There was no man among them, and the boys breathed more freely.
"Keep back!" Enoch cried sternly as Seth and Jacob worked at the well-fastened door. "We have fought only for our freedom, of which that man would have deprived us, and shall strike even a woman if she attempts to prevent our leaving!"
"You have killed him!" some one shrieked, and the remainder of the group set up a series of the shrillest cries for help.
"He isn't dead!" Enoch shouted at the full strength of his lungs, forced thus to exert himself in order that his words might be heard. "He will recover his senses presently; but you are not to go to him yet," he added as two of the women attempted to pass him. "We don't intend to have another fight if it can be avoided, and it's better he lays where he is for awhile. Can't you open the door, boys?"
"There are more locks and bolts here than I ever saw before," Seth replied nervously. "This house must be a regular castle when it is closed and properly defended."
A second later, just when Enoch was beginning to fear he would really be forced to carry out his threat and strike some of the females to prevent them from going up the stairs, Jacob flung open the barrier.
"Come on!" he cried, leaping into the open air, and his comrades did not delay following his example.
As they emerged the boys could see, far away to the right, a moving column of redcoats, and understood that the enemy was even then passing in force between this house and the town of Mount Holly.
"It stands us in hand to hark back on our trail at the best pace possible, otherwise we may fall into the Britishers' hands!" Jacob cried, running at full speed in the direction from which they had come on the night previous.
They surely had good reason to leave that neighborhood far in the rear without loss of time, for there was cause to fear that scouting parties of the enemy might make prisoners of them, and also that the Tory, recovering from his wounds, would come in pursuit with a force sufficiently large to overpower them.