“They are coming for our blood!” he added, in a tone of strange, wild glee. “Ay, there they come! I see them levelling their guns in the yard! Now for the victims! Let us die like——”
The report of two or three muskets, and the whistling of bullets through the passage just over his head, cut short the speaker. A moment of breathless silence ensued; when the harsh, ruffian voice of Patterson was heard from without,—
“Damn ye, why don't you fire?”
A general discharge of the fire-arms of the assailants, flashing fiercely on the surrounding darkness, and sending them deadly missiles through the passage, windows, and sides of the house, in every direction, instantly followed the ferocious order. And, in the expiring light, the fated French was seen to leap into the air; and then, spinning giddily round and round an instant, fall, with a low, short screech, prostrate on the floor; while mingled groans, rising from a half dozen others along the passage, told also the fearful effect of the murderous volley.
With the discharge of their arms, the assailing force, guided by their torch-bearers, made a rush for the Court House. As they approached the door, Woodburn, who had kept his post, unhurt, on one side of the steps, sprang forward to dispute their passage, and, after knocking up the swords and bayonets that were aimed at his breast, laid about him so lustily with his cudgel, that the whole party were, for some moments, kept at bay. At length, however, Peters, who was near the rear of the hostile column, perceiving it was his hated opponent who was disputing the pass so resolutely, stealthily crept round those in front, and coming up partly behind his intended victim, with a protruded sabre, aimed a deadly lunge at his body, exultingly exclaiming with the supposed fatal thrust,—
“There! d——d rebel, take that!”
“And you that!” cried the other, who, having, from a lucky turn in his body at the instant, received only a flesh-wound on the inner side of his arm, now, with an upward sweep of his cudgel, knocked the sword of the detestable assassin twenty feet into the air—“and you that! ay, and that!” he added, as, with a quickly repeated blow over the head, he sent his foe reeling to the earth.
But the weapon of the intrepid young man being now caught, and his body fiercely grappled by four or five of his exasperated foes, he was soon disarmed, and, in spite of his desperate struggles, borne into the court-house with the crowd, who now rushed furiously along the passages, wounding with their swords, and beating down with their guns and clubs, without distinction or mercy, all whom they met in their way.
“Guard the doors instantly!” shouted Patterson, who perceived that numbers of the vanquished party were retreating through the different doors; “don't let another of the d——d rascals escape! And, hallo there, jailer! bring on the keys of the prison-rooms; we will cage the whole lot, dead or alive, and let 'em be enjoying a few of the fruits of their rebellion now, and the blessed anticipations of being hung for high treason hereafter.”
The obsequious jailer soon appeared with the required keys and the doors of both prison-rooms were speedily unlocked and thrown open by the directions of the sheriff.