- end_line
- 6677
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6640
- text
- pray, now that I look at you, are not you the hero I caught dodging
round, in his shirt, in the cattle-pen, inside the fort? It was the
break of day, you remember.”
“Come, Yankee,” here swore the incensed private; “cease this, or I’ll
darn your old fawn-skins for ye with the flat of this sword;” for a
specimen, laying it lashwise, but not heavily, across the captive’s
back.
Turning like a tiger, the giant, catching the steel between his teeth,
wrenched it from the private’s grasp, and striking it with his
manacles, sent it spinning like a juggler’s dagger into the air,
saying, “Lay your dirty coward’s iron on a tied gentleman again, and
these,” lifting his handcuffed fists, “shall be the beetle of mortality
to you!”
The now furious soldier would have struck him with all his force, but
several men of the town interposed, reminding him that it were
outrageous to attack a chained captive.
“Ah,” said Allen, “I am accustomed to that, and therefore I am
beforehand with them; and the extremity of what I say against Britain,
is not meant for you, kind friends, but for my insulters, present and
to come.” Then recognizing among the interposers the giver of the bowl,
he turned with a courteous bow, saying, “Thank you again and again, my
good sir; you may not be the worse for this; ours is an unstable world;
so that one gentleman never knows when it may be his turn to be helped
of another.”
But the soldier still making a riot, and the commotion growing general,
a superior officer stepped up, who terminated the scene by remanding
the prisoner to his cell, dismissing the townspeople, with all
strangers, Israel among the rest, and closing the castle gates after
them.
- title
- Chunk 5