“Yes; and, Mr. Harmon, father says we owe our lives to your daring. Therefore, let me thank you.”
He blushed to his temples and averted his eyes, which had returned to her face.
“No thanks, Miss Armstrong. The brave fellows who fought at the gates are the heroes, not I. But I am rejoiced to see you safe after such a noble run for life. But—”
“A flag—a flag!” was the cry that broke the youth’s sentence, and drew his eye to the musket port again.
“As I live, Miss Armstrong, our foes are treating us to a flag of truce,” he said, his eyes still riveted upon several figures that had suddenly appeared on the top of the hill. “This is an action by me entirely unexpected. What can it mean?”
Captain Strong was soon notified of the approach of the flag, and watched it through one of the openings.
His face worked strangely while he looked, and there was the light of vengeance in his large, sloe-black eyes. But he kept his face near the port, so that no one in the fort could study its expressions.
“If they demand a surrender, of course you will refuse to comply, captain,” ventured an old settler, who stood near the borderman.
Instantly, with a face crimsoned with rage, Zebulon Strong wheeled from the little embrasure:
“Am I to be dictated to on every hand?” he cried, appealing to the inmates of the apartment. “If I am captain here merely in name, I want to know it. I know a thing or two, and if I am to be advised by every frightened man and woman in the fort, you can take my broken sword, and elect another commander. What! surrender to yon horde of butcherers? Never. When they take Fort Strong, there shall be no living soul to torture.”