"It won't cost you much time to find out for yourself, lad. Take a couple of turns around, an' I'll guarantee you'll agree that Peter Sitz an' I are not tryin' to make mountains out of mole-hills."
"I'll go with you," Jacob said, promptly, and straightway we set out, keeping our ears open whenever we came within speaking distance of a group of men who appeared to be talking earnestly upon some particular subject.
It was not necessary that we should go twice around the inside of the fortification, for before we completed the first circuit I had heard enough to convince me that Sergeant Corney, instead of exaggerating the matter, had not made his statements strong enough by one-half.
As it seemed to me, a full third of the garrison were arguing in favor of surrender, giving as their reasons the scanty supply of powder for the cannon, and the probability that St. Leger's army would constantly increase as the Tories from the Mohawk Valley got wind of what was going on.
I was sick at heart and literally faint with fear when this knowledge was forced in upon me, for I knew only too well how idle would be all the promises of St. Leger if the savages were inclined to massacre the prisoners that were surrendered on promises of fair treatment.
Chapter XIV.
Mutiny.
I had thought that we would never again be called upon to witness such a scene as that in General Herkimer's encampment on the morning when those who, later, were the first to show the white feather, literally drove him into a place where he, as a soldier, knew it was not safe to venture until all the arrangements for a sortie from the fort were completed.
Now, however, it seemed to me that we were to be treated to a second dose of mutiny, and this one more serious than the first, for, in case these fools in the fort succeeded in badgering Colonel Gansevoort as the others had the general, then would nearly a thousand men be given over to the savage foe, whom we knew full well would show no mercy.
To me the strange part of it all was that these very simpletons who were howling so loudly for surrender would be among those counted as prisoners, and I failed utterly to understand how they could figure themselves as being better off in the power of Thayendanega's wolves, than in the fort where they had a chance of fighting to the death.