But 'tis a thousand wonders the noise of our
passage was not sooner heard, though De Lancey's stern command for
silence left no sound possible from us except that of our horses and
equipments. I fancy 'twas the loud murmur of the stream that shielded
us. But at last, as we approached the turning of the water, where we
were to dismount, surround the rebels hutted upon the hill before us,
creep silently upon them, and attack from all sides at a signal, there
was a voice drawled out of the darkness ahead of us the challenge:
"Who goes thar?"
We heard the click of the sentinel's musket-lock; whereupon Captain De
Lancey, in hope of gaining the time to seize him ere he could give the
alarm, replied, "Friends," and kept riding on.
"You're a liar, Jim De Lancey!" cried back the sentinel, and fired his
piece, and then (as our ears told us) fled through the woods, up the
hill, toward his comrades.
There was now nothing for us but to abandon all thought of surrounding
the enemy, or even, we told ourselves, of taking time to dismount and
bestow our horses; unless we were willing to lose the advantage of a
surprise at least partial, as we were not. We could but charge on
horseback up the hill, after the fleeing sentinel, in hope of coming
upon the rebels but half-prepared. Or rather, as we then felt, so we
chose to think, foolish as the opinion was. Indeed what could have
been more foolish, less military, more like a tale of fabulous knights
in some enchanted forest? A cavalry charge, with no sort of regular
formation, up a wooded hill, in a night dark enough in the open but
sheer black under the thick boughs; to meet an encamped enemy at the
top! But James De Lancey's men were noted rather for reckless dash
than for military prudence; they felt best on horseback, and would
accept a score of ill chances and fight in the saddle, rather than a
dozen advantages and go afoot.
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