here with such swiftness of movement that had we been
armed with the best of weapons it would have been impossible for us to
have struck a blow in defence of the Jerseyman, save at great risk of
hitting him instead of our enemy.

I did succeed, after mayhap a full minute had passed, in gathering my
wits sufficiently to seize upon a stick of firewood which was lying at
one side of the fireplace, and then I went toward the combatants,
watching the opportunity to strike a blow in Master Morgan's defence. So
great was the rage within my heart, that I sincerely hoped I might bring
the oaken stick down upon Abel Hunt's head with such force as to kill
him on the instant.

At almost the precise moment when the Jerseyman leaped upon Abel Hunt,
the British cannon were discharged, and from then on until long after
the struggle had come to an end, was the firing kept up on both sides
with such violence and volume of sound that however much of a
disturbance we might have made in the cabin, or however near the
Britishers had approached to the building, no token of our movements
could have been heard. Otherwise certain it is to me that we would have
brought the enemy down upon us, for the tumult inside old Mary's cabin
was indeed great.

How long the struggle between the two men continued I had no means of
knowing. My blood was, as one would say, so boiling in my veins that I
saw nothing but red before me, and was conscious of but the one desire
to kill the scoundrel who without reason had sought to hunt us down.

Therefore it was I could not have told whether I sprang here and there
in the effort to strike a deadly blow, five minutes or half an hour,
and something very like disappointment came over me when Master Morgan
concluded the fight without aid from any of us.

His grip upon Abel Hunt's throat was so firm that the fellow's eyes were
literally starting from their sockets when he had been choked into
insensibility, and his tongue hung out of his mouth seemingly a finger's
length.

The Jerseyman although victor, had not come out of the fight unharmed.
He was bleeding from a cut on the face. His shirt had been torn from his
body until he was near naked, and so severe had been his exertions that
when Hunt finally sank back upon the puncheons like one dead Master
Morgan could only with difficulty move to his knees, panting, and with
the perspiration running down his face in tiny streams.

How long Saul and I stood gaping ope