This drew the wary dragoon in the parlor to the window.
He threw his body out of the building, and with dreadful imprecations endeavored by threats and appearance to frighten the marauders from their prey. The moment was enticing. Three hundred of his comrades were within a mile of the cottage; unridden horses were running at large in every direction, and Henry Wharton seized the unconscious sentinel by his legs and threw him headlong into the lawn. Cæsar vanished from the room, and drew a bolt of the outer door.
Recovering his feet, the sentinel turned his fury for a moment on his prisoner. To scale the window in the face of such an enemy, was, however, impossible, and on trial he found the main entrance barred.
His comrade now called loudly upon him for aid, and forgetting everything else, the discomfited trooper rushed to his assistance. One horse was instantly liberated, but the other was already fastened to the saddle of a Cow-Boy, and the four retired behind the building, cutting furiously at each other with their sabres, and making the air resound with their imprecations. Cæsar threw the outer door open, and pointing to the remaining horse, that was quietly biting the faded herbage of the lawn, he exclaimed:
“Run, now, run—Massa Harry, run!”
“Yes,” cried the youth, as he vaulted into the saddle, “now indeed, my honest fellow, is the time to run.”
When the fortune of the day was decided, and the time arrived for the burial of the dead, two Cow-Boys and a Virginian were found in the rear of the Locusts, to be included in the number.
Wharton’s horse was of the best Virginian blood, and carried him with the swiftness of the wind along the valley; and the heart of the youth was already beating tumultuously with pleasure of his deliverance, when a well-known voice reached his startled ear, crying loudly:
“Bravely done, captain! Don’t spare the whip, and turn to your left before you cross the brook.”