A scornful laugh ran around the circle. “Fight! fight! Down with the Britishers—the miscreants—dogs!”
“Then back into the woods with you, and we will attack them as they come up.” In a moment, from the road, not an American was in sight. “I want some one,” continued Ernshaw, when they were fairly under cover, “for a duty that will be both pleasant and unpleasant; some one who is well enough acquainted with the country to guide Miss Vale to a place of safety, in case any thing disastrous should happen to us. Of course he can not mix in with the fight.”
“The person for that is the boy that came to us yesterday mornin’. I see now that he is with you. After his fifty miles of ridin’, I guess he wouldn’t be of much use in a scrimmage, but he’ll do as well as a man fur the lady,” said one of the men.
“You are right,” replied Nat. “Simon is worthy of the trust.” So, calling forward the boy, he gave him his instructions.
Hurrying onward with unabating speed, Captain Preston and his company drew nigh to the spot where the brigade stood under close cover, all ready for the fray.
“Now, boys, at them!” rang in the ears of the startled British.
But their quick reply was a discharge of pistols, and their balls rattled like hail among the tree-limbs overhead. Instantly from among the trees flashed Nat Ernshaw’s troopers—each man grasping in his strong hand his trusty sword.
The melee which followed can scarcely be described. There is an appalling sublimity in a hand-to-hand conflict, when life or death is in the issue. Whether the conflict be on a larger or smaller scale, the same fierce elements are excited—the same personal results follow. As fierce the individual strife between a hundred as between a thousand times one hundred.
Blended together, horse to horse, arm to arm, sword to sword, each man shouting his war-cry—each man hewing fiercely, the hundred struggled, and panted, and strove for victory, without one thought of death.
“Down with the rebel hounds!” shouted Preston.