So excited was I that my bullet, which should have found lodgment in his heart, went as wild as had his, and then was I forced to use a clubbed musket for defence.
Had any one asked me on that morning if I believed it possible to withstand the attack of an Indian, the two of us using the weapons I have just described, my answer would have been a decided "no," and yet now I held him in good play, although realizing that each moment I was growing weaker and he gaining the advantage.
Already were my eyes becoming suffused with blood; my brain was in a whirl, as I leaped here or there, parrying with the butt of the musket the blows of his hatchet, and all the time he continued to press me nearer and nearer toward the wall, where my resistance would have been overcome within a very short time.
I wondered why it was that Colonel Gansevoort delayed in the coming, and could see, without looking in any direction save at my foe, that the number of savages inside the stockade was increasing each moment.
[Illustration: "The painted villain sank down upon the ground">[
Only a brief delay now on the part of the commandant, and they would gain so great an advantage that such portion of the garrison as could be withdrawn from the walls where the Britishers were making the pretended attack, would not be able to dislodge them.
Then suddenly, at the very moment when it seemed impossible I could struggle any longer, the painted villain sank down upon the ground as if having received his death-blow, and I dimly heard Sergeant Corney cry, cheerily:
"That was a narrow squeak, lad, an' we'll hope there'll be many more of 'em before the last one comes! Keep yourself well in hand, for of a verity our work is cut out for us here!"
Now it was I knew that a shot from the old soldier's musket had put an end to the combat in which I was most deeply interested, and I strained every nerve to gather myself together as he had commanded.
By this time I dare venture to say no less than two hundred of the howling demons had scaled the stockade, and we who were defending this weakest portion of the fortification were pressed back and back until we stood massed against that opening which gave entrance to the main fortification.