I had remounted Pegasus while reading this able State paper, my boy, and had just finished it, when a nervous member of the advance-guard accidentally touched off a cannon, whose report was almost immediately answered by one from the dense fog before us.
"Ha!" says Captain Villiam Brown, suddenly leaping from his steed, and creeping under it—to examine if the saddle-girth was all right—"the fort is right before us in the fog, and the rebels are awake. Let the Orange County Company advance with their howitzers, and fire to the north-east."
The Orange County Company, my boy, instantly wheeled their howitzers into position, and sent some pounds of grape toward the meridian, the roar of their weapons of death being instantaneously answered by a thundering crash in the fog.
Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackerel Brigade, now went forward six yards at double-quick, and poured in a rattling volley of musketry, dodging fearlessly when exactly the same kind of a volley was heard in the fog, and wishing that they might have a few rebels for supper.
"Ha!" says Captain Villiam Brown, when he noticed that nobody seemed to be killed yet; "Providence is on our side, and this here unnatural rebellion is squelched. Let the Anatomical Cavalry charge into the fog, and demand the surrender of Fort Muggins," continued Villiam, compressing his lips with mad valor, "while I repair to that tree back there, and see if there is not a fiendish secessionist lurking behind it."
The Anatomical Cavalry immediately dismounted from their horses, which were too old to be used in a charge, and gallantly entered the fog, with their sabres between their teeth, and their hands in their pockets—it being a part of their tactics to catch a rebel before cutting his head off.
In the meantime, my boy, the Orange County howitzers and the Mackerel muskets were hurling a continuous fire into the clouds, stirring up the angels, and loosening the smaller planets. Sturdily answered the rebels from the fog-begirt fort; but not one of our men had yet fallen.
Captain Villiam Brown was just coming down from the top of a very tall tree, whither he had gone to search for masked batteries, when the fog commenced lifting, and disclosed the Anatomical Cavalry returning at double-quick.
Instantly our fire ceased, and so did that of the rebels.
"Does the fort surrender to the United States of America?" says Villiam, to the captain of the Anatomicals.