attendant surgeon began to entertain hopes that the patient might
successfully struggle with his malady. Mildred and Mary Musgrove kept
watch in the apartment, whilst Butler, with Horse Shoe Robinson and
Allen Musgrove, remained anxiously awake in the adjoining room. Henry
Lindsay, wearied with the toils of the preceding day, and old Isaac the
negro, not so much from the provocation of previous labor as from
constitutional torpor, lay stretched in deep sleep upon the floor.

Such was the state of things when, near sunrise, a distant murmur
reached the ears of those who were awake in the cottage. These sounds
attracted the notice of Horse Shoe, who immediately afterwards stole out
of the apartment and repaired to the camp. During his walk thither the
uproar became more distinct, and shouts were heard from a crowd of
soldiers who were discovered in a confused and agitated mass in the
valley, at some distance from the encampment. The sergeant hastened to
this spot, and, upon his arrival, was struck with the shocking sight of
the bodies of some eight or ten of the Tory prisoners suspended to the
limbs of a large tree.

The repose of the night had not allayed the thirst of revenge amongst
the Whigs. On the contrary, the opportunity of conference and
deliberation had only given a more fatal certainty to their purpose. The
recent executions which had been permitted in Cornwallis's camp, after
the battle of Camden, no less than the atrocities lately practised by
some of the Tories who were now amongst the captured, suggested the idea
of a signal retribution. The obnoxious individuals were dragged forth
from their ranks at early dawn, and summary punishment was inflicted by
the excited soldiery in the manner which we have described, in spite of
all remonstrance or command.

This dreadful work was still in progress when Horse Shoe arrived. The
crowd were, at that moment, forcing along to the spot of execution a
trembling wretch, whose gaunt form, crouching beneath the hands that
held him, and pitiful supplications for mercy, announced him to the
sergeant as an old acquaintance. The unfortunate man had caught a glance
of Robinson, and, almost frantic with despair, sprang with a tiger's
leap from the grasp of those who held him, and, in an instant, threw his
arms around the sergeant's neck, where he clung with the hold of a
drowning man.

"Oh save me, save me, Horse Shoe Robinson!" he exclaimed wildly. "Friend
Horse Shoe, sav