Part 25 (2/2)

A gigantic savage discharged his musket with seemingly true aim directly at my head; but, strangely enough, missed the target, and then he came at me, hatchet in hand, with such fury that for an instant it seemed as if I was at his mercy.

So excited was I that my bullet, which should have found lodgment in his heart, went as wild as had his, and then was I forced to use a clubbed musket for defence.

Had any one asked me on that morning if I believed it possible to withstand the attack of an Indian, the two of us using the weapons I have just described, my answer would have been a decided ”no,” and yet now I held him in good play, although realizing that each moment I was growing weaker and he gaining the advantage.

Already were my eyes becoming suffused with blood; my brain was in a whirl, as I leaped here or there, parrying with the b.u.t.t of the musket the blows of his hatchet, and all the time he continued to press me nearer and nearer toward the wall, where my resistance would have been overcome within a very short time.

I wondered why it was that Colonel Gansevoort delayed in the coming, and could see, without looking in any direction save at my foe, that the number of savages inside the stockade was increasing each moment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”The painted villain sank down upon the ground”]

Only a brief delay now on the part of the commandant, and they would gain so great an advantage that such portion of the garrison as could be withdrawn from the walls where the Britishers were making the pretended attack, would not be able to dislodge them.

Then suddenly, at the very moment when it seemed impossible I could struggle any longer, the painted villain sank down upon the ground as if having received his death-blow, and I dimly heard Sergeant Corney cry, cheerily:

”That was a narrow squeak, lad, an' we'll hope there'll be many more of 'em before the last one comes! Keep yourself well in hand, for of a verity our work is cut out for us here!”

Now it was I knew that a shot from the old soldier's musket had put an end to the combat in which I was most deeply interested, and I strained every nerve to gather myself together as he had commanded.

By this time I dare venture to say no less than two hundred of the howling demons had scaled the stockade, and we who were defending this weakest portion of the fortification were pressed back and back until we stood ma.s.sed against that opening which gave entrance to the main fortification.

We were in good position for the enemy to mow us down with bullets, and in such close formation that only those in the outermost ranks could use their weapons to advantage.

”It is all over,” I said to myself, realizing that within a very few moments we must be killed or disabled under such a fire as Thayendanega's scoundrels were pouring upon us. Then from our rear I heard ringing cheers, the trampling of many feet, and realized that a.s.sistance had come at the most critical moment.

Sixty seconds later we had all been slain like sheep in the shambles!

”Give way, give way, lads in front!” I heard Colonel Gansevoort shout, and, hardly understanding the words, instinctively we surged either side of the pa.s.sage, having hardly done so before a shower of grape-shot came hurtling between our ranks, dealing death to scores of the feather-bedecked wretches.

”Stand to your muskets, you Minute Boys!” Sergeant Corney shouted, and the sound of his voice stiffened my courage wonderfully. ”Now is the time to pay back some of our old scores, and every bullet should cut short a life from among those who would harry us of the valley.”

He had hardly more than ceased speaking when a great uproar could be heard from the distance, and, without turning my head, I understood that the British regulars and the Johnson Greens were pressing the attack on the west and the front, in order to hold our men at the walls that we might not be able to regain possession of the stockade.

Now the fight was on in good earnest, and a bloodier one or a more desperate struggle I hope never to see again.

After the single cannon which Colonel Gansevoort had caused to be brought in was discharged, the reinforcements betook themselves to their muskets, for our frontiersmen were more accustomed to the use of small arms than big guns, and the tide surged this way and that, with the fate of the fort trembling more than once in the balance, until I had before my eyes only great billows of feathered forms, which rose and fell, advanced and were forced back, until I was well-nigh bewildered.

Before this portion of the fighting had come to an end, fully half the garrison was engaged in repelling the attack of Thayendanega's forces, and during such time the white portion of the enemy's army might have made a successful a.s.sault upon the walls, I verily believe, but for the cowardice displayed by the Tories.

How long we struggled there hand to hand, stumbling now over the lifeless forms of our comrades, and again finding our way checked by the dead bodies of the savages, I cannot say; but certain it is that we finally drove the last of the hated foe over the stockade, and gave Thayendanega's boasting braves such a lesson as they would not need to have repeated for many days.

I was not less wearied with the carnage than those around me. Even Sergeant Corney, to whom such scenes were not strange, leaned against a portion of the earthworks as if for support while he dashed the perspiration from his eyes, and then we knew by the sounds that the battle was being waged severely over against the sally-port.

Then it was I called for the Minute Boys to follow me, as I ran at the best pace possible in that direction, for there was our post of duty.

Now Colonel Gansevoort no longer husbanded his store of ammunition intended for the cannon, and every piece in the northern and eastern bastions was being worked with the utmost rapidity, sending among the Tories such a shower of iron as their cowardly hearts could not hold out against, and, when they turned with cries of fear to flee, the British regulars, understanding that they were too few in number to effect anything against us, joined in the retreat.

The a.s.sault had come to an end, and we of the garrison were triumphant, but at such an expense of life that we could not well afford many more such victories.

<script>