deeper into his vitals; but he had not strength to resist, and but little to cry out. He would have done so; but the sound had scarcely risen to his lips, when the murderer thrust a tuft of grass into his mouth and stifled all complaint. The knife went deeper—the whole frame of the assailant was upon it, and all motion ceased on the part of the sufferer with the single groan and distorted writhing which followed the last agony. In a moment after, the stranger had departed by the way he came; and it was not till he had reached the thick swamp around, that the fearful laugh of the maniac, Frampton—for it was he—announced the success of his new effort at revenge.
The laugh reached Porgy and the dragoon—they heard the groan also, but that was natural enough. Nothing short of absolute necessity could have moved either of them at that moment—the former being busied with a rasher of bacon and a hoe-cake hot from the fire, and the latter indulging in an extra swig of brandy from a canteen which Porgy, with characteristic providence, had brought well filled along with him.
