Now although it may appear like boasting to repeat what I did all unconsciously on that night, it seems necessary to set down what Alec and Leon claim were my acts while in a frenzy of fear.
There were six soldiers in the squad we had run upon so unwittingly, and two of those I bowled over much as a skilful pugilist would have done, tackling the third just as my companions came to the rescue.
Leon had seized the musket I wrested from the first redcoat, and with it felled one man unaided; then he knocked over the fellow who was trying to best Alec, and afterward aided me as I have said.
Even then, as we sat in the forest listening in vain for sounds of pursuit, it seemed incredible that we had won the day so easily, and during a full half hour we gloated over the victory.
Then, when it seemed certain the Britishers had not succeeded in keeping upon our trail, we began to realize that the danger, instead of having passed, was hardly more than begun.
We were on that long, narrow neck of land known as the North Foreland, and, as Leon said, the enemy had a line of sentinels stretched across the narrowest portion, nearest the main shore, to prevent desertions and keep the curious at a proper distance.
In other words, we were penned up with no means of escape save by water, and the lad upon whom we depended as a guide had entirely lost his bearings in the darkness.
“It is only a question of time before we will be captured,” I said gloomily, when coming fully to understand the situation, “and we cannot live in the thicket many days without food!”
To this dispiriting remark Alec made no reply, and I believed the lad was disheartened until he said cheerily, and in much the same tone he might have used when discussing some excursion for pleasure:—
“We are captured to a certainty if we make up our minds to such a fact; but I have the idea that by a show of half as much pluck as you displayed when we were confronted by the soldiers, we can leave this point of land in due season.”