thing could withstand.

"Cut them down," cried Horse Shoe, "without marcy! remember the
Waxhaws!" And he accompanied his exhortation with the most vehement and
decisive action, striking down, with a huge sabre, all who opposed his
way.

Meantime, Colonel Williams and his comrades charged the column formed by
Innis, and, in a few moments, succeeded in riding through the array and
compelling them to a total rout. Robinson and Ramsay, side by side,
mingled in this charge, and were seen in the thickest of the fight.
Innis, finding all efforts to maintain his ground ineffectual, turned
his horse towards Musgrove's mill, and fled as fast as spur and sword
could urge the animal forward. The sergeant, however, had marked him for
his prize, and following as fleetly as the trusty Captain Peter was able
to carry him, soon came up with the fugitive officer, and, with one
broad sweep of his sword, dislodged him from his saddle and left him
bleeding on the ground. Turning again towards the field, his quick eye
discerned the unwieldy bulk of Hugh Habershaw. The gross captain had, in
the hurry of the assault, been unable to reach his horse; and, in the
first moments of danger, had taken refuge in one of the little sheds
which had been constructed for the accommodation of the soldiers. As the
battle waxed hot in the neighborhood of his retreat, he had crept forth
from his den and was making the best of his way to an adjoining
cornfield. He was bare-headed, and his bald crown, as the slanting rays
of the evening sun fell upon it, glistened like a gilded globe. The well
known figure no sooner occurred to the sergeant's view than he rode off
in pursuit. The cornfield was bounded by a fence, and the burly braggart
had just succeeded in reaching it when his enemy overtook him.

"Have mercy, good Mr. Horse Shoe, have mercy on a defenceless man!"
screamed the runaway, in a voice discordant with terror, as he stopped
at the fence, which he was unable to mount, and looked back upon his
pursuer. "Remember the good-will I showed you when you was a prisoner!
Quarter, quarter--for God's sake, quarter!"

"You get no quarter from me, you cursed blood-lapper!" exclaimed Horse
Shoe, excited to a rage that seldom visited his breast; "think of
Grindall's Ford!" and at the same instant he struck a heavy downward
blow, with such sheer descent, that it clove the skull of the perfidious
freebooter clean through to the spine. "I have sworn your death," said