’Twas late in the afternoon before these questions were answered.  The rain had ceased, and the chill October sunlight filtered aslant through the trees.  With the clearing skies a cold wind had sprung up, and on the hilltop the men cowered behind the rock breastwork and waited in strained silence.  At the last moment Major Ferguson sent Captain de Peyster to me with the request that I take command of the Tory force set apart to defend the wagon barricade—­this if my weariness would permit.  I went with the captain to make my excuses in person.

“Say no more, Captain,” said this generous soldier, when I began some lame plea for further exemption; “I had forgot your sword-cut.  Take shelter for yourself, and look on whilst we skin this riffraff alive.”

And so he let me off; a favor which will make me think kindly of Patrick Ferguson so long as I shall live.  For now my work was done; and had he insisted, I should have told him flatly who and what I was—­and paid the penalty.

I had scarce rejoined Tybee at the wagons when the long roll of the drums broke the silence of the hilltop, and a volley fire of musketry from the rock breastwork on the right told us the battle was on.  Tybee gave me one last reproachful look and stood out to see what could be seen, and I stood with him.

“Your friends are running,” he said, when there was no reply to the opening volley; and truly, I feared he was right.  At the bottom of the slope, scattering groups of the riflemen could be seen hastening to right and left.  But I would not admit the charge to Tybee.

“I think not,” I objected, denying the apparent fact.  “They have come too far and too fast to turn back now for a single overshot volley.”

“But they’ll never face the fire up the hill with the bayonet to cap it at the top,” he insisted.

“That remains to be seen; we shall know presently.  Ah, I thought so; here they come!”

At the word the forest-covered steep at our end of the hill sprang alive with dun-clad figures darting upward from tree to tree.  Volley after volley thundered down upon them as they climbed, but not once did the dodging charge up the slope pause or falter.  Unlike all other irregulars I had ever seen, whose idea of a battle is to let off the piece and run, these mountain men held their fire like veterans, closing in upon the hilltop steadily and in a grim silence broken only by the shouting encouragements of the leaders—­this until their circling line was completed.

Then suddenly from all sides of the beleaguered camp arose a yell to shake the stoutest courage, and with that the wood-covered slopes began to spit fire, not in volleys, but here and there in irregular snappings and cracklings as the sure-shot riflemen saw a mark to pull trigger on.