The trooper lay across me dead, his head nearly severed from the trunk, and spouting great jets of blood. A half-dozen dead or wounded were scattered along the road. Not a rod away was the sergeant who had my sack pinned under his horse, and far ahead, in a cloud of dust, that terrible swordsman riding hard after the bandit. Fitz, well mounted, got off, I may add, and, with three or four, swam the river, living to be hanged, as he well deserved.
By the time I was up and staggering forward, bent on recovering my sack, the leader, who had given up the chase, rode toward me. I must have been a queer and horrid figure. I was literally covered with blood and mud. The blood was everywhere,—in my hair, over my face, and down my neck,—but I wanted my precious sack.
“Halt!” he cried out. “Here, corporal, tie this fellow.”
“Pardon me,” said I, now quite myself. “I was the prisoner of these rascals.”
“Indeed? Your name?”
“Hugh Wynne.”
“Where from?”
“From the city.”
“Where to?”
“To join the army.”