"Now I think my little Gracie will have to put up with some more reading," added the Captain, with a smiling glance at her; then opening his book, read aloud,—
"At intervals the artillery from the ships and batteries was playing, while the flames were rising over the town of Charlestown and laying waste the places of the graves of its fathers, and streets were falling together, and ships at the yards were crashing on the stocks, and the kindred of the Americans, from the fields, and hills and house-tops around, watched every gallant act of their defenders. 'The whole,' wrote Burgoyne, 'was a complication of horror and importance beyond anything it ever came to my lot to be witness to. It was a sight for a young soldier that the longest service may not furnish again."
"If," remarked Captain Raymond, again closing the book, "it was so dreadful a sight for soldiers accustomed to the horrors of war, what must it not have been to the American farmers taking their first lesson in war? But not one of them shrank from duty. I think we may be very proud of those countrymen of ours. Prescott said to his men, 'If we drive them back once more they cannot rally again.' At that his men cheered him, and shouted. 'We are ready for the red-coats again.'
"But alas! the officers now discovered that the supply of gunpowder was nearly exhausted. Prescott had sent in the morning for more, but it had not come; and there were not fifty bayonets in his party."
"They were wonderfully brave to stand for a third attack under such circumstances," remarked Evelyn.
"They were indeed," responded the Captain. "No one of the seven hundred men with Prescott seems to have thought of giving up the contest without another effort. Some gathered stones from the redoubt to use as missiles, those who had no bayonets resolved to club their guns and strike with them when their powder should be gone; all were determined to fight as long as a ray of hope of success could be discerned. And they did.
"They waited with quiet firmness the approach of the enemy who came steadily on with fixed bayonets, while their cannon were so trained that they swept the interior of the breast-work from one end to the other, obliging the Americans to crowd within their fort.
"The Americans were presently attacked on three sides, at once; and there were, as I have said, but seven hundred of them, some of whom had no more than one round of ammunition, none of them more than four. But they did not quail, and Prescott calmly gave his directions.