some on
the tree, some on the cliff, some leaping from the tree to the cliff;
while their comrades in the sink lurked on the side opposite that where
the patriots were.

"Take the cusses on the top of the rocks!" said Stackridge. "The rest
are harmless."

"It's all them in the tree can do to take keer of themselves," added
Withers. "Reg'lar secesh! All they ax is to be let alone."

Grudd gave the word. Flame from a dozen muzzles shot upwards from the
edge of the pit. When the smoke rolled away, the cliff was cleared. Not
a rebel was to be seen, except those in the tree franticly scrambling to
get out, and two others. One of these had fallen on the cliff: his head
and one arm hung horribly over the brink. The other, in his too eager
haste to escape from the tree, had slipped from the limb, and been saved
from dashing to pieces on the rocks below only by a projection of the
wall, to which he had caught, and where he now clung, a dozen feet from
the top, and far above the river that rolled black and slow in its
channel beneath the cliff.

"Now with your bayonets!" said Pomp. "This way!"

There were six bayonets before; now there were eight.

"That Carl is worth his weight in gold!" said the enthusiastic
Stackridge.

While the patriots, preparing for their second volley, were getting
positions among the rocks on the left, Carl had crept up the embankment
in front, and brought away two muskets from two dead rebels. These were
they who had fallen at the first fire. Both guns had bayonets. Pomp took
one; Carl kept the other. Cudjo with his sword accompanied the charging
party; Grudd and the rest remaining at their post, ready to pick off any
rebel that should appear on the cliff.

Swift and stealthy as a panther, Pomp crept around still farther to the
left, under the projecting wall, raising his head cautiously now and
then to look for the fugitives.

"As I expected! They are over there, afraid to follow the stream into
the cave, and hesitating whether to make a rush for the tree. All
ready?"

He looked around on his little force and smiled. Instead of eight
bayonets, there were now nine. Penn had arrived.

"All ready!" answered Stackridge.

Pomp bounded upon the rocks and over them, with a yell which the rest
took up as they followed, charging headlong after him. Cudjo,
brandishing his sword, leaped and yelled with the foremost--a figure
fantastically terrible. Penn, with the fiery Stackridge on one side, and