"No, no," said the other; "we didn't understand each other, and you thought I was a coward. Mayhap I was. Have you any ball about you?"
George had still some of the King's statue mementos. He handed them to his companion, who placed two or three of them in his mouth, much as a boy might marbles. The two young soldiers advanced and caught up with the line. Some scattering shots rang from the college campus. Bonsall, who was just taking aim, whirled half around, clasped one hand to his breast, and extended the other feebly before him.
"I'm shot," he said, peering blindly into the young Lieutenant's eyes.
George leaped forward and caught the dying boy; he bent over him, and placed his head on his lap.
The pale eyes opened. "Good-by, Frothingham," came the lad's voice in a weak whisper. "In my pocket, here—here."
George thrust his hand inside the threadbare coat. There was an envelope addressed to Mrs. Lucius Bonsall, New York.
"Give it to her," the poor boy said, "with love, with love."
George laid him down on the frozen earth, and now crying himself, much as the Irish Colonel had, he leaned against an elm, and aimed at the windows of Nassau Hall. A battery of artillery was playing at the bottom of the hill, and the masonry shattered from the old brown building. It was too hot for the British, and they fled across the green, down the turnpike toward New Brunswick and Rock Hill, the Americans at their heels.
"'Tis a fox chase," said a starved-looking soldier, with a grin on his unshaven face. "I heard the General say it himself. Hurrah!" Off he dashed.
George did not join in the pursuit, but finding his old friend Thomas and another soldier, they made their way back to the frozen garden, and there dug a grave, and marked the spot where poor Luke Bonsall had fallen.