“Servant of the devil, rather! What brings you here—and what is it you say?”
“I say that Frederica Sabb is already married, and her husband living!”
“Liar, that you are, you shall swing for this insolence.”
“I am no liar. I say that the girl is married, and I witnessed the ceremony.”
“You did, did you?” was the speech of Dunbar, with a tremendous effort of coolness, laying down the still lifeless form of Frederica as he spoke; “and perhaps you performed the ceremony also, oh, worthy servant of the Most High!”
“It was my lot to do so.”
“Grateful lot! And pray with whom did you unite the damsel?”
“With Richard Coulter, captain in the service of the State of South Carolina.”
Though undoubtedly anticipating this very answer, Dunbar echoed the annunciation with a fearful shriek, as, drawing his sword at the same moment, he rushed upon the speaker. But his rage blinded him; and Elijah Fields was one of the coolest of all mortals, particularly when greatly excited. He met the assault of Dunbar with a fearful buffet of his fist, which at once felled the assailant; but he rose in a moment, and with a yell of fury he grappled with the preacher. They fell together, the latter uppermost, and rolling his antagonist into the fire-place, where he was at once half buried among the embers, and in a cloud of ashes. In the struggle, however, Dunbar contrived to extricate a pistol from his belt, and to fire it. Fields struggled up from his embrace, but a torrent of blood poured from his side as he did so. He rushed toward the window, grasped the sill in his hands, then yielded his hold, and sunk down upon the floor, losing his consciousness in an uproar of shots and shouts from without. In the next moment the swords of Coulter and Dunbar were crossed over his prostrate body. The struggle was short and fierce. It had nearly terminated fatally to Coulter, on his discovering the still insensible form of Frederica in his way. In the endeavor to avoid trampling upon her, he afforded an advantage to his enemy, which nothing prevented him from employing to the utmost but the ashes with which his eyes were still half blinded. As it was, he inflicted a severe cut upon the shoulder of the partisan, which rendered his left arm temporarily useless. But the latter recovered himself instantly. His blood was in fearful violence. He raged like a Birserker of the Northmen—absolutely mocked the danger of his antagonist’s weapon—thrust him back against the side of the house, and hewing him almost down with one terrible blow upon the shoulder, with a mighty thrust immediately after, he absolutely speared him against the wall, the weapon passing through his body, and into the logs behind. For a moment the eyes of the two glared deathfully upon each other. The sword of Dunbar was still uplifted, and he seemed about to strike, when suddenly the arm sunk powerless—the weapon fell from the nerveless grasp—the eyes became fixed and glassy, even while gazing with tiger appetite into those of the enemy—and, with a hoarse and stifling cry, the captain of loyalists fell forward upon his conqueror, snapping, like so much glass, the sword that was still fastened in his body.
——