Chapter 21 - Page 2

tories across the sea forgotten the Lord their God, and bowed down
to Howe and Kniphausen--the Hessian!--Hands off, red-skinned jackal!
Wearing the king's plate,[A] as I do, I have treasures of wrath against
you British."

[Footnote A: Meaning, probably, certain manacles.]

Then came a clanking, as of a chain; many vengeful sounds, all
confusedly together; with strugglings. Then again the voice:

"Ye brought me out here, from my dungeon to this green--affronting yon
Sabbath sun--to see how a rebel looks. But I show ye how a true
gentleman and Christian can conduct in adversity. Back, dogs! Respect a
gentleman and a Christian, though he _be_ in rags and smell of
bilge-water."

Filled with astonishment at these words, which came from over a massive
wall, enclosing what seemed an open parade-space, Israel pressed
forward, and soon came to a black archway, leading far within,
underneath, to a grassy tract, through a tower. Like two boar's tusks,
two sentries stood on guard at either side of the open jaws of the arch.
Scrutinizing our adventurer a moment, they signed him permission to
enter.

Arrived at the end of the arched-way, where the sun shone, Israel stood
transfixed, at the scene.

Like some baited bull in the ring, crouched the Patagonian-looking
captive, handcuffed as before; the grass of the green trampled, and
gored up all about him, both by his own movements and those of the
people around. Except some soldiers and sailors, these seemed mostly
townspeople, collected here out of curiosity. The stranger was
outlandishly arrayed in the sorry remains of a half-Indian,
half-Canadian sort of a dress, consisting of a fawn-skin jacket--the fur
outside and hanging in ragged tufts--a half-rotten, bark-like belt of
wampum; aged breeches of sagathy; bedarned worsted stockings to the
knee; old moccasins riddled with holes, their metal tags yellow with
salt-water rust; a faded red woollen bonnet, not unlike a Russian
night-cap, or a portentous, ensanguined full-moon, all soiled, and stuck
about with bits of half-rotted straw. He seemed just broken from the
dead leases in David's outlawed Cave of Adullam. Unshaven, beard and
hair matted, and profuse as a corn-field beaten down by hailstorms, his
whole marred aspect was that of some wild beast; but of a royal sort,
and unsubdued by the cage.

"Aye, stare, stare! Though but last night dragged out of a ship's hold,
like a smutty tierce; and this morning out of your littered barracks
here, like a murderer; for all that, you may well stare at Ethan
Ticonderoga Allen, the unconquered soldier, by ----! You Turks never saw
a Christian before. Stare on! I am he, who, when your Lord Howe wanted
to bribe a patriot