He then handed a pike to each of the slaves captured at Bellair and
Allstead's:
"Stand guard over these white men."
The negroes took the pikes and held them gingerly.
At sunrise Kagi sent an urgent message to his Chief advising him that the Rifle Works could not be held in the face of an assault. He begged him to retreat across the Potomac at the earliest possible moment.
Retreat was a word not in the old man's vocabulary. He sent Leary to reinforce him, with orders to hold the works.
He buckled the sword and pistols of Washington about his gaunt waist and counted his prisoners. He had forty whites within the enclosure. He counted the slaves whom he had armed with pikes. He had enrolled under his banner less than fifty. They stood in huddled groups of wonder and fear.
The black bees had failed to swarm.
He scanned the horizon and not a single burning home lighted the skies.
It had begun to drizzle rain. Not a torch had been used.
He had lost four precious hours in his quixotic expedition to capture Colonel Washington, his sword and slaves. He could not believe this a mistake. God had shown him the dramatic power of the act. He held a Washington in his possession. He was being guarded by his own slaves, armed. The scene would make him famous. It would stir the millions of the North. It would drive the South to desperation.
The thing that stunned him was the failure of the black legions to mobilize under the Captains whom he had appointed to lead them.