The sounds of music, softly played, came from the mansion; splendidly attired officers and gorgeously dressed maskers now and then passed the windows or thronged down the steps. Here and there was gathered a knot of the young blades of the army, both foot and horse, masked, but wearing their uniforms. They talked and laughed loudly; the campaign was largely the subject of their conversation, and they recounted their personal deeds vaingloriously. “If the louts would only stand and fight,” said one youthful, but strapping dragoon. “How is a fellow to do anything satisfactory when the beggars do nothing but dart in and out among the swamps like a lot of gnats.” “You are right,” said another; “it is quite disappointing when one has a body of them almost in one’s hand, and then, in a moment--presto, they are gone.” “And this rascal Marion is the most elusive of the lot,” said the first speaker. “He positively will not stand up and fight fairly. It’s most distressing, when one is going at the head of a party, along a dark path through the swamps, to have this fellow, the Swamp-Fox, as Tarleton has named him, suddenly spring out from ambush and pour a fire into one.” A laugh greeted this complaint; it was well known to all that the speaker had suffered in this way not long before. “Campbell must have been asleep in his saddle that night,” remarked one. “Then all whom the Swamp-Fox has surprised have been dozing,” flared Campbell. “It’s not exactly because of the surprise,” said the other, “but what you saw afterward.” “What do you mean?” “Well, if what you told me you saw in the fight were not the visions of a dream, I’ll give up.” “Oh, you mean the black!” exclaimed the stalwart young dragoon. “But he was no vision; he was a stern reality, as some of my fellows have cause to remember.” “Tell us about it, Campbell,” said another. “Prove to us that you were not slumbering upon the occasion spoken of.” “It’s not much of a story,” said Campbell, “it only shows how startled a man can be by something out of the ordinary when it comes upon him suddenly. “You see, awhile back, Tarleton sent me out with thirty men across the Santee to destroy some stores that the rebels had been accumulating on an island in one of the swamps. I had crossed the river and, as it was coming on night, was looking for a dry spot to encamp. Suddenly, without a moment’s warning the air was filled with the crash of rifle and pistol-shots and the most infernal yelling that I have ever listened to. Then out from behind bush, thicket, trees and everything else that could possibly hide a man, poured the rascally band of this rebel, Marion.” “Nothing extraordinary in that, that I can see,” said the young officer who had asked for the story. “As you have just said yourself a moment ago, it’s a favorite device of the Swamp-Fox.”