I was returning from one of these visits to my father, picking my way in the darkness over broken guns snapped off at the stock through being used as clubs, and in and out among groaning men over whom the doctor was busy, when all seemed to me to be unusually silent, and then I found that I was able to see a little more as I got right forward to where Colonel Preston was making his men close up together, and handing fresh ammunition. It was rapidly growing lighter, and I saw dimly enough at a short distance, just behind where the block-house stood, the misty-looking figures of a large body of Indians.
“Look, quick!” I panted.
“Ah!” exclaimed the colonel. “Good! You can see now, my men. Hold your fire till they are close in, and then let them have a volley.”
A low murmur ran along the line of men, and a feeling of elation thrilled me, but only for a deathly cold chill to run through every vein. For this was evidently such a desperate season as Morgan or his confederates might choose.
I could not stir for the moment. Then, as I mastered the horrible feeling of inaction, I drew back and made my way through the confusion within our defences to where I could be opposite to the covered-in kegs, which lay not twenty yards away untouched.
The light increased rapidly as it does down south, and I caught sight of a dark figure crawling half-way between our rough works and the tarpaulin.
One moment I thought it was a dead or wounded man; the next I recognised Morgan by the back of his head, and a cry arose to my lips, but it was drowned by a deafening volley followed by a cheer.
I glanced to my left, and saw the body of fully a couple of hundred Indians checked and wavering, when a second volley was fired and they fled.
The smoke hid the rest from my eyes, and when it rose, Morgan was standing close beside me watching the Indians, who had all crowded through the palisade where a great piece was torn down, dragging with them their dead and wounded.