About the middle of the afternoon the allies drew back from Brooklyn towards Great Neck, and the revolutionists recovered all the ground which had been wrested from them in the first surprise. But their assailants showed no signs of leaving the island, and were kept constantly marching and countermarching so as to produce the conviction that they were in greater numbers than was the fact. This belief, corroborated by the reports of the outposts north of the city as to the immense number of men who had been transported across the Sound, was still further strengthened in the minds of the revolutionists by a fierce attack which a small brigade made on them from the side towards Coney Island during the night. A regiment of German hussars actually dashed upon a camp of over ten thousand men on the extreme southern wing, sabred their way through it, and carried off several prisoners. The boldness of the affair convinced the revolutionists that a strong force had arrived on that side of them, ready to attack them there next morning while the army resting at Great Neck renewed the fight from the northward. The officers at the New York defences reported that only an occasional gun had been fired from the works of the allies there during the day, and that a sham attack had been made on a bastion about the centre of the line, but that very few men were to be seen. All but about one hundred and fifty thousand of the revolutionary forces were sent to the Brooklyn side; and it was determined to take advantage of the earliest dawn to turn the tables on the foreigners by surprising them, without giving them the opportunity to repeat their tactics of the day before. A greater surprise than anything they meditated awaited the revolutionists. General von Blücken had been busily, though secretly, at work all that day and night gathering forces at a point just above Mount Vernon and near the centre of the opposing line. Before midnight he had massed there more men than were behind the whole extent of the works in front of him. A show of activity and watchfulness was kept up in the allied camp on Long Island; but before daybreak all the troops sent there to join in the feint had been withdrawn again, except a couple of flying horse-batteries and a single squadron of cavalry, which were ordered to retire whenever attacked and keep out of range,--as they could easily do, owing to the almost total lack of cavalry among the revolutionists with which to pursue them. When the besieged “surprised” the besiegers’ camp, at daybreak the next morning, they found only empty tents and smouldering watch-fires which had been burning untended for several hours.