For Love of Country. Cyrus Townsend Brady
the building, or killed like that old fool who tried to stop us coming up on the landing."
"What! Blodgett, my old friend Blodgett! You villain, you haven't dared to kill him, have you? Oh, my faithful—"
"Silence, sir! We dare anything. What consideration has a rebel a right to expect at the hands of his majesty's faithful Rangers? You, Bruce and Denton, seize the old man. If he makes any trouble, knock him down, or kill him, for aught I care. One of you, take the girl there. As for you, sir," to Seymour, who had been quietly watching the scene, "I don't know who you are, but you are in bad company, and you will have to consider yourself a prisoner; I trust you have sense enough to come without force being used. And so," clapping his hat on his head defiantly, "God save the king!"
Two of the soldiers seized the colonel in spite of the vigorous resistance he made; another approached Katharine, who had stood with clasped hands during the whole of the colloquy between Johnson and her father. The soldier rudely chucked her under the chin, saying, "Come on, my pretty one! you 'll give us a kiss, won't you, before we start?" As she drew back, paling at the insult, Seymour, who had seen and heard it all, quick as a flash drew his sword, and threw himself upon the soldier; one rapid thrust at the surprised man he made, with all the force and skill begotten of long practice and a strong arm, and the hilt of his blade crushed against the man's throat, and he fell dead upon the floor. At the same instant one of the other soldiers, who had observed the action, struck Seymour over the head with his clubbed musket, and he also fell heavily to the floor, and lay there senseless and still, blood running from a fearful-looking wound in his forehead. The room was filled with tumult in an instant, and with shouts of "Kill him!" "Shove your bayonet through the damn rebel hound!" "Shoot him!" "Kill him!" the men moved towards Seymour. Johnson looked on unconcernedly.
"Good God!" shrieked the colonel, writhing in the grasp of the men who held him, "are you going to allow a senseless, wounded man to be murdered before your eyes? Oh, how could anybody ever mistake you for a gentleman for an instant?" he added, with withering contempt; and then turning his head toward the fierce soldiery, "Stop, stop, you bloody assassins!" he cried.
"Silence, sir! He might as well die this way as on the gallows. Besides, he struck the first blow, and he has killed one of his majesty's loyal soldiers. The soldier only wanted to kiss the girl anyway, and she will find, before she gets to camp, that kisses are cheap."
"Oh, my God," groaned the father, "and they call this war!"
At this moment one of the soldiers lifted his bayonet to plunge it into the prostrate form of the unconscious sailor. There was a blinding flash of light in the room, and a quick, sharp report. The man's arm dropped to his side, and he shrieked and groaned with pain. Katharine, unnoticed in the confusion, had slipped to the side of the table, and had quickly picked up one of the pistols which Johnson had laid upon it after the silver had been taken away. Her ready decision and unerring aim had saved her lover's life. She threw the smoking pistol she had used with such effect down at her feet, and, seizing the other, she stepped over to the side of her unconscious lover.
"I swear," she said, in a shrill, high-pitched voice which just escaped a scream, and which trembled with the agitation of the moment, "by my hope of heaven, if a single man of you lay hands on him, he shall have this bullet also, you cowards!"
After a moment's hesitation, amid shouts of "Kill the girl!" the men surged toward her. Chloe, her black maid, flung herself upon her mistress' breast.
"Oh, honey, I let dem kill me fust."
"Well done, Kate! It's the true Wilton blood. Oh, if I had a free arm, you villains!" cried the still struggling colonel.
"Seize the girl," Johnson commanded promptly, "and let us get out of this."
The men made a rush toward the table where Katharine stood undaunted, her face flushed with excitement, her mouth tense with resolution. She cried—
"Have a care, men! have a care!"
One life she could still command with her loaded pistol. Her hands did not tremble. She waited to strike once more for love and country, but it would be all over in a moment.
The colonel groaned in agony, "Kate, Kate!" but they were almost upon her, when a new voice rose above the uproar—
"Hold! Are you men? Do you war with old men and women? Back with you! Get back, you dogs! Back, I say!"
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