"If I were in command, Fort Dearborn should go down to history with honour, not shame. Water and food are assured. What if the British with all their forces were hammering at our gates, allied with the red devils as they are! We have the Fort at our backs--they have the river and the open prairie. We could hold it for six months, if necessary. The War Department says: 'No post shall be surrendered without battle having been given,' and, by the Lord, we'd give a battle that would fill hell with our enemies. One stroke will do it--one bullet from our precious store of ammunition--one man brave enough to strike; but it must be done to-night--now!" The Ensign's face was ghastly. "Think what it means to you," whispered the Lieutenant. "Think of the woman you love! Oh, I know--I have not been blind. Would you see her put to the torture, stripped, violated, torn limb from limb by those fiends that even now are watching the Fort? "Think of their bloody, cruel hands upon her soft flesh--think of the torture--eyes burned out with charred sticks--finger-nails split off backward--things that there are no words to name, while Beatrice cries to you! "Boy, think of the woman you love, with her big childish eyes,--shall the savages burn them out? Her dimpled hands--shall her fingers be torn out, one by one? Her sweet voice--shall it cry to you in vain? Think of her fair white body, at the mercy of two thousand fiends! Think what she means to you--her beauty and her laughter--her tenderness and her thorns--then think of this! One man--one bullet--one moment--to-night--now!" His voice died into a hoarse whisper and Ronald writhed in anguish. For an instant, only, the scales hung in the balance, then he turned and faced him. "No!" he roared, "by God, no! I'll protect the woman I love while a drop of blood is left in my body--as long as this sword has a hand behind it to fight. If I am powerless to save her, she shall die at my hands, but I'll be no beast! "I'll not commit murder like a Brutus or a Cromwell. I'll not strike down my Captain like a thief in the night! I'll stab no man in the back--I'll meet him face to face in fair and open fight, and may the best man win! "Ralph, you're beside yourself--you don't know what you're saying. You're a soldier, man, you're not a brute! Stand fast to your soldier's honour, and let God do as He will! "We're all against him--officers and men. Perhaps there's not a man in barracks who would hesitate at what you ask--mutiny and insurrection stalk abroad in our midst, but, by the Lord, I'll obey my orders! Strike the blow if you will--go like a coward and a thief to take the life of a brave man, who is doing what seems to him his duty--hire your contemptible assassin if you choose, but remember this--the man who touches one hair of my Captain's head, answers for it--to me!" CHAPTER XIX SAVED FROM HIMSELF