"To arms—to arms!" ejaculated the commander. "Gentlemen, spring to your horses, and sound the alarm through the camp—we are set upon by Sumpter—it can be no other. Curry, take a few dragoons—follow the prisoner—mount him behind one of your men, and retreat with him instantly to Blackstock's!"
Having given these hasty orders, Innis, with the several officers who happened to be at hand, ran to their horses, mounted, and pushed forward to the camp. They had scarcely left their quarters before two dragoons, in advance of a party of twenty or thirty men, rushed up to the door.
"Sarch the house!" shouted the leading soldier. "Three or four of you dismount and sarch the house! Make sure of Major Butler, if he is there! The rest of you forward with me!"
The delay before head-quarters scarcely occupied a moment, and in the meantime the number of the assailants was increased by the squadrons that poured in from the rear. These were led by a young officer of great activity and courage, who, seeing the disordered condition of the royalists, waved his sword in the air as he beckoned his men to follow him in a charge upon the camp.
The advanced party, with the two dragoons, were already on the field charging the first body that they found assembled; and, close behind them, followed Colonel Williams—the officer of whom I have spoken—with a large division of cavalry. At the same moment that Williams entered upon the plain from this quarter, a second and third corps, led respectively by Shelby and Clarke, were seen galloping upon the two flanks of the encampment.
The plain was now occupied by about two hundred Whig cavalry. The royalists, taken by surprise, over their cups it may be said, and in the midst of a riotous festival, were everywhere thrown into the wildest confusion. Such of them as succeeded in gaining their arms, took post behind the trees, and kept up an irregular fire upon the assailants. Colonel Innis had succeeded in getting together about a hundred men at a remote corner of his camp, and had now formed them into a solid column to resist the attack of the cavalry, whilst from this body he poured forth a few desultory volleys of musketry, hoping to gain time to collect the scattered forces that were in various points endeavoring to find their proper station. Horse Shoe Robinson and John Ramsay—the two foremost in the advance—were to be discovered pushing through the sundered groups of the enemy with a restless and desperate valor that nothing could withstand.
"Cut them down," cried Horse Shoe, "without marcy! remember the Waxhaws!" And he accompanied his exhortation with the most vehement and decisive action, striking down, with a huge sabre, all who opposed his way.
Meantime, Colonel Williams and his comrades charged the column formed by Innis, and, in a few moments, succeeded in riding through the array and compelling them to a total rout. Robinson and Ramsay, side by side, mingled in this charge, and were seen in the thickest of the fight. Innis, finding all efforts to maintain his ground ineffectual, turned his horse towards Musgrove's mill, and fled as fast as spur and sword could urge the animal forward. The sergeant, however, had marked him for his prize, and following as fleetly as the trusty Captain Peter was able to carry him, soon came up with the fugitive officer, and, with one broad sweep of his sword, dislodged him from his saddle and left him bleeding on the ground. Turning again towards the field, his quick eye discerned the unwieldy bulk of Hugh Habershaw. The gross captain had, in the hurry of the assault, been unable to reach his horse; and, in the first moments of danger, had taken refuge in one of the little sheds which had been constructed for the accommodation of the soldiers. As the battle waxed hot in the neighborhood of his retreat, he had crept forth from his den and was making the best of his way to an adjoining cornfield. He was bare-headed, and his bald crown, as the slanting rays of the evening sun fell upon it, glistened like a gilded globe. The well known figure no sooner occurred to the sergeant's view than he rode off in pursuit. The cornfield was bounded by a fence, and the burly braggart had just succeeded in reaching it when his enemy overtook him.
"Have mercy, good Mr. Horse Shoe, have mercy on a defenceless man!" screamed the runaway, in a voice discordant with terror, as he stopped at the fence, which he was unable to mount, and looked back upon his pursuer. "Remember the good-will I showed you when you was a prisoner! Quarter, quarter—for God's sake, quarter!"
"You get no quarter from me, you cursed blood-lapper!" exclaimed Horse Shoe, excited to a rage that seldom visited his breast; "think of Grindall's Ford!" and at the same instant he struck a heavy downward blow, with such sheer descent, that it clove the skull of the perfidious freebooter clean through to the spine. "I have sworn your death," said the sergeant, "even if I catch you asleep in your bed, and right fairly have you earned it."