George darted into the cellar, and directly the rumbling of a small gun upon a rude carriage, with the wheels cut from solid logs of wood, was heard. Cæsar was dragging the swivel out, while George followed with the powder and shot. There was now not a single Indian in the narrow passage except one lying stark before them. Without a moment’s thought, George darted forward to drag the prostrate form out of the way of the gun, lest, if the Indian were dead, it might mutilate him, and if only wounded it might kill him. As George stooped forward to lift him the Indian, who was bleeding profusely from a wounded leg, suddenly threw his left arm around George’s neck, and with the other hand drew a tomahawk from under him. But George was too quick for him, and, catching his arm, lifted him bodily, and carried him back into the large passageway where they stood. It was Black Bear. “_You_ a squaw man,” was Lance’s comment. Black Bear said no word, but, raising himself from the ground, produced a leather thong, which he tied around his bleeding leg, rudely but not unskilfully checking the flow of blood, after which Lance tied him securely and put him in a corner. There was now a brief pause, and the guns were reloaded, and all were prepared for a second assault, while the swivel commanded the passageway thoroughly. “They know what is going on here,” said the earl, “and their next attack will be by the front entrance.” “True, sir,” responded Lance. “Shall we leave Mr. Washington here while we reconnoitre the front of the house?” asked Lord Fairfax of Lance, who was the actual commandant of the garrison. “I think so, sir--with Cæsar and one or two others. But keep your eye on Black Bear, Mr. Washington,” said Lance, “as well as this passage.” Just then the noise of an assault on the other part of the house was heard, and the whole force went over on that side, leaving George, and Cæsar the cook, and Jake the scullion, to watch the passageway. Occasionally they could see, by the dim light of a lantern hung to the wall, a figure passing to and fro in the kitchen, and the shattered timbers of the door, through which a white light was visible on the kitchen floor. As this part of the building was of stone, it could not be fired, so that the savages were powerless unless they could force their way in by the passage, and that they had tried unsuccessfully to do. George remembered to have heard that wounded men suffer fearfully from thirst. There was a cedar bucket full of water on a shelf in the larger passage, with a gourd hanging by it. He told Jake to put the bucket by Black Bear, and although the Indian had sat perfectly still, not showing, even by a contraction of the brows, the agony he was suffering from his wound, he gulped the water down eagerly.