HOW TOM JOINED MARION’S BRIGADE
WITHIN a week after Tom had hidden his father’s four thousand
pounds in the old well Charleston had capitulated, and the army of
General Lincoln was in the hands of the British. The dragoons of
Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton overran the whole district between the city
and the Cooper River; the patriot bands were broken up and scattered in
every direction.
In spite of the peril Tom could scarcely bring himself to leave the
city and its neighborhood. It seemed like deserting his task, like
seeking safety for himself and leaving his father to his fate. “He may
be on board one of those war-ships, Cole,” said he to the slave, as
they sat in their saddles prepared to leave the plantation. “It cuts
me to the heart to go; but to remain means certain capture, and as a
prisoner I could, of course, do nothing. I’ll go,” and he held up his
clinched hand as though making a vow, “but I’ll return again. I’ll
never rest content till my father breathes free air again.”
For a time South Carolina seemed doomed; defeat followed defeat so
rapidly that the hopes of the colonists were paralyzed, their spirits
subdued. Moultrie, who might have led them, was a prisoner of war;
Governor Rutledge had withdrawn to the North State to stir up the
people, and win over recruits to the cause of liberty; even Sumpter,
Horry and like bold spirits had to fly for their lives.
During the siege of Charleston, Francis Marion had lain with a broken
leg in a little cabin far back in the swamps of the Santee district.
Before the arrival of Clinton and his army, the little Huguenot had
met with an accident which prevented his taking part in the defence of
the city. Now, when Tarleton and his men, and the harsh troopers of
Cornwallis, were scouring the country all about, he was still confined
to his couch. He was too conspicuous a person, his military talents had
been too well proven, for the enemy to have forgotten him. So his only
safety was in hiding and watching and waiting for his hour to strike.
It was just the luck of Tom Deering and Cole, after escaping from
Charleston, to be pushing through a cane-brake on their way north one
afternoon when dusk was about to creep out of the east. The section
was well known to the boy and his servant, for they had ridden over it
many times in pursuit of Tories during the period after the victory at
Sullivan’s Island. Suddenly a series of shots rang out, followed by
a woman’s scream; with one accord our friends spurred forward, their
powerful animals crashing through the growth in long, swift bounds. In
a few moments they had gained a clearing, in the middle of which stood
a small cabin. The figure of a man lay before the door and a sobbing
woman bent over him. A riderless horse was cropping the grass near at
hand and a British soldier, desperately wounded, sat propped against a
stump. Two other troopers and a huge, red-faced officer--of high rank,
judging from his uniform--sat their horses at the edge of the clearing.
The troopers were loading their pieces; the officer was waving an empty
holster pistol and shouting madly; two young men, hardly more than
boys, were stationed behind trees, rapidly loading their long ducking
guns, and facing the soldiers.
It required but a glance for Tom Deering to realize the situation;
it was a patriot family attacked by a party of British. Instantly he
called to Cole, and, without pausing, they rode at the dragoons. Each
had a heavy cavalry sabre and a pair of large holster pistols; the
sabres were drawn as they charged; their heavy, curved blades rose in
the air, flashing in the waning light of day. They were upon the three
Englishmen before the latter realized their presence; Cole’s great bay
horse, in full career, struck against the lighter animal of one of the
troopers and sent horse and man to the ground in a struggling heap. At
the same instant one of the youths behind the trees near the cabin,
having finished reloading his piece, fired; the other dragoon fell from
his horse with a shattered shoulder. This left but the burly, red-faced
officer still in the saddle, and without a moment’s hesitation Tom
dashed at him, his sabre swinging for a cut.
The officer saw his danger; with a sudden jerk of his arm he threw the
heavy pistol at the boy’s head. But Tom avoided the flying weapon by
swiftly leaning to one side.
“Surrender!” he commanded, his sabre flashing about the officer’s head.
With a roar of anger like that of an infuriated bear the Englishman
drew his sword from its scabbard, and the blades crossed with a sharp,
angry ring.
Take care, Tom Deering, take care! Your boldness has led you into great
danger; you have proved a worthy pupil of Victor St. Mar, late of King
Louis’ army, but, as yet, you are not a match for Lieutenant-Colonel
Tarleton, at once a man of lion-like strength and ferocity and a master
of the sabre.
Yes, it was the terrible Tarleton, himself; he had been making a short
cut through the swamp in order that he might rejoin a detachment of his
dragoons, when they had come upon this lonely cabin.
“Surrender, you jackanapes!” he roared, in a fury at Tom’s bold demand.
“I’ll teach you something that you will not forget in a hurry!”
And with that he began a furious attack upon the boy, aiming sweeping
cuts at his head and downward slashes at his sword-arm with marvelous
rapidity; but Tom, managing his chestnut mount with his left hand,
guarded himself carefully, allowing no opening in his defence. But in
a few moments the superior skill and experience of Tarleton, together
with his greater weight, began to tell; step by step, the boy was
driven back, dazzled by the flashing sabre darting so swiftly here
and there before his eyes. A fierce grin of triumph came into the
Englishman’s face; victory was in his hands; this presumptuous youth
who had dared to face him was about to learn a lesson which he would
never forget.
But Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton had not counted upon Cole. In the very
moment of his triumph, when his heavy blade was lifted for a last and
finishing stroke, a pair of huge, black arms, as strong as bands of
steel, were thrown about him; his sabre was dashed to the ground and
he, burly man though he was, found himself plucked from his saddle and
gazing up into the grinning, ebony face of the giant slave.
Tom looked down, panting from his exertions, but smiling at the British
officer’s discomfiture.
“Hold him fast, Cole,” said he, as the officer began a desperate
struggle to break away from the bear-like hug which held him. “No use
in struggling, colonel”--the boy perceived the captive’s rank by a
glance at his uniform coat. “You are in the hands of the strongest man
in South Carolina.”
“You black dog,” fumed Tarleton, making a prolonged and desperate
struggle to break free, “let go, or I’ll be the death of you.”
Cole grinned widely; he coolly pinned the fuming colonel to the ground
by the simple process of kneeling upon his chest; his splendid white
teeth flashed his entire enjoyment of the whole affair.
“Take care,” said Tom, a note of sternness now in his voice, “that this
affair, here at the cabin, does not end in your own death. Let us see
what damage you have done.”
The two boys who had been stationed behind the trees defending their
home when Tom and Cole came up, had approached and were looking with
some astonishment at the herculean black and at the wondrous ease with
which he mastered the powerful king’s officer.
“Has any one been hurt?” asked Tom.
“Father has been wounded slightly,” said one of the youths. “But it’s
not much, for he’s on his feet again, as you can see.”
The man who had lain upon the ground at the cabin door was limping
painfully, with the aid of the woman, to a spring near at hand. The
trooper whom Cole had unhorsed was attending to the wants of his
wounded comrades.
“They must have surprised you,” said Tom. “How comes it that soldiers
attack the homes of citizens?”
“British soldiers,” said one of the young men, bitterly, “do anything
these times. They kill, burn and destroy; it does not matter much to
them who their victims are so long as they refuse to take up arms for
King George.”
“They are hanging and burning the homes of all who will not help them,”
spoke the other youth. “If a man wants to save his life or his property
he must turn traitor to his friends--he must betray his neighbor and
take up arms for a false old madman who calls himself king!”
“I’ll see you swinging at a tree limb for those words, you traitorous
rebel!” cried Tarleton, whose arms were now bound behind him by his
belt, and who, under guard of the watchful Cole, had stood listening to
the young man’s words.
“Take care, you red-coated scoundrel!” exclaimed the other, wheeling
upon him fiercely; “take care that you don’t swing from yonder
cottonwood yourself before the hour is up. In these times each man in
the swamp-lands of Carolina is a law unto himself. You have attacked us
without cause, and in strict justice we should treat you as you would
have treated us had you taken us prisoners.”
“You don’t mean to say,” cried Tom in horror, “that regular troops are
hanging prisoners! I thought that only the Tories would be guilty of
such deadly and cowardly work.”
“Colonel Tarleton, here,” and the young man pointed one accusing
finger at the British officer, “has given orders to spare no one whom
they suspect. And as they suspect all who will not help them, the
cane-brakes are full of fugitives, the clearings show nothing but
burned homes.”
“Colonel Tarleton!” exclaimed Tom, looking in surprise at the burly
form before him, and into the red, strongly-marked face. “Is this
Colonel Tarleton?”
The Englishman laughed harshly. “Ah, I see you have heard of me,” said
he, sneeringly. “There are not many in the Santee district that have
not; and there will be many more, I promise you, before this uprising
is done with. There is only one way to deal with rebels, and that is to
crush them utterly--to have no mercy.”
“And from what I have just heard, and just seen, too, for that matter,
you are acting upon your theory,” said Tom Deering, looking Colonel
Tarleton angrily in the eye. “You are a soldier--serving under the
flag of what should be an enlightened nation; and do you not know that
there is no excuse for such measures--that warfare does not sanction
them?”
“I plan my own actions and in my own way,” returned Tarleton. “And when
I want advice upon the subject, my forward young friend, depend upon
it, I shall not come to you.”
The two young men, as Tom now found, were Nat and David Collins;
they and their father were wood-cutters in the swamps. Tom noticed
something furtive in their glances, from time to time, toward the
cabin, which stood some little distance away from the scene of the
fight. Several times he had made as though to approach it, but they had
always prevented this by calling his attention elsewhere. But now they
were engaged in attending to their father, who had a painful wound in
the calf of the leg, and Tom advanced to the cabin door. At another
time he would not have dreamed of prying into their affairs, but
those were dangerous days, and a patriot’s safety rested solely upon
his alertness--upon his being constantly upon the outlook for peril.
The people seemed to be friends of Congress, but Tom had grown so
accustomed to assuring himself of everything that he did not trust them
until he had discovered that which they seemed so anxious to hide.
The interior of the cabin was dark to one just coming into it; so Tom
stood in the doorway, his sabre still in his hand, peering about, and
waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. Suddenly he
was startled by a quiet voice saying:
“Stand as you are. A movement will be dangerous, my friend, and a sound
equally so.”
Tom was surprised; for the moment he could see nothing; then he began
to make out, but dimly, a couch of furs and pine boughs in a corner;
a man lay upon this--a man who had lifted himself up upon one elbow
and held a pistol in his hand. The gray of twilight had deepened in
the swamp and the dim light that came through the open doorway was not
sufficient to enable the man upon the couch to see Tom’s face clearly;
then, too, the latter was standing with his back to the light.
“You have succeeded in ferreting me out, I see,” said the man upon the
couch. “But you have not taken me yet, remember that.”
“Who are you?” demanded Tom, his hand clutching, instinctively, the
tighter upon the hilt of his sabre.
“Don’t pretend ignorance,” said the man. “You have set a price upon my
head--or at least your masters have--the butcher Tarleton and Sir Henry
Clinton.”
At this Tom pressed forward a step; but the voice rang warningly
through the room, causing him to halt instantly.
“As you are!” said the man, sharply. “It is not wise to approach a
cornered man.”
“Whoever you are,” said Tom, eagerly, “if you are an enemy of the
British you are a friend of mine.”
There came an exclamation from the man upon the couch.
“Have I made a mistake,” said he. “Surely I heard the sounds of
fighting outside. If you are one of us that means that----”
“The British have been beaten,” said Tom, finishing the sentence for
him. “There were only four of them; two troopers have been wounded,
another and Colonel Tarleton are prisoners.”
“Tarleton!” The man upon the couch, in his excitement attempted
to spring out upon the floor, but sank back with a groan. “I had
forgotten; you see my leg is broken.”
Just then Nat Collins, the elder of the two brothers, entered; he
seemed angry at Tom for having entered the cabin, and there was an
anxious look about him, as he stood gazing from one to the other, not
knowing just how to act.
“Light a candle, Nat,” said the man upon the couch. “And why,” he
proceeded, “did you not tell me that friends had arrived.”
“They did not come until the fight had started,” said Nat, lighting a
candle in a brass sconce from a dim fire that burned on the hearth. The
flickering light fell upon Tom’s face as the young wood-cutter arose,
and the man on the couch uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“Tom Deering!” cried he.
Tom gave him one quick look and then springing forward, he seized his
hand.
“Major Marion,” he burst out joyfully. “Who would ever have thought of
seeing you here.”
“I wouldn’t, myself, some little time ago,” said the soldier. “How is
it with you, my lad?”
Tom had been of great service to Major Marion in his expeditions
against the Tories after the defeat of Sir Peter Parker’s fleet at
Sullivan’s Island; the two had gradually come to admire and trust one
another greatly.
“I have my good horse,” answered the boy, “and I have a brace of
pistols and a sabre; and, yes, there’s Cole, too; but that’s all; the
British have all the rest,” sadly--“house, slaves, plantation and all.”
“So, I have been told, is the case with all the men in Charleston who
had the courage to brave the king,” said Marion. “But I can say nothing
from my own observation, Tom, for I broke my leg about the time Clinton
arrived in the roadstead; and since the fort fell I’ve been hiding in
the cane-brakes like a fox; yes, and listening to the hounds in full
cry all around me. But don’t despair, my boy; Carolina is not yet
beaten; she has only begun to fight.”
As they talked there in the dimly-lighted room, the elder Collins
limped in. Marion’s quick eye at once noticed that he had been wounded.
“You’ve been hit,” said he, anxiously.
“Nothing to speak of, major,” said the man. “It bled pretty freely and
it pains a great deal, but it won’t last long.”
Here Mrs. Collins followed her husband into the room. “What are you
going to do with that British officer?” inquired she. “He’s going on
something dreadful out there.”
“Have him brought in,” said Marion to Tom. “I want to see this ruthless
king’s officer before we let him go.”
“Let him go!” ejaculated the Collinses in a breath. “You are not going
to do that.”
“We are hardly in a position to take prisoners of war,” said Major
Marion with a smile. “We cannot resort to his own measures and use the
rope, either. But bring him in.”
In a few moments Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton stood within the cabin,
and his wounded troopers were lying groaning upon the floor near by.
He looked with lowering brow upon Major Marion, his harsh, brutal face
made all the more ruffianly by the rage which distorted it. Marion
lay stretched upon his couch of furs and pine boughs, his deep-set,
brilliant black eyes seeming to search into the very soul of his enemy.
Tarleton bore the look for a time, then burst out in a voice thick with
the rage that consumed him.
“So you are that skulking fox, Marion, for whom we have been looking!”
“And you,” returned the little man, “are that hound, Tarleton, whom I
have been trying to avoid.”
“Take care,” burst out Tarleton, who like a great many others of his
sort, did not like to be paid in his own coin.
“Thank you; I shall endeavor to,” returned Marion, coolly. “It was my
desire to see you; for, Colonel Tarleton, I think the day is coming
when we shall meet quite often in the persons of our followers; and it
is as well for me to know you by sight.”
“I’ll teach you all to know me,” swore the fiery Tarleton. “I’ll make
the Carolinas dread my very name.”
“If that is your ambition, it is realized already. The mothers along
the Santee frighten their children into quiet by telling them that the
bloody Tarleton is coming. The reputation, my dear colonel, is not a
very noble one; but such as it is you have realized it; and as you seem
to like it I wish you great enjoyment of it.”
The quiet, biting words of Marion made the burly colonel writhe;
he answered in his loud, harsh fashion, but it was like matching a
bludgeon against a rapier, and he got all the worst of the contest of
tongues. And while they talked Tom Deering and Cole, assisted by the
two Collins boys, were not idle. The mounts of the three dragoons were
led up; a rude sling was quickly constructed and placed between two of
them for Marion. After the attacks of Tarleton, the little partisan
would not be safe in this place when the defeated troopers and their
colonel reached their own camp. It was Marion himself who had told Tom
what to do, for none knew the danger better than he.
When all was ready Cole took the slight form of the major in his mighty
arms and bore him out to where the sling was awaiting him. There were
horses enough to mount all, Mrs. Collins included. They were brought up
to the door; Mr. Collins and his wife were assisted to their saddles,
and then the three youths and Cole closed and fastened the cabin
securely, with Tarleton and his men still inside. The language of the
British officer startled Tom; but Marion had dealt with such people
before.
“I bid you good-night, Colonel Tarleton,” he called as he rested his
injured leg in the easy depths of the sling. “And you may save your
compliments; for when I extend you mine it will be on a sword blade or
the barrel of a rifle. Now then,” turning to Tom, “if we are ready,
forward.”
And away they went, along the narrow paths of the swamp, amidst the
darkness of the southern night, under the cottonwoods and palmettos;
and this little party was the nucleus of Marion’s Brigade, that band of
patriots which was a constant thorn in the side of Lord Rawdon; that
shadowy, evasive, swift striking brigade whose glory shall live while
there is a true heart that remembers.
The toil of the march and the dangers were as nothing to Tom Deering;
but his spirit was heavy within him, and as they penetrated further
and further into the interior it grew heavier still. For each step was
taking him further away from his father--the good, kind father whom,
sleeping or waking, he never forgot, and who was now lying with heavy
irons upon his limbs in some noisome prison pen.