"That can't be possible!" I cried, sharply. "There's never one among them who does not know full well what the result will be if Colonel Gansevoort surrenders the fort! St. Leger's promises would be as the idle wind when Thayendanega's followers wanted victims for the stake!"
"True for you, lad, an' yet these cowards are ready to howl for capitulation rather than fight as men should, in the presence of such an enemy, to the last ditch," the sergeant replied, bitterly.
I could not believe that among the entire garrison might be found one soldier who would willingly consent to a surrender, and said as much to the old man, who replied, grimly:
"I haven't been around here for the past four an' twenty hours with my eyes shut an' my ears filled with moss. Take a turn about the works, listenin' to all that is said, an' you'll find I'm not wrong in my figgerin'. The colonel knows as well as do I what's in the wind, an' I'll agree never to eat sweet-cake agin if he ain't makin' ready for trouble inside the fort as well as outside."
I remained silent a full minute, horrified by the bare possibility, and then asked, in a voice which trembled despite all my efforts to render it steady:
"Think you they can force him against his will, as the militia did General Herkimer?"
"It is my belief that he'd shoot down a round dozen before consentin' to give us all over to death; but there's no knowin' what a man may be forced into when pressure enough has been brought to bear upon him."
At this moment Jacob came up, looking like his old self now that his father was safe, at least, for the time being, and to him I put the matter much as I had had it from the sergeant.
"Within the hour I have heard the same word from my father. He believes there are a full hundred of the garrison who, when they have worked themselves up to just such a pitch, will howl for surrender."
Even then I refused to believe in what was as yet no more than a suspicion, and Sergeant Corney said, impatiently: