How long the struggle between the two men continued I had no means of knowing. My blood was, as one would say, so boiling in my veins that I saw nothing but red before me, and was conscious of but the one desire to kill the scoundrel who without reason had sought to hunt us down. Therefore it was I could not have told whether I sprang here and there in the effort to strike a deadly blow, five minutes or half an hour, and something very like disappointment came over me when Master Morgan concluded the fight without aid from any of us. His grip upon Abel Hunt's throat was so firm that the fellow's eyes were literally starting from their sockets when he had been choked into insensibility, and his tongue hung out of his mouth seemingly a finger's length. The Jerseyman although victor, had not come out of the fight unharmed. He was bleeding from a cut on the face. His shirt had been torn from his body until he was near naked, and so severe had been his exertions that when Hunt finally sank back upon the puncheons like one dead Master Morgan could only with difficulty move to his knees, panting, and with the perspiration running down his face in tiny streams. How long Saul and I stood gaping open-mouthed at the apparently dead man and nearly exhausted spy I dare not venture to say. Neither of us thought we had any part to play now that the battle was at an end; but not so with Pierre Laurens. He, dear lad, ever on watch and ever ready to take advantage of the first opportunity, understood that Abel Hunt had only been choked into unconsciousness, and that it was necessary we set about so fettering him that the battle could not be continued when his senses returned. Pierre seized upon the blanket which had fallen from Uncle 'Rasmus's knees when he set about making his way toward the door to offer his body as a living barricade, and tore it into strips until he had an apology for a rope sufficient to have tied two men, and began dextrously binding Hunt's feet and arms. His action caused me to bestir myself, and I began to fashion a gag for the fellow's mouth, knowing full well that we could not frighten him into silence as we had frightened Horry Sims. The Jerseyman recovered from his exertions before little Frenchie and I had finished our task, and then he took from my hand the stout billet of wood which I was wrapping with strips torn from the blanket, as he said: "I am not minded to have the blood of this fellow on my head, yet perhaps it would be better for all concerned if we shut off his wind for so long a time that it could never be recovered again, for he is like to be a millstone around your neck, lad, and may yet succeed in working his purpose. Killing one in cold blood, even though it be for the Cause, is more than I am willing to undertake." "But he must be gagged," I cried, thinking that Master Morgan was growing soft-hearted and might waste too much time in mourning over his victim.