"Take the cusses on the top of the rocks!" said Stackridge. "The rest are harmless."
"It's all them in the tree can do to take keer of themselves," added Withers. "Reg'lar secesh! All they ax is to be let alone."
Grudd gave the word. Flame from a dozen muzzles shot upwards from the edge of the pit. When the smoke rolled away, the cliff was cleared. Not a rebel was to be seen, except those in the tree franticly scrambling to get out, and two others. One of these had fallen on the cliff: his head and one arm hung horribly over the brink. The other, in his too eager haste to escape from the tree, had slipped from the limb, and been saved from dashing to pieces on the rocks below only by a projection of the wall, to which he had caught, and where he now clung, a dozen feet from the top, and far above the river that rolled black and slow in its channel beneath the cliff.
"Now with your bayonets!" said Pomp. "This way!"
There were six bayonets before; now there were eight.
"That Carl is worth his weight in gold!" said the enthusiastic Stackridge.
While the patriots, preparing for their second volley, were getting positions among the rocks on the left, Carl had crept up the embankment in front, and brought away two muskets from two dead rebels. These were they who had fallen at the first fire. Both guns had bayonets. Pomp took one; Carl kept the other. Cudjo with his sword accompanied the charging party; Grudd and the rest remaining at their post, ready to pick off any rebel that should appear on the cliff.
Swift and stealthy as a panther, Pomp crept around still farther to the left, under the projecting wall, raising his head cautiously now and then to look for the fugitives.
"As I expected! They are over there, afraid to follow the stream into the cave, and hesitating whether to make a rush for the tree. All ready?"
He looked around on his little force and smiled. Instead of eight bayonets, there were now nine. Penn had arrived.