United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The driver was horribly afraid, and lashed on the horses, as everybody else had done before, and they, taking fright, galloped away over the log-road with a marvellous clatter. Meanwhile, however, the young nobleman saw by the light of the moon how that the apparition flattened a ball of horse-dung whereon it trod, and straightway felt sure within himself that it was no ghost.
"I'm thinking they'll have trouble with these wagons, for there's a swamp at the bottom and only a log-road across." "Tis the proper shpot f'r to ambuscade us," observed Murphy, craning his neck and standing on tiptoe to see ahead. We walked forward and sat down on the bank close to the brow of the hill.
Then hell itself broke loose in that black ravine; volley on volley poured into the Canajoharie regiment; officers fell from their horses; drivers reeled and pitched forward under the heels of their plunging teams; wagons collided and broke down, choking the log-road.
Some dropped dead where they had been shot; some rolled to the log-road; some fell into the marsh, splashing and limping about like crippled wild fowl. "Advance der Palatine regiment!" thundered Herkimer. "Clear avay dot oxen-team!" A drummer-boy of the Palatines beat the charge. I can see him yet, a curly-haired youngster, knee-deep in the mud, his white, frightened face fixed on his commander.
Whips cracked; the vehicles rattled off down hill, drivers yelling, soldiers pushing the heavy wheels forward over the log-road below which spurted water as the bumping wagons struck the causeway.
"There do be wild ducks in thim rushes," said Murphy, musingly. "Sure I count it sthrange, Jack Mount, that thim burrds sit quiet-like an' a screechin' rigiment marchin' acrost that log-road." "You mean that somebody has been down there before and scared the ducks away?" I asked. "Maybe, sorr," he replied, grimly.
We neared the bridge, and we crossed it; and then when I had turned southeast on to the winding log-road through the bush at last the spell that was cast over me gave way and broke. My horses fell into their accustomed walk, and at last I saw. Now, what I saw, may not be worth the describing, I do not know. It surely is hardly capable of being described.
Louder and louder the terrific yells of the outlaws and savages rang out on our flanks; I saw our soldiers in the ravine running frantically in all directions, falling on the log-road, floundering waist-deep in the water and mud, slipping, stumbling, staggering; while faster and faster cracked the hidden rifles, and the pitiless bullets pelted them from the heights above. "Stand!
Word Of The Day