And yet all this was as nothing compared with what followed.
The troopers were about to disarm us, and some one had fired a torch that we might be the better seen, when Sam Lee—that miserable Tory and renegade—came up from the rear, where most likely he had been skulking during the fighting, and, seeing us, set up a shout of triumph.
"Now have I got you rebels where I've been burning to see you?" he cried.
"Now we shall see—"
"Is that Sam Lee?" Gabriel shouted, struggling to release himself from his captor's grasp.
"Ay, and it is the cur who has sold his country, his kinsmen and himself for the king's gold!" Percy replied. "There is no dishonor in being overpowered by true soldiers in a fair fight; but to have such as that villain alive before one's eyes is a disgrace."
"It shall be worse than that to you!" Sam shrieked, "and as for that nephew of the rebel Marion, I—"
"What are you saying?" one of the troopers asked, seizing Sam Lee and shaking him as if to force the reply more quickly. "Is one of these a nephew to the Swamp Fox?"
"Ay, that he is!" Gabriel made answer, stepping forward as far as the hand of the captor would permit. "I am the nephew of General Marion, and proud indeed of the kinship!"
I was looking at the dear lad that instant, having turned my eyes from the scurvy Tory when Gabriel began to speak, otherwise, perhaps, I might have prevented that terrible thing which followed.