"Back on the main body! Fall back for help!" The colonel and the men, who like me had been seized by surprise, sprang back. Almost in a breath I had formed my resolution, and I ran, neither forward nor back, but to one side. When I had taken a dozen quick steps, I flung myself upon my face. As I did so, the second volley crashed over my head, and was succeeded by yells of wrath and pain. "At them, boys! At them!" shouted a loud voice that was not the English colonel's. "Drive the bloody scoundrels off the earth!" I doubted not that the voice belonged to the leader of the attacking party. I arose and continued my flight. Behind me I heard the British replying to the fire of the assailants, and the other noises of the struggle. The shots and the shouts rose high. I knew that I was following no noble course just then, that I was flying alike from the force to which I pretended to belong, and from the force to which I belonged in reality; but I saw nothing else to do, and I ran, while the combat raged behind. I was in constant fear lest some sharpshooter of either party should pick me off, but my luck was better than my hopes, and no bullet pursued me in my flight. When I thought myself well beyond the vortex of the combat, I dropped among the bushes for breath and to see what was going on behind me. I could not hear the cries so well now, but the rapid flashing of the guns was proof enough that the attack was fierce and the resistance the same. As I watched, my sense of shame increased. I ought to be there with the Americans who were fighting so bravely. For a moment I was tempted to steal around and endeavor to join them. But how could I fire upon the men with whom I had been so friendly and who had looked upon me as one of their own but ten minutes ago? I was no crawling spy. Then, again, I was in full British uniform, and of course the patriots would shoot me the moment they caught sight of me. Richly, too, would I deserve the bullet. Again there was naught for me to do but to resort to that patient waiting which I sometimes think is more effective in this world than the hardest kind of work. And well it may be, too, for it is a more trying task. I could not tell how the battle was going. So far as the firing was concerned, neither side seemed to advance or retreat. The flashes and the shots increased in rapidity, and then both seemed to converge rapidly towards a common centre. Of a sudden, at the very core of the combat there was a tremendous burst of sound, a great stream of light leaped up and then sank. The firing died away in a feeble crackle, and then I knew that the battle was over. But which side had won was a question made all the more perplexing to me by my inability to decide upon a course of conduct until I could learn just what had happened.