Tybee made proper rejoinder and stood aside to give me room. I drew a sealed inclosure from my pocket and laid it on the work-bench table.
"I also have the honor to come from my Lord Cornwallis, bringing despatches"--so far I got in my cut-and-dried speech, and then my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth and I could no more finish the sentence than could a man suddenly nipped in a vise. Instead of the carefully doctored original, I had given the major the duplicate despatch taken from Tybee.
Ah, my dears, that was a moment for swift thought and still swifter action; and "tis the Ireton genius to be slow and sure and no wise "gleg at the uptak"," as a Scot would say. Yet for this once my good angel gave me a prompting and the wit to use it. In that clock-tick of benumbing despair when the success of the hazardous venture, and much more that I wist not of, hung suspended by a hair over the abyss of failure, I minded me of a boyish trick wherewith I used to fright the timid blacks in the old days at Appleby Hundred. So whilst the major was reaching for the packet--nay, when he had it in his hand--I started back with a warning cry, giving that imitation of the ominous _skir-r-r_ of a rattlesnake which had more than once got me a cuffing from my father.
In any crisis less tremendous I should have roared a-laughing to see the doughty major and my good friend the lieutenant vie with each other in their skippings to escape the unseen enemy. But it was no laughing moment for me. At a flash my sword was out and I was hacking hither and yon at the imaginary foe. In the hurly-burly I contrived to sprawl all across the work-bench table, and the packet which would have killed my plot--and, belike, the plotter as well--was secured and quickly juggled into hiding.
"Damme! see now what you"ve done; you"ve spilt my breech-charger all about the place!" rasped the major, when all was over. And then: "Who the devil are ye, anyway; and what do ye want wi" me?"
I clicked my heels, saluted, and gave him the express from my Lord--the right one, this time. He tore off the wrapping, swore a hearty soldier oath when he read the fore part of the letter and clapped his leg joyfully, like the brave gentleman that he was, when he came to the _postscriptum_.
"Ye"re a fine fellow, Captain; ye"ve brought me good news," he said; then he bade an aide call Captain de Peyster, his second in command, and in the same breath gave Tybee and me in charge to an ensign for our billeting for the night.
You will conceive that I was overjoyed at this seemingly safe and easy planting of the petard which was to blow my Lord Cornwallis"s plans into the air; and in antic.i.p.ation I saw the tide-turning battle and heard the huzzas of the mountaineer victors. But "tis a good old saw that cautions against hallooing before you are out of the wood. Captain de Peyster was come, and Tybee and I were taking our leave of the major, when there was a sudden commotion among the guards without, and a little man in black, his wig awry and his clothing torn by the rough man-handling of the sentries, burst into the tent.
"Seize him! seize him! he is a rebel spy!" he shrieked, pointing at me.
As you would guess, all talk paused at this dramatic interruption, and all eyes were turned upon me. Had the little viper been content to rest his charge upon the simple accusation, I know not what might have happened. But when he got his breath he burst out in a tirade of the foulest abuse, cursing me up one side and down the other, and ending in a gibbering fit of rage that left him pallid and foaming at the lips--and gave me my cue.
""Tis the little madman of Queensborough," I said, coolly, explaining to the bluff major. "His mania takes the form of a curious hatred for me, though I know not why. Two days since, he was put in arrest by my Lord"s authority for threatening my life and that of his master"s daughter.
Now, it would seem, he has broken jail and followed me hither."
"A lunatic, eh? He looks it, every inch," said the major; and the blackguard lawyer, hearing my counter accusation, was doing his best to give it a savor of likelihood by fighting frantically with the two soldiers who had followed him into the tent.
"Out wi" him!" commanded the major. "We"ve no time to foolish away wi" a Bedlamite. Take him away and peg him out, and gi" him a dash o" water to cool his head."
Pengarvin fought like a fury, and his venomous rage defeated all his attempts to say calmly the words which might have got him a hearing. So he was haled away, spitting and struggling like a trapped wildcat; and when we were rid of him the major bade us good night again.
Tybee held his peace like a good fellow till we had rolled us in our blankets before one of the camp-fires. But just as I was dropping asleep he broke out with, "I would you might tell me what piece of rebel villainy this is that I"ve been a winking accomplice to."
I laughed. ""Tis a thing to make Major Ferguson rejoice, as you saw. And surely, it can be no great villainy to give a man what he"s thirsting for. Bide your time, Lieutenant, and you shall see the outcome."
x.x.xIX
THE THUNDER OF THE CAPTAINS AND THE SHOUTING
The camp was astir early the next morning, and it soon became noised about that we were to fall back, but only so far as might be needful to find a strong position. From this it was evident that a battle was imminent, though as yet there were no signs of the approach of the patriots.
From the camp talk we, Tybee and I, gleaned some better information of the situation. A fortnight earlier Major Ferguson had captured two of the over-mountain men of Clark"s party and had sent them to the settlement on the Watauga with a challenge in due form--or rather with the threat to come and lay the over-mountain region waste in default of an instant return of the pioneers to their allegiance to the king.
This challenge, so our scouts told us, had been immediately accepted.
Sevier and Shelby had embodied some two hundred men each from the Watauga and the Holston settlements, and Colonel William Campbell, the stout old Presbyterian Indian fighter, had joined them with as many more Virginians.
Crossing the mountain these three troops had fallen in with other scattered parties of the border patriots under Benjamin Cleaveland, Major Chronicle and Colonel Williams, of South Carolina, until now, as the scouts reported, the challenged outnumbered the challengers.
Learning this, Ferguson, who was as prudent as he was brave, thought it best to make his stand at some point nearer the main body of the army; and so the withdrawal from Gilbert Town had fallen into a retreat and a pursuit.
From what Captain de Peyster has since told me, there would seem to be little doubt that the major meant to fight when he had manoeuvered himself into a favorable position; this in spite of Lord Cornwallis"s commands to the contrary. In his despatches he was continually urging the need for a bold push in his quarter, and asking for Tarleton and a sufficient number of the legion to enable him to cope with a mounted enemy. But be this as it may, the garbled letter I had brought him turned whatever scale there was to turn. He had now with him some eleven hundred regulars and Tories, the latter decently well drilled; he had every reason to expect the needed help from Cornwallis; and, on the night of my arrival, he had word that another Tory force under Major Gibbs would join him in a day or two, at farthest.
For his battle-ground Major Ferguson chose the top of a forest-covered hill, the last and lowest elevation in the spur named that day King"s Mountain.
In some respects the position was all that could be desired. There was room on the flat hilltop for an orderly disposition of the fighting force; and the slopes in front and rear were steep enough to give an attacking enemy a sharp climb. Moreover, there was a plentiful outcropping of stone on the summit, scantiest on the broad or outer end of the hill, and this was so disposed as to form a natural breastwork for the defenders.
But there were disadvantages also, the chief of these being the heavy wooding of the slopes to screen the advance of the a.s.saulting party; and while the major was busy making his dispositions for the fight, I was on tenter-hooks for fear he would have the trees felled to belt the breastwork with a clear s.p.a.ce.
He did not do it, being restrained, as I afterward learned, by his uncertainty as to whether or no the mountain men had cannon. Against artillery posted on the neighboring hillocks the trees were his best defense, and so he left them standing.
As you would suppose, my situation was now become most trying, and poor Tybee"s was scarcely less so. Knowing my name and circ.u.mstance, and having, moreover, a high regard for my old field-marshal"s genius, Major Ferguson was very willing to make use of my experience. These askings from one whom I knew for a brave and honorable gentleman let me fall between two stools. As a patriot spy, it was my duty to turn the major"s confidence as a weapon against him. But as an officer and a gentleman I could by no means descend to such depths of perfidy.
In this dilemma I sought to steer a middle course, saying that I must beg exemption because my long hard ride had re-opened my old sword wound--as indeed it had. So the major generously let me be, thus heaping coals of fire upon my head; and I kept out of his way, consorting with Tybee, who, like myself, must be an onlooker in the coming fray.
As for the lieutenant, he was all agog to learn more than I dared tell him, and it irked him most nettlesomely to have a fight in prospect in the which he was in honor bound not to take a hand. Time and again he begged me to release him from his parole; and when I would not, he was for fighting me a duel with his freedom for a stake.
"Consider of it, Captain Ireton," he pleaded. "For G.o.d"s sake, put yourself in my place. Here am I, in the camp of my friends, gagged and bound by my word to you whilst your infernal plot, whatever it may be, works out to the _coup de grace_. Ye G.o.ds! it would have been far more merciful had you run me through in our wrestling match last night!"
"Mayhap," said I, curtly. ""Twas but the choice between two evils.
Nevertheless, in time to come I hope you may conclude that this is the lesser of the two."
"No, I"m d.a.m.ned if I shall!" he retorted, fuming like a disappointed boy, and minding me most forcibly of my hot-headed Richard Jennifer. And then he would repeat: "I thought you were my friend."
"So I am, as man to man. But this matter concerns the welfare of a cause to which I have sworn fealty. Take your own words back, my lad, and put yourself in my place. Can I do less than hold you to your pledge?"
"No, I suppose not," he would say, grumpily. "Yet "tis hard; most devilish hard!"
""Tis the fortune of war. Another day the shoe may be upon the other foot."
The baggage wagons had been ma.s.sed across the broad end of the hill to eke out the stone breastwork, and the last of these arguing colloquies took place beneath one of the wagons whither we had crept for shelter from the rain, which was now pouring again. In the midst of our talk, Major Ferguson dived to share our shelter, dripping like a water spaniel.
"Ha! ye"re carpet soldiers, both of ye!" he snorted, and then he began to swear piteously at the rain.
""Twill be worse for the enemy than for us," said Tybee. "We can at least keep our powder dry."
"d.a.m.n the enemy!" quoth the major, cheerfully. "So the weather does not put the creeks up and hold Tarleton and Major Gibbs back from us, "tis a small matter whether the rebels" powder be dry or soaked."
"You have made all your dispositions, Major?" Tybee asked.
The major nodded. "All in apple-pie order, no thanks to either of ye.
"Tis a strong position, this, eh, Captain Ireton? I"m thinking not all the rebel banditti out of h.e.l.l will drive us from it."
""Tis good enough," I agreed; and here the talk was broken off by the major"s diving out to berate some of his Tory militiamen who were preparing to make a night of it with a jug of their vile country liquor.
The rain continued all that Friday night and well on into the forenoon of the Sat.u.r.day. During this interval we waited with scouts out for the upcoming of the mountain men. At noon Major Ferguson sent a final express to Lord Cornwallis, urging the hurrying on of the reinforcements, not knowing that his former despatch had been intercepted, nor that Tarleton had not as yet started to the rescue. A little later the scouts began to come in one by one with news of the approaching riflemen.
There was but a small body of them, not above a thousand men in all, so the spies said, and my heart misgave me. They were without cannon and they lacked bayonets; and moreover, when all was said, they were but militia, all untried save in border warfare with the Indians. Could they successfully a.s.sault the fortified camp whose defenders--thanks to the major"s ingenuity--had fitted butcher-knives to the muzzles of their guns in lieu of bayonets? Nay, rather would they have the courage to try?
"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.