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Updated: May 12, 2025
"Is the battle lost, then?" demanded Mary, growing pale. "No, madam, no," cried Douglas; "Heaven be thanked, not yet; but through too great haste we have begun badly." "And William?" said Mary Stuart. "He is now serving his apprenticeship in arms; for, if I am not mistaken, he must be at this moment at the very spot where those marksmen are making such quick firing."
He is too brave to give up, as you may see. It happened on the terrace. There was an unexpected fusilade from the housetops. Eric placed himself between the marksmen and Miss Tullis. A bullet that might have killed her instantly, struck him in the shoulder. They were fleeing to the balcony. He fell and she dragged him to a place of safety.
A band of them happened to be stationed in the hamlet, having been attached, for the time, to Burley's command, in order that the men might be gratified by remaining as long as possible near to their own homes. They were, in general, smart, active young fellows, and were usually called by their companions, the Marksmen of Milnwood.
To rush again on those bales of cotton doubly protected behind a rock fence, through one small gate, commanded by the fire of such marksmen as lay there, was not to be thought of. They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders and kill them as they were uncovered. A hundred men would fire the jail from the rear, a hundred more with guns would shoot in front.
The latter suffered severely, but still gained ground, and the head of their column was already upon the bridge, when the arrival of Morton changed the scene; and his marksmen, commencing upon the pass a fire as well aimed as it was sustained and regular, compelled the assailants to retire with much loss.
Few were good marksmen, and, to tell the truth, few were possessed of a patriotism that would stand strain. That virtue awoke later in the Army of the Potomac; it was not present in force on the field of Bull Run. Many were three-months men, their term of service about to expire, and in their minds no slightest intention of reenlistment.
And as the renegade Mexicans were, in a number of cases, armed with rifles, the odds against Bud and his chums were increased. True, the Greasers were not good marksmen, but a rifle in the hands of even a poor shooter is often more than a match for a .45 revolver in the hands of an expert.
One of the first things he contemplated was the destruction, if possible, of the point on the opposite cliff which commanded the ledge. This, however, was utterly impracticable with the appliances at his command. The top of the rock sloped slightly towards the west, and nothing short of dynamite or regular quarrying operations would render it untenable by hostile marksmen.
His plan was to take up position with the greater part of his men on the other side of a ravine, which would thus form a kind of moat between him and the king's soldiers; he also ordered about thirty horsemen to make a great round, thus reaching unseen a little wood about two hundred yards to his left, where they could conceal themselves; and lastly, he sent to a point on the right sixty foot-soldiers chosen from his best marksmen, whom he ordered not to fire until the royal forces were engaged in the struggle with him.
Courtenay's double barrelled gun was being fired as quickly as he could reload it, and the sharp snap of one of the rifles in the Indians' possession was recognizable as coming from the poop, the remaining marksmen having preferred to fire wildly from their canoes. But Christobal knew that a deadly struggle was in progress on the fore deck.
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