They advanced at a trot toward the Port.
“You’ll be afoot any minute now, but we’re in good shape and on our own soil, with those carrion between us and a gap they won’t care to drop into! I’m off for the gate—you wait here, and if Oscar fires the signal, give the answer.”
Armitage galloped off to the right and Claiborne jumped from his horse just as the wounded animal trembled for a moment, sank to its knees and rolled over dead.
CHAPTER XXV
THE PORT OF MISSING MEN
Fast they come, fast they come;
See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume,
Blended with heather.
Cast your plaids, draw your blades,
Forward each man set!
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu Knell for the onset!
—Sir Walter Scott.
Claiborne climbed upon a rock to get his bearings, and as he gazed off through the wood a bullet sang close to his head and he saw a man slipping away through the underbrush a hundred yards ahead of him. He threw up his rifle and fired after the retreating figure, jerked the lever spitefully and waited. In a few minutes Oscar rode alertly out of the wood at his left.
“It was better for us a dead horse than a dead man—yes?” was the little sergeant’s comment. “We shall come back for the saddle and bridle.”
“Humph! Where do you think those men are?”