"Kill away, Major, if you think best. It won't better _your_ situation much. I know you, and what you will do. _You will surrender this fort._ Yes, sir; in the hopes of saving your miserable skin, you'll surrender! But you won't even save your own carcass. You can believe what I tell you. I know them troops out thar, and their way of fightin'. You won't make nothing by surrendering to _them_, and Tim Murphy, for one, ain't going to surrender. _No, sir!_" Again the gallant militiamen applauded his sentiments, which were no sooner uttered than the rifleman discharged his piece at the approaching officer, missing him, as before, purposely. Of course, at this, hostilities were renewed; but, as the rifleman said, he knew which of two dangers was most to be dreaded; and, if he must perish, he preferred to die in defense of what had been intrusted to them rather than to be smote down after the humiliation of a surrender by murderers who respected none of the laws of war. It is true, that, to fire upon a flag of truce, was a breach of military usage, and, in almost any circumstances, inexcusable; but not so now, when the garrison would only meet with the most fatal treachery as the result of any interview. The officers of the regulars, however, did not so regard the affair. Brought up under the stern discipline of military rule, they took sides with the Major, and expostulated with Murphy upon his unwarrantable violation of the laws of war. "Don't talk," he cried, impatiently. "Jest come up here and take a look at the smoke arising from the homes of defenseless citizens. Take a look at the red-skins dancing around 'em, like devils around the fires of hell. Hear the screams of them women and children they are murderin' in cold blood. By the God above, if I could get at them fiends, I'd stop that music!" His teeth were firmly set; his face hardened; his eyes shone like two coals of fire; and, disdaining to argue his point at a moment like that, he settled his weapon for the next victim who should venture within range. The garrison could indeed hear, in the intervals of the cannon's silence, the shrieks of helpless families smote down by the tomahawk. "Do you hear it?" he cried again, as the shrill cry of a female voice pierced the air. "That's the kind of enemy you've got to deal with, and there you stand, balancing yourselves on a _p'int of law_! If you open your gates and lay down your arms, you, nor your wives and children, won't meet any better fate. If you want to be tortured by red-skins, and your families given up to their devilment, let 'em in, let 'em in! _I_ shan't have a hand in it."