"Probably it is intended to cover the launching of the boats. I think the reprobates are in earnest this time," added the commander.
About fifty men started up the new road, and immediately broke into a run. The territory between the new and the old road was covered with trees of large growth, though rather too sparsely to be a wood, but was rather a grove. For about twenty rods above the cross roads the trees had been cut off, and it was a stump field. As soon as the detachment reached the grove they scattered and took refuge behind the trunks of the big trees.
"That is the idea, is it?" said Captain Gordon. "They intend to pick us off from their covert. We must do the same thing. Scatter, my men; and fire at will as you see a head."
The recruits obeyed the order, and were sheltered behind the big trees by the time the enemy reached the positions they had chosen. A desultory firing was begun on both sides of the creek. The commander and the major were on horseback, and they could not protect themselves as the recruits did, and they rode to the rear of the boathouse. They found that Levi had organized a shovel brigade there. The Magnolia had been taken out of the water to prevent it from being captured by the marauders, and had been placed behind the boathouse.
Levi had moved the craft about twenty feet from the building, and had propped it up, with the keel nearest to the creek. This was as far as he had proceeded when the officer presented himself on the ground. Twenty negroes, armed with shovels, which had before been brought down in the wagon, were standing ready for orders.
"What in the world are you doing now, Levi?" asked the planter, when he saw what had been done.
"I am throwing up a breastwork, so that my men can work the guns without being shot down by the enemy on the other side of the creek," replied the overseer.
"A capital idea!" exclaimed Captain Gordon.
"But you are putting it behind the boathouse, man!" shouted the major, who thought he had detected Levi in an egregious blunder.
"These negroes are worth from five hundred to a thousand dollars apiece if you want to sell them, and not many of them would be left if I should set them to digging in the open," replied Levi, laughing at his own argument. "Those ruffians could pick them off at their leisure, and we might as well not have any artillery if the cannoneers are to be shot down as fast as they show themselves. I will warrant that fellow in command on the other side has picked out his best riflemen for duty in the grove."