher .  
Sinking down on the ground, as limp as a rag, he began begging in the most pitiful tones for his life. Indeed, he groveled so in the dirt that all the whites who looked upon him found their feelings of turning to disgust and pity.
 
Fred Godfrey was disappointed, and, stepping back a pace or two, gazed on the craven as he would upon a dog he had caught stealing sheep, and which was then at his feet.
 
Instead of waiting until the had proven the truth of his declaration, the renegade at once. It is hard to kick the who clasps your knees, and the lieutenant, who was to rid the world of the man as soon as he had made the declaration of his purposes respecting the captives, found his gone.
 
Mr. Brainerd, with an expression of scorn, sprang up from the log and strode over to his son.
 
"In Heaven's name, let him go, Fred! Kick him out of sight, for he hasn't the manhood to stand up and be shot like a man."
 
"Get up!" commanded Fred, him by the collar of his coat, and jerking him to his feet: "I want to speak to you."
 
But Golcher was no sooner on his feet than he went to pieces again, and , and begging for that mercy that he had so often denied to others.
 
Again the lieutenant yanked him to the upright position, and, finding him collapsed as before, he his ears until they , shouting:
 
"Stand up, or you're a dead man!"
 
Finally, after wabbling about several minutes, Golcher summoned enough strength to keep his feet, though in a shaky condition; and finding he was not to be executed immediately, he managed to grasp the situation.
 
"I was going to say—What do you mean, Gravity?"
 
This sudden question was caused by Gimp, the African, who, with a , ran forward from the darkness that was beginning to give away before the approach of day, and, jamming his head down in the ground between Godfrey and Golcher, threw his huge feet in the air, and began kicking with such recklessness that one of them struck the lieutenant in the breast, nearly knocking him over, while the other sent the Tory some distance.
 
"Can't help it!" exclaimed the happy African; "Jake Golcher's s'prise party dat was to hab arriv, hab arroven, and me and Aunt Peggy feels like standin' on our heads, and kickin' de limbs off de trees."
 
Gravity used his feet rather too vigorously, and, swaying beyond the point of nature's gravity, came down on his back with a ; but he did not mind it, and leaping up, ran to the fallen tree, where he sat down among his friends with............