We had filled our canteens with water before this last march; but I had allowed my men to drink but sparingly, knowing how much they would need it later. Now I pitied them as well as myself, and I gave the word to turn up the canteens; but I ordered that the drink should be a very short one. Up went the canteens as if they had been so many muskets raised to command. There was a deep grateful gurgle and cluck along the whole line as the water poured into the half-charred throats of the men. But Marcel and I had to draw our swords and threaten violence before they would take the canteens away from their lips. "Leftenant," said the bare-waisted man, reproachfully, "I was right in heaven then, and you pulled me out by the legs." "Then you may be sent back to heaven or the other place soon enough," I said, "for here come the British. Ready, men!" "Confound the British!" growled the big man. "I don't mind them, but I hate to be baked afore my time." The British opposite the orchard, who, like ourselves, had been waiting, were forming in line for an attack. The trumpets were blowing gayly, and the throbbing of the drums betokened the coming conflict. Presently across the fields they came, a long line of flashing bayonets and red coats, with the cavalry on either wing galloping down upon us. General Wayne himself passed along our line, and, like Putnam at Bunker Hill, told our men to be steady and hold their fire until the enemy were so close that they could not miss. The British fired a volley at us as they rushed across the fields, and then, with many an old score to settle, we rose and poured into them, at short range, a fire that swept away their front ranks and staggered the column. But they recovered, and charged us with the bayonets, and we met them with clubbed rifles, for few of us had bayonets. In a moment we were in a fierce turmoil of cracking guns, flashing swords, and streaming blood and sweat. The grass was trampled into the earth; the dust arose and clogged our throats and blinded our eyes. Over us the sun, as if rejoicing in the strife and seeking to add to it, poured his fiercest rays upon us, and men fell dead without a wound upon them. A British sergeant rushed at me with drawn sword when I was engaged with another man, and I thought the road to another world was opening before me; but when the Englishman raised his sword to strike, the weapon dropped from his limp fingers to the ground, and he fell over, slain by the sun.