The pain was horrible, the scorching mass clinging to the flesh and burning deeper and deeper as he was borne shrieking away in the arms of his comrades.

“Oh take it off! take it off!  I’m burning up, I tell you!” he yelled as they carried him swiftly down the avenue; but they hurried on, seemingly unmindful of his cries, mingled though they were with oaths and imprecations, nor paused till they had reached the shelter of the woods at some little distance on the opposite side of the road.

“Curse you!” he said between his clenched teeth, as they laid him down at the foot of a tree, “curse you! for keeping me in this agony.  Help me off with these—­duds.  Unbutton it, quick! quick!  I’m burning up, I tell you; and my hands are nearly as bad as my face.  Oh! oh! you fiends! do you want to murder me outright? you’re bringing all the skin with it!” he roared, writhing in unendurable torture, as they dragged off the disguise.  “Oh kill me!  Bill, shoot me through the head and put me out of this torment, will you?”

“No, no, I daren’t.  Come, come, pluck up courage and bear it like a man.”

“Bear it indeed!  I only wish you had it to bear.  I tell you it can’t be borne!  Water, water, for the love of heaven! carry me to the river and throw me in.  My eyes are put out; they burn like balls of fire.”

“Stop that yelling, will you!” cried a voice from a little distance, “you’ll betray us.  We’re whipped, and there’s troops coming up too.”

“Sure, Smith?”

“Yes, heard their tramp, tramp distinctly ramble of artillery too.  Can’t be more’n a mile off, if that.  Hurry, boys, no time to lose!  Who’s this groaning at such an awful rate?  What’s the matter?”

“Scalded; horribly scalded.”

“He ain’t the only one, though maybe he’s the worst.  And Blake’s killed outright; two or three more, I believe; some with pretty bad pistol-shot wounds.  Tell you they made warm work for us.  There’s been a traitor among us; betrayed our plans and put ’em on their guard.”

He concluded with a torrent of oaths and fearful imprecations upon the traitor, whoever he might be.

“Hist!” cried the one Boyd had addressed as Bill, “hist boys! the bugle call! they’re on us.  Stop your noise, Boyd, can’t you!” as the latter, seized, and borne onward again, not too gently, yelled and roared with redoubled vigor:  “Be quiet or you’ll have ’em after us in no time.”

“Shoot me through the head then:  it’s the only thing that’ll help me to stop it.”

Mr. Lilburn, keeping well in the shadow of the trees, had hurried after the retreating foe, and concealing himself behind a clump of bushes close to the gate, caused his bugle note to sound in their ears as if coming from a point some half a mile distant.

Convinced that a detachment of United States troops were almost upon them, those carrying the dead and wounded dashed into the wood with their burdens, while in hot haste the others mounted and away, never drawing rein until they had put several miles between them and the scene of their attempted outrage.