“Better die for an act of mercy than outraging the dictates of humanity.”
A contemptuous sneer came to the captain’s lips, and as he turned to the port-hole again he drew a pistol.
“I’ll kill the next man who talks of opening the gates this night,” he said, fiercely. “The fugitives might have been safe at Throop’s; let them pay for their decision at our palisades, if it comes to this.”
The women shrunk to the space allotted to them with epithets of “monster,” “fiend,” and the like, falling from their lips, and the men exchanged looks of indignation.
“They will reach the gates before their pursuers!” cried a watcher at a port-hole, joyously; but the words fell on blank ears, for the gates, alas! through the inhumanity of one man, would not be open to them.
“Levi is carrying his daughter,” said a second settler. “John Logan is not with them; he must have been shot down the river.”
The sight of the brave fugitives almost at his gates, and hard pressed by a savage foe, did not soften Captain Strong’s heart, in which cowardice and personal fear burrowed like a ground-hog.
The pale faces of the fugitives were visible in the moonlight, and all at once a cry came from the very shadow of the palisades:
“Open the gates!”
Zebulon Strong turned from the port-hole and halloed to the guards below: