“RICHARD WAS DRAGGED ALONG WITH THE BRITISH UNTIL THEIR POSITION WAS REGAINED.“
CHAPTER X.
IN CLINTON’S TENTS.
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
—Patrick Henry.
Hatless, furious, half-blind from dust and the trickling of the blood from the wound in the head that had dazed and rendered him powerless to escape back to his own ranks after meeting the enemy, Richard was dragged along with the British until their position was regained, and thence despatched to the rear, where the other prisoners were held under guard. There he lay on the ground for an hour, listening and longing feverishly for the sound of Washington’s assaulting guns; but the twilight deepened into starlit dusk, and no rescue came. Then finally he knew by the preparations about him that no further attack was expected, but that a retreat was intended. Clinton dared not await the return of daylight and the fight it would bring; and so in the still hours of the night, while the Continentals slept the sleep of utter exhaustion after the marches and counter-marches and combats of that sultry day, he drew his force away, leaving his dead unburied upon the field, and his sorely wounded in the deserted camp. To the very last moment, Richard had listened for an attack, hoping that Washington had waited to plan a surprise; but over in the direction of the American camp all was silent. During the last half of that awful night Richard marched with the squad of prisoners along the road that led to the sea. The wound in his head, although but slight, made him dizzy with its throbbing, and his heart called out fiercely for freedom and Joscelyn. He had asked not to be put into the wagon with the wounded, protesting he was more able to walk than some others; but in reality he was meditating an escape, and knew it would be more easily accomplished from the ranks than from a guarded wagon. Eagerly he watched for a chance. The bonds that at first held the prisoners together had been removed to expedite the retreat,—there was no time that night to spare for any kind of lagging,—so that he was free to go alone if the opportunity came. Always his gaze was ahead, every shadow across the road held a possibility, every dark hollow was entered with hope. But the guard, as though divining his intention, closed in compactly at these points and made egress impossible; and so he plodded on until, with the returning daylight, they found him reeling like a drunken man with fatigue and loss of blood, and, putting him into an ambulance, carried him on toward Sandy Hook. From utter weariness and hopelessness he fell asleep in the jolting vehicle, and only waked at the prod of a bayonet to find the sun well past the zenith.
“Get up with you and let somebody take your place while you foot it a bit,” a rough voice said; and Richard sprang from the vehicle and helped little Billy Bryce, of his own town, into his place, exclaiming vehemently against his own selfish slumbering.
“Nay, nay,” said the lad, “I am not wounded, more’s the shame to me for being taken! Besides, I have had a long rest under the wagon here, for we halted before noon. I begged the guard not to waken you, but I put your rations aside. Here—you must be near to starvation.”