“Stop! stop!” said he. “In the name of heaven, I say stop—I can not endure it!”
But the work of killing went on, and of killing the wounded and stabbing the dead.
Night fell. The British set a bomb to the magazine and passed up the river, expecting to see a terrible explosion that would fire the heavens. But the explosion did not come. A brave band of Americans had extinguished the fuse.
“There is no Fort Trumbull to which I can take you now,” said Dennis to his prisoner. “You may go to your own.”
“Then I will return with you, and you will never find a heart more true to your Governor than mine will be. Christ forgave Peter, and was not Peter true? Our truest friends are those whom we forgive. To know all is to forgive all. I know your Governor now. I once hated him; he is led by the spirit of the living God, and I would die for a man like that. It is better to change the heart of an enemy than to kill him. Let me follow you back, and the people will receive my repentance even at this awful hour.”
Dennis, through fear of his safety, left him outside of Lebanon at a farmhouse, but when he had told his tale to the people, they said:
“Bring him back; he is another man now.”