The royal troops broke in every direction. The officers, seeing resistance was vain before so headlong a charge, turned also to seek safety in flight. Col. Campbell, however, seemed disposed to stand his ground, but Macdonald riding his powerful steed against him bore him down, and the next instant the commandant, to save his life, yielded himself a prisoner. It was at this moment that Major Lindsay saw, for the first time, the face of Preston. With an oath, hissed between his teeth, he snatched a fire-lock from a dead soldier beside him, and pointed it at our hero, who, not perceiving him, would infallibly have fallen, but that his name uttered in a shriek by Kate arrested his ear, and turning he beheld his enemy, who was almost in a line with the window whence the warning had been heard. The lightning that rives the oak is not quicker than was the blow from Preston’s sabre. Down, right on the head of his adversary, descended the heavy steel, crashing through the skull as if it had been only so much paper: and with that blow, the soul of the villain and assassin went to his long account.
Kate saw no more. She scarcely indeed saw that. She only knew that her lover had been warned in time, and had escaped; for her father now drew her forcibly in, and shut the perilous casement, around which the pistol balls were rattling like hail. Then she swooned away.
The rest of that night is matter of history. The town was, for a while, wholly in the hands of the assailants, and the victory would have been complete but for some misapprehension in the hour at which the different detachments were to attack, which enabled a part of the enemy to gain their garrison, where they were too strongly entrenched to be taken without artillery. The assailants accordingly retired after having captured the town and made Col. Campbell prisoner.
Preston had heard Kate’s voice, and, leaving his lieutenant to pursue the fugitives, sought her out immediately. His were the eyes she first looked on when she recovered from her swoon. Her glad surprise, or his own joy to find her still his own when he had feared their arrival was too late, we must leave to the imagination of the reader. It was one of those scenes human language is too feeble to portray.
When, toward daybreak, Marion gave orders for the town to be evacuated, Kate, so late fainting and heart-broken, took her place on horse-back between her father and Preston, almost as rosy-looking and happy as ever. A spectator could scarcely have recognized in her the pale and drooping lily of the evening before.
Mr. Mowbray, on hearing the sacrifice which his daughter would have made for his life, betrayed the deepest emotion. He pressed her to his bosom, but could not speak. There was a gentle reproach in his eyes, however, which Kate answered by a glance of unalterable love.
Though Preston learned that old Jacob had claimed his assistance without the authority of Kate, he was consoled by her assurance that she loved him as well as if she had herself despatched the messenger. In a few weeks she became the wife of our hero. She would have pleaded for delay, but her father said he was uncertain how long his life might be continued, and that he wished to see her have a protector before he died, so Kate yielded to his wishes.
Macdonald did not, like his master, live to see the war concluded. He fell shortly after the attack on Georgetown, leaving behind him the reputation of one of the most gallant soldiers of the time.
As for old Jacob, he survived to dandle the children of Kate and Preston on his knee. He had not only taken part in the fight at Georgetown, but quite distinguished himself, having slain an English soldier in single combat. On this feat he was accustomed to dilate with much self-complacency. He always wound up the story with these words.
“He tried now to run me through with his bayonet, but it was no use, you see. De sarjeant had larned me his back-handed stroke, and I brought it around jist so,” suiting the action to the word. “Wid dat he fell dead and suspendered his breath.”