第74章

MARION'S MEN.BY WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

The partisan had managed admirably, but he was now compelled to fly.The advantage of the ground was no longer with him.Tarleton, with his entire force, had now passed through the avenue, and had appeared in the open court in front.The necessity of rapid flight became apparent to Singleton, and the wild, lively notes of his trumpet were accordingly heard stirring the air at not more than rifle distance from the gathering troop of Tarleton.Bitterly aroused by this seeming audacity,--an audacity to which Tarleton, waging a war hitherto of continual successes, had never been accustomed,--his ire grew into fury.

"What, men! shall these rebels carry it so?" he cried aloud.--"Advance, Captain Barsfield! Advance to the right of the fence with twenty men, and stop not to mark your steps.Advance, sir, and charge forward.You should know the ground by this time.Away!--Captain Kearney, to you wood! Sweep it, sir, with your sabers; and meet in the rear of the garden."The officers thus commanded moved to the execution of their charges with sufficient celerity.The commands and movements of Major Singleton were much more cool, and not less prompt.He hurried along by his scattered men as they lay here and there covered by this or that bush or tree: "Carry off no bullets that you can spare them, men.Fire as soon as they reach the garden; and when your pieces are clear, take down the hill and mount."Three minutes did not elapse before the rifles had each poured forth its treasured death; and without pausing to behold the effects of their discharge, each partisan, duly obedient, was on his way, leaping off from cover to cover through the thick woods to the hollow where their horses had been fastened.

The furious Tarleton meanwhile led the way through the garden, the palings of which were torn away to give his cavalry free passage.With a soldier's rage, he hurried forward the pursuit, in a line tolerably direct, after the flying partisans.But Singleton was too good a soldier, and too familiar with the ground, to keep his men in mass in a wild flight throughwoods becoming denser at every step.

When they had reached a knoll at some little distance beyond the place where his horses had been fastened, he addressed his troop as follows: "We must break here, my men.Each man will take his own path, and we will all scatter as far apart as possible.Make your way, all of you, for the swamp, however, where in a couple of hours you may all be safe.--Lance Frampton, you will ride with me."Each trooper knew the country, and, accustomed to individual enterprise and the duties of the scout, there was no hardship to the men of Marion in such a separation.On all hands they glided off, and at a far freer pace than when they rode together in a body.A thousand tracks they found in the woods about them, in pursuing which there was now no obstruction, no jostling of brother-horsemen pressing upon the same route.Singleton and his youthful companion darted away at an easy pace into the woods, in which they had scarcely shrouded themselves before they heard the rushing and fierce cries of Tarleton's dragoons.