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Sumter's corps, near Rocky Mount, had been put to flight by Tarleton, Gates had fled the State, and only Davie's men were left between the army of Cornwallis and Charlotte, North Carolina. Had the British General pressed on into the State, North Carolina must have inevitably fallen into the hands of the enemy.
Some idea of the diligence of Marion and the excellence of his plans for procuring intelligence, may be gathered from the fact that the Charleston paper of the 2d of June, announcing the arrival of these regiments, was in his possession the very day on which it was printed, and transmitted instantly, through Sumter's command, to Greene.* Greene was unsuccessful in his attempts on Ninety-Six.
And now tears of genuine distress were welling in Mrs. Sumter's eyes. It was half after two, and the wind was shrieking through the open space back of the line, when Doctor Larrabee, bending almost double, managed to fight his way homeward. Schuchardt, occupant of the adjoining set to his own, had not yet returned.
Then gradually the foaming in the Sumter's boilers ceased, and she was again put to her speed. The utmost pressure was put on; the propeller began to move at the rate of sixty-five revolutions a minute, and the Brooklyn once more dropped slowly but steadily astern.
Yet nothing came to explain that Kincaid's detention up-town was his fond cousin's contriving, and Sumter's story was at its end when all started at once and then subsided with relief as first the drums and then the bugles sounded no alarm, but only, drowsily, "taps," as if to say to Callender House as well as to the camp, "Go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep ... Go to bed, go to bed, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-ee-eep."
After five days of hard fighting with the strong N.E. trade, blowing for the most part half a gale of wind, and with thick and dirty weather, the enemy is at length overcome, the sky clears, and the Sumter's head is turned towards Europe.
Up went the Stars and Stripes to the Sumter's peak, and the usual pause of excited expectation ensued; when, after bungling awhile with his signal halyards, as though playing with his pursuer's hopes and fears, the red ensign of England rose defiantly from the deck, and there was to be no prize after all.
At Sumter's gate the senior surgeon encountered the corporal-of-the-guard, nearly blind and well nigh exhausted. He had been sent round to relieve the men on post and bid them make the best of their way to the guard-room. He was even then searching for Number Five, who had most justifiably, in fact, involuntarily, taken refuge as previously explained.
"No more of that, sir," broke in the colonel angrily, "unless you are ready to prove your words." "Give me two days and half a chance, Colonel Button," was the confident answer, "and I'll do it." As Captain Sumter said, the ladies had gone no further than the surgeon's quarters that memorable Saturday, and with Sumter's full consent they had not gone even that far.
'Skip for your life, Rawdon, said he. 'There's been robbery at Captain Sumter's, and Sergeant Fitzroy swears it was you, and that you've struck him and assaulted him. The colonel orders you arrested wherever found. The patrols are out now! There was no time to explain. I lashed my team to town, caught Lowndes in cavalry overcoat and cap, the fool, and with not a cent to his name.
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