e took this to mean that
the Americans had deserted the breastworks and waved his hat in
anticipation of victory. Then the Americans, who had been lying down,
rose and poured a deadly fire into the ranks of the enemy, and Fordyce
was among the first to fall.

Captain Leslie now came to the support of Fordyce's men, and Colonel
Woodford led his men forward to support Travis, while Colonel Stevens
led a body of men, with whom were Enderwood and Allison, to attack the
British on the flank.

For a few minutes the skirmish was hot. The British fought doggedly,
as many believed what Dunmore had told them, that if captured the
Virginians would scalp them. Rodney received a light flesh wound, but
most of the Americans escaped uninjured, while several of the enemy
were killed.

All this seems very tame in the telling, but to those who took part in
the engagement it was most exciting and the Americans were jubilant,
for they had met the British troops and driven them!

For several days reinforcements poured in from the different parts of
Virginia, and five days later Colonel Woodford marched his men to
Norfolk.

Lord Dunmore decided he could not oppose him, so withdrew aboard his
ships.

"Here are the pistols," said Lawrence the next day, presenting Rodney
with a handsome pair with silver mounted handles.

"Thank you; they are beauties. I hope you bought a brace of them for
yourself as well. You are likely to need them."

The following day both left for their homes, parting the best of
friends and planning to meet again.

As for Dunmore, his career in America was drawing to a close, though
he was able to do more mischief.

Provisions getting scarce, and the riflemen in the city annoying the
British, he sent word that unless this firing was stopped and
provisions furnished he would burn the town. His threat was defied
and, on another ship joining Dunmore, he sent a force ashore to start
a conflagration. In this way much of the thriving town of nearly six
thousand inhabitants was burned; what buildings escaped were burned
later by the Americans to prevent their occupation by the British.

Later, Dunmore left and established barracks on Gwyn's Island in
Chesapeake Bay, whence he was driven the following July by that grim
old fighter, General Andrew Lewis, who had wanted to fight him out on
the Pickaway Plains, during the Indian war.

When Rodney reached Charlottesville he found his mother sick with
fever. Without he