Just as the fellow had finished scattering the oil and was about to strike a match, one of the other Moros seized the fellow"s arm, then pointed up to the flag pole over the front of the building.
All of the brown rascals began to chuckle. Then one of them climbed up.
With a keen-edged creese he cut the Flag loose, hurling it down to the ground.
Now began an orgy of derision. First the Moros spat upon the Flag; then, howling gleefully, they commenced to dance upon it. Every now and then one of the brown men bent down to slash at the Flag.
It was hard for some sixty of Uncle Sam"s men to stand there, with guns in their hands, and witness such desecration as that. Some of the soldiers began to mutter.
"Silence!" hissed Lieutenant Prescott.
One soldier rested his rifle forward, as though bent on taking a shot, but Sergeant Hal, like a flash, knocked up his arm.
"No man is to fire unless ordered," muttered Overton, and Lieutenant Prescott nodded his approval.
Soon the Flag lay torn and trampled, all but covered in the dust of the roadway before the school. Then one of the Moros again struck a match.
In a moment the flames began to crackle and the smoke to ascend.
Then, as if satisfied with their work, the brown rascals set out at a steady trot in the direction of Seaforth"s.
"Men," spoke Lieutenant Prescott, in a low voice, "it would have been fine to have poured a volley into those wretches, but it would have told their main body our exact location. We must sink all other feelings until we have reached the plantation and rescued those imperiled there.
Corporal Cotter, lead your men to the left, through the woods and around the schoolhouse. On the other side you will find a path that you will follow."
As the detachment started Hal saluted.
"Sir, have I your permission to run out into the clearing, recover the Flag and then rejoin you?"
Lieutenant Prescott shot a keen look at the Army boy, then answered briefly:
"Yes, Sergeant."
Hal"s task was quickly executed. In the open he encountered no one; when he rejoined the column in the woods he reverently carried a Flag, torn, slashed and dirt-stained.
"One of these days, sir," quivered the Army boy to his officer, "I hope to be able to teach those Moros a lesson with this very Flag!"
CHAPTER XI
IN THE FIRST BRUSH WITH MOROS
At times, while the detachment in the woods covered that last mile the firing ahead cropped up briskly. Then it died down into an occasional, sputtering shot or two. But every discharge of a rifle ahead was now distinctly audible to Uncle Sam"s men marching to the relief.
At last the marching men came so close that the young lieutenant whispered to the boyish sergeant:
"I"m going to join the "point," Overton. Bring the men on at the same interval, but keep your eyes ahead for signals from me."
"Very good, sir."
Ahead the marching men could now see that the trees were thinning out.
Still further ahead they knew that there must lie either plantation fields or the houses themselves.
Many a soldier in the column tightened his grip on his rifle as he thought how soon, now, the raiding Moros would find that they had more fighting on hand than they had bargained for.
The "point" presently halted at the edge of the forest and Lieutenant Prescott signaled back by raising his hand with a downward gesture.
Sergeant Overton halted the main detachment.
Over a broad field the soldiers looked, but it was now plain that the besieged planter"s house lay on the other side of a belt of timber at the further edge of the field. Then the officer signaled for the main column to be brought up.
"I don"t see any of the enemy in sight, men," declared Prescott. "You will deploy into line of skirmishers and then we"ll run across the field. Be prepared for the order to lie down in case the enemy develops."
A moment later, and the men, in one straight, thin line, with considerable intervals between them, charged silently across the field.
At the edge of the timber they halted again. Lieutenant Prescott, revolver in hand, moved forward, accompanied only by Corporal Cotter.
After some minutes the pair came back again.
"You"ll go forward as skirmishers," said Prescott. "Keep your intervals.
Forward!"
No further word was spoken, but the lieutenant, at the right of the line and slightly in advance, moved so stealthily that those nearest him felt that the enemy could not be far off.
Suddenly the stick that the lieutenant carried in place of a sword was held aloft, then the point lowered. The advancing line halted.
"When you move forward again," went the low, almost whispered and repeated order down the line, "crouch low and do not hurry. A hundred yards ahead is a position from which we can rake the rascals with a flanking fire. Forward!"
Very soon the advancing soldiers caught sight of the planter"s house between the trees. It stood some seven hundred yards from this nearer edge of the clearing.
Now the soldiers, crouching as they moved, until they appeared to be bent nearly double, came in sight of a trench. It spread away obliquely before them, but everything in the trench was visible to them. At a rough estimate there were some seventy-five brown-skinned Moros crouching in the trench behind a line of hard-packed dirt thrown up before them.
At this moment most of the brown fellows were loafing in the trench.
Only occasionally one of them showed himself, raising his gun quickly and firing toward the house. The planter"s return fire did not come toward Prescott"s command, but well to the right of the soldiers.
"The Moros are up to their same old rascally tricks," whispered Lieutenant Prescott to Sergeant Hal Overton. "They fire heavily, once in a while, and then pepper the house occasionally with single shots. Their idea is to keep those in the house firing until the defenders have used up all their ammunition. When the Moros are satisfied that Seaforth"s party have no more cartridges, then those brown pirates plan to rush the house, with little loss to themselves, and run creeses through every defender left alive."
A moment later Prescott"s order was repeated down the line of soldiers, now lying p.r.o.ne on the ground:
"Load magazines! Remember to fire low. At the pistol shot begin firing at will, but keep cool and try to make every cartridge tell. Better to shoot slowly than to waste any ammunition."
As noiselessly as they could the prostrate men opened the magazines of their rifles and slipped the cartridges in.
Lieutenant Prescott, revolver in hand, waited until he saw that all had had time to obey the order. Then the stick, now in his left hand, pointed forward, and the various squad leaders whispered:
"At four hundred yards, aim!"
It was a tense moment for the new men.
Bang! Lieutenant Prescott"s revolver rang out, the muzzle pointed toward the enemy.