Then we were come to Upper Marlboro, after fording the stream, and the pleasure I felt at being allowed to sit down that I might rest my aching feet was so great that it cannot properly be described.
While Jerry and I were grumbling because of what seemed to us unseemly haste, Jim Freeman, who had been lying down a short distance away, came over to where we were sitting, his eyes bulging as if he had seen two or three ghosts at the very least.
"What do you suppose?" he said excitedly.
"I heard the lieutenant telling Darius that a big force of Britishers was marchin' up from Nottingham on the west side of the river, bound for Washington!"
"How did he know that?" Jerry asked sharply.
"A man who was sent back by Commodore Barney on a scout, got here about the same time we did, an' he reported to the lieutenant. But that ain't all; some of the folks livin' 'round here say that a small force—near three hundred—landed on the west side of the river after the enemy went into camp last night, an' is mighty near this place now!"
"'Cordin' to that it would seem as if we come pretty close to bein' surrounded!" Jerry exclaimed.
"That's just what Darius said," Jim replied, "an' the lieutenant told him he'd been afraid all along that we'd run into some such kind of a muss. Commodore Barney warned him to be on the watch for what appears to be happenin', an' it begins to look as if we might have trouble mighty quick."
"There can't be a great deal of it for the Britishers, if their smallest force is three hundred, for they'd make short work of us," I said with an inward quaking. "I've been blaming the lieutenant for making us march so swiftly, and now I wish he had pushed us on twice as fast."
I had hardly more than ceased speaking when the command was given to fall into line once more, and the men obeyed eagerly, for the word had been passed around that our small force was in most serious danger.