"The fight was a short one but very severe. Donop had fallen, mortally
wounded, at the first fire. Mingerode, his second in command, was
wounded also, and in all the enemy left behind, in the hasty retreat
which followed, some four hundred in killed and wounded.

"The American galleys and floating batteries in the river galled them
considerably in their retreat.

"After the fight was over Manduit, the French engineer who had directed
the artillery fire of the fort, was out with a detachment examining and
restoring the palisades, when he heard a voice coming from among the
killed and wounded of the enemy, saying, 'Whoever you are, draw me
hence.'

"It was Count Donop, and Manduit had him carried first into the fort,
afterward to a house close at hand, occupied by a family named Whitall,
where he died three days afterward.

"Donop was but thirty-seven. He said to Manduit, who attended him till
he died, 'It is finishing a noble career early; but I die the victim of
my ambition and the avarice of my sovereign.'"

"His sovereign? That was George the Third, papa?" Grace said
inquiringly.

"No, Donop was a Hessian, hired out to the British king by his
sovereign," replied her father.

"And avarice means love of money?"

"Yes, daughter; and it was avarice on the part of both sovereigns that
led to the hiring of the Hessians; the war was waged by the king of
England because the Americans refused to be taxed by him at his pleasure
and without their consent. He wanted their money.

"Whitall's house, a two-story brick, built in 1748, stood close by the
river," continued the captain, "and I suppose is still there; it was, in
1851, when Lossing visited the locality.

"The Whitalls were Quakers and took no part in the war. When the fort
was attacked Mrs. Whitall was urged to flee to some place of safety, but
declined to do so, saying, 'God's arm is strong, and will protect me; I
may do good by staying.'

"She was left alone in the house, and, while the battle was raging, sat
in a room in the second story busily at work at her spinning-wheel,
while the shot came dashing like hail against the walls. At length one,
a twelve-pound ball from a British vessel in the river, just grazed the
walnut tree at the fort, which the Americans used as a flag-staff, and
crashed into her house through the heavy brick wall on the north gable,
then through a partition at the head of the stairs, crossed a recess,
and lodged in another partitio