Their panic was complete; two we stopped, overthrown and weltering in the road. The remaining three wheeled about, and taking to their heels, went off as if old Nick had been bringing up the rear. Then you might have heard the roar, and seen the dust, which dragoons can raise, when, with whip and spur and wildly rolling eyes, they bend forward from the pursuit of death. My charger being but a heavy brute, was soon distanced. But they could not distance the swift-footed Selim. Rapid as the deadly blast of the desert, he pursued their dusty course, still gathering upon them at every jump. And before they could reach the town, though so near, he brought his furious rider alongside of two of them, whom he cut down. One hundred yards further, and the third also would have been slain; for Macdonald, with his crimson claymore, was within a few steps of him, when the guns of the fort compelled him to retire. However, though quickly pursued by the enemy, he had the address to bring off an elegant horse of one of the dragoons whom he had killed. Chapter 10. The abomination and desolation set up in South Carolina -- the author, with sorrowful heart, quits his native land, and flies to the north in quest of warlike friends -- fortunate rencontre with his gallant friend colonel Marion -- curious adventures. After the capture of Charleston, with all our troops, the British, as aforesaid, began to spread themselves over the country. Then was exhibited a spectacle, which for sadness and alarm, ought never to be forgotten by the people of America. I mean how easy a thing it is for a small body of soldiers to overrun a populous and powerful country. The British did not, after Sir Henry Clinton's return to New York, exceed THREE THOUSAND MEN; and South Carolina alone, at the lowest computation, must have contained FIFTY THOUSAND! and yet this host of poor honest men were made to tremble before that handful of ruffians, as a flock of sheep before the wolf, or a household of little children before a dark frowning pedagogue. The reason is immensely plain. The British were all embodied and firm as a rock of granite; the Carolinians were scattered over the country loose as a rope of sand: the British all well armed and disciplined, moved in dreadful harmony, giving their fire like a volcano; the Carolinians, with no other than birding pieces, and strangers to the art of war, were comparatively feeble, as a forest of glow-worms: the British, though but units in number, were so artfully arranged that they told for myriads; while, for lack of unity, the Carolinians, though numerous as myriads, passed only for ciphers. In short, the British were a handful of hawks; the poor Carolinians a swarm of rice-birds, and rather than be plucked to the pin feather, or picked to the bone, they and their little ones, they were fain to flatter those furious falcons, and oft times to chirp and sing when they were much in the humor to hate and curse.