Part 43 (2/2)

”Oh, fight, that's all,” said Farnsworth apathetically turning to a small loop-hole and leveling a field gla.s.s through it. ”We might make a rush from the gates and stampede them,” he presently added. Then he uttered an exclamation of great surprise.

”There's Lieutenant Beverley out there,” he exclaimed.

”You're mistaken, you're excited,” Hamilton half sneeringly remarked, yet not without a shade of uneasiness in his expression. ”You forget, sir.”

”Look for yourself, it's easily settled,” and Farnsworth proffered the gla.s.s. ”He's there, to a certainty, sir.”

”I saw Beverley an hour ago,” said Helm. ”I knew all the time that he'd be on hand.”

It was a white lie. Captain Helm was as much surprised as his captors at what he heard; but he could not resist the temptation to be annoying.

Hamilton looked as Farnsworth directed, and sure enough, there was the young Virginian Lieutenant, standing on a barricade, his hat off, cheering his men with a superb show of zeal. Not a hair of his head was missing, so far as the gla.s.s could be relied upon to show.

Oncle Jazon's quick old eyes saw the gleam of the telescope tube in the loop-hole.

”I never could shoot much,” he muttered, and then a little bullet sped with absolute accuracy from his disreputable looking rifle and shattered the object-lens, just as Hamilton moved to withdraw the gla.s.s, uttering an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of intense excitement.

”Such devils of marksmen!” said he, and his face was haggard. ”That infernal Indian lied.”

”I could have told you all the time that the scalp Long-Hair brought to you was not Beverley's,” said Helm indifferently. ”I recognized Lieutenant Barlow's hair as soon as I saw it.”

This was another piece of off-hand romance. Helm did not dream that he was accidentally sketching a horrible truth.

”Barlow's!” exclaimed Farnsworth.

”Yes, Barlow's, no mistake--”

Two more men reeled from a port-hole, the blood spinning far out of their wounds. Indeed, through every aperture in the walls the bullets were now humming like mad hornets.

”Close that port-hole!” stormed Hamilton; then turning to Farnsworth he added: ”We cannot endure this long. Shut up every place large enough for a bullet to get through. Go all around, give strict orders to all.

See that the men do not foolishly expose themselves. Those ruffians out there have located every crack.”

His glimpse of Beverley and the sinister remark of Helm had completely unmanned him before his men fell. Now it rushed upon him that if he would escape the wrath of the maddened creoles and the vengeance of Alice's lover, he must quickly throw himself upon the mercy of Clark.

It was his only hope. He chafed inwardly, but bore himself with stern coolness. He presently sought Farnsworth, pulled him aside and suggested that something must be done to prevent an a.s.sault and a ma.s.sacre. The sounds outside seemed to forebode a gathering for a desperate rush, and in his heart he felt all the terrors of awful antic.i.p.ation.

”We are completely at their mercy, that is plain,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and gazing at the wounded men writhing in their agony.

”What do you suggest?”

Captain Farnsworth was a shrewd officer. He recollected that Philip Dejean, justice of Detroit, was on his way down the Wabash from that post, and probably near at hand, with a flotilla of men and supplies.

Why not ask for a few days of truce? It could do no harm, and if agreed to, might be their salvation. Hamilton jumped at the thought, and forthwith drew up a note which he sent out with a white flag. Never before in all his military career had he been so comforted by a sudden cessation of fighting. His soul would grovel in spite of him. Alice's cold face now had Beverley's beside it in his field of inner vision--a double a.s.surance of impending doom, it seemed to him.

There was short delay in the arrival of Colonel Clark's reply, hastily scrawled on a bit of soiled paper. The request for a truce was flatly refused; but the note closed thus:

”If Mr. Hamilton is Desirous of a Conferance with Col. Clark he will meet him at the Church with Captn. Helms.”

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