As the broken red line gave ground, some of their men turned and fired a few farewell shots at us. I felt a smart blow on my skull, as if some one had suddenly tapped me there with a hammer. As I threw up my hands with involuntary motion to see what ailed me, black clouds passed of a sudden before my eyes, and the earth began to reel beneath me. Marcel, who was standing near, turned towards me with a look of alarm upon his face. Then the earth slid away from me, and I fell. Ere I touched the ground my senses were gone.
When I opened my eyes again, I thought that only a few minutes had passed since I fell; for above me waved the boughs of one of the very apple-trees beneath which we had fought. Moreover, there were soldiers about, and the signs of fierce contention with arms were still visible. But when I put one of my hands to my head, which felt heavy and dull, I found that it was swathed in many bandages.
"Lie still," said a friendly voice, and the next moment the face of Marcel was bending over me. "You should thank your stars that your skull is so thick and hard, for that British bullet glanced off it and inflicted but a scalp-wound. As it is, you have nothing but good luck. The commander-in-chief himself has been to see you, and has called you a most gallant youth. Also, you have the best nurse in America, who, moreover, takes a special interest in your case."
"But the army! The battle!" I said.
"Disturb not your mighty mind about them," said Marcel. "We failed to destroy the enemy, having to leave that for a later day; but we won the battle, and the British army is retreating towards New York. I imitate it, and now retreat before your nurse."
He went away, and then Mary Desmond stood beside me. But her face was no longer haughty and cold.
"You here!" I cried. "How did this happen?"
"When the American army followed the retreating British, we knew there would be a battle," she said. "So I came with other women to nurse the wounded, and one of them I have watched over a whole night."
She smiled most divinely.
"Then, Mary," I cried, with an energy that no wound could lessen, "will you not marry an American?"