“The day passes swiftly,” he said. “Go back to your general and tell him that Tecumseh sends him greeting as one brave man to another and challenges him to combat. Tell him that the redcoats and red men are united and wait to give him battle. Tell him that--tell him what you will. You can tell him nothing but what Tecumseh wishes him to know. But tell him to hasten. Your way to the Star maiden lies across my lines. Till sunset Tecumseh will protect her. Afterwards, you must protect her yourself. If you pass our lines you may clasp her in your arms before the sun sets. I have spoken! Go!” Brito had listened in silence. He attempted no protest. He made no further accusation of treachery. Instead, he bowed. “I am stationed at the very center of the British part of our lines, my dear cousin,” he said; “I will await you there. Fail not--or it will be I who will clasp the Star maiden in my arms this night.” CHAPTER XXIV TECUMSEH had chosen well the ground where he had forced Proctor to stand at bay. The River Thames, running between high precipitous banks, protected his left flank, and a great marsh nearly parallel to the river protected his right. He could be reached only by a direct frontal attack, during which the Americans would be continually under fire. Midway between river and swamp was a smaller swamp, almost impassable. The only road ran close along the river; the rest of the space between swamp and river was a park-like expanse thinly set with great trees, beech, sugar maple, and oak. Beneath them the ground was bare, save where trees had fallen. Any enemy who might advance across it must infallibly have his columns broken and would yet be exposed to volley fire, against which the trees would offer little or no protection. Beyond this park, at the edge of a thicket of beech, the British regulars were posted on a line running from the river to the smaller swamp. Their artillery was placed so as to sweep the river road. Tecumseh and his warriors held the line between the two swamps and along the front of the larger swamp, ready to pour an enfilading fire on the American flank and to charge upon its rear the moment it pressed too far forward in its attack. One false move, one error, and the disaster of the River Raisin might be repeated. But this time a real soldier was in command. It was long past noon when the American regiments swung out of the underbrush that had screened their movements onto the broad park-like expanse that rolled to the edge of the beech wood and the swamp where their foes waited.