“I have my good horse,” answered the boy, “and I have a brace of pistols and a sabre; and, yes, there’s Cole, too; but that’s all; the British have all the rest,” sadly—“house, slaves, plantation and all.”
“So, I have been told, is the case with all the men in Charleston who had the courage to brave the king,” said Marion. “But I can say nothing from my own observation, Tom, for I broke my leg about the time Clinton arrived in the roadstead; and since the fort fell I’ve been hiding in the cane-brakes like a fox; yes, and listening to the hounds in full cry all around me. But don’t despair, my boy; Carolina is not yet beaten; she has only begun to fight.”
As they talked there in the dimly-lighted room, the elder Collins limped in. Marion’s quick eye at once noticed that he had been wounded.
“You’ve been hit,” said he, anxiously.
“Nothing to speak of, major,” said the man. “It bled pretty freely and it pains a great deal, but it won’t last long.”
Here Mrs. Collins followed her husband into the room. “What are you going to do with that British officer?” inquired she. “He’s going on something dreadful out there.”
“Have him brought in,” said Marion to Tom. “I want to see this ruthless king’s officer before we let him go.”
“Let him go!” ejaculated the Collinses in a breath. “You are not going to do that.”
“We are hardly in a position to take prisoners of war,” said Major Marion with a smile. “We cannot resort to his own measures and use the rope, either. But bring him in.”
In a few moments Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton stood within the cabin, and his wounded troopers were lying groaning upon the floor near by. He looked with lowering brow upon Major Marion, his harsh, brutal face made all the more ruffianly by the rage which distorted it. Marion lay stretched upon his couch of furs and pine boughs, his deep-set, brilliant black eyes seeming to search into the very soul of his enemy. Tarleton bore the look for a time, then burst out in a voice thick with the rage that consumed him.