“There is no need for us friends of the king to exchange shots with you rebels,” Seth Hastings cried vindictively while Archie was making thorough search of his clothing for concealed weapons. “The situation of affairs in the Carolinas has changed since you ran away from Charleston, and in four and twenty hours there will not be a rebel left within the borders of the two States.” “Meaning that Captain Barfield’s force is going to wipe us all out of existence, or into the prison-ships,” Gabriel said with a scornful laugh which still further roused the Tory’s ire, and he replied with a hiss which was much like that of an angry cat: “Meaning that your General Gates with his ragtag, bob-tail of an army has been cut to pieces at Camden by Lord Cornwallis, and there is now left in the Carolinas none to uphold what you have boastingly called the ‘Cause,’ save those twenty on Snow’s Island of whom you speak.” Had he struck me full in the face I could not have been more surprised and angered, yet I knew he must have told the truth regarding the disaster to General Gates, for since we held him prisoner he could be made to answer for any cock-and-bull story which he might invent on the moment. We three sat speechless with dismay, gazing at each other questioningly, and yet believing what the villain had said. Unfortunately we soon came to learn that he had exaggerated no part of it. And now right here, in order to show, while Archie is searching and binding the prisoner, in what sore distress were we who still adhered to the Cause, let me round out his story. General Gates, who was less of a soldier than he believed himself to be, gave battle with raw recruits, on lines formed in a swamp, to the most experienced of the king’s soldiers that were in the Carolinas, and one can fancy what would be the result of such a meeting, particularly when, with all other disadvantages, Gates’s men had been drawn up in the most awkward place that could have been found. The battle of Camden had been half-fought and wholly lost, and to us who sat there gazing in dismay and astonishment at the villainous Tory, it seemed indeed that we who had struggled so hard for freedom were at last entirely undone. Archie Gordon had not allowed this disheartening information to interfere with his duties, and while Gabriel and I were almost entirely overcome by dismay, he had expeditiously searched the prisoner and bound his hands behind his back, asking, after that had been done: “Where will it please you to have this fellow?” “Help him to mount his horse, and use your knife if he does not aid himself. Whether General Gates has been defeated or not, we have our work to perform, and it shall be done.” “Meaning that you are minded to find Captain Barfield’s camping-place, eh?” Seth Hastings asked in a tone which aroused my anger afresh, although his seemed to have died away entirely. “If it so be that is what you want, I have no hesitation about acting the part of guide.”