“Do you know Wilmer? Captain Wilmer?” the stranger asked.
“Yes, but—”
“He knows me. Ask him.”
I struck in before Levi could make the angry rejoinder which was on his lips. “I am Captain Wilmer’s prisoner,” I cried, thrusting my horse forward. For the moment I forgot pain and weakness. “And I take you to witness, sir, whoever you are, that I am no spy, and that these men have carried me off from Captain Wilmer’s house.”
“D—n you, hold your tongue!” cried one of the other men, pushing forward and trying to silence me.
“I am Major Craven of the English Army!” I persisted. “I am a wounded man, taken at King’s Mountain, and given quarter, and these men—”
One of them clapped his hand on my mouth. Another seized my horse’s head and dragged it back. They closed round me. “Knock his head off!” cried Levi. “Choke him, some one!”
“That man, Barter—the smith!” I shouted desperately—the old man had just come to the smithy entrance—“he knows! He saw me with Captain Wilmer! Ask him!”
I could say no more. One of the men flung his arm round my neck and squeezed not only my throat but my shoulder. I screamed with pain.
“Take him on! Take him on!” Levi cried furiously. “I and Margetts will deal with this fellow. Take him on!”