But the colonel’s plans did not succeed.
“Why this delay?” exclaimed the officer, angrily, looking and listening from the summit of the hill where he stood, surrounded by half a dozen Indians and as many English officers. “The assault should have been made ere this.”
“We have not heard Funk’s signal yet, colonel,” answered one of the officers, suggestively.
“Fire and fury! he should have given it five minutes since,” and O’Neill looked at a beautiful chronometer which he drew from his bosom. “The truth of the matter is, Funk is crazy after a girl in the fort, and if he can get her, he will let the foe beat us off. Curse the laggard!”
A minute’s silence followed the Briton’s last words. The signal, whatever it was to have been, did not cleave the cool night air—not a sound came from the fort.
“The jig is up,” hoarsely hissed O’Neill, stamping his foot with rage. “Funk’s infernal passion for that girl has ruined our plans. Splitlog, is he a specimen of the men you associate with? Go and recall the forces! The day is breaking now, and if our men are not instantly withdrawn, they will be slaughtered like sheep.”
The Wyandot sachem left the hill, and presently every besieger relinquished the designed attack.
Colonel O’Neill was livid with rage, and threatened to withdraw his troops.
“Frank is the cause of all this,” he thundered to Splitlog. “You should take the villain out and shoot him when he shows his face in camp. But he’ll never have the audacity to show his face here. Perhaps he succeeded in getting the girl, and has fled to parts unknown. The fort would have been ours after a brief struggle. The deserter declares that Strong has six men on whom he can depend. So, chief, you see what we have missed by one man’s absorbing passion.”
“Night-Hawk do bad work, sure,” said Splitlog, like the colonel, in no good humor. “He better not come back to braves.”