The intensity of his feelings prevented Major Lincoln from replying, and the other soon forgot that he had spoken, in the overwhelming anxiety of the moment. The advance of the British line, so beautiful and slow, resembled rather the ordered steadiness of a drill than an approach to a deadly struggle. Their standards fluttered proudly above them, and there were moments when the wild music of their bands was heard rising on the air and tempering the ruder sounds of the artillery. The young and thoughtless in their ranks turned their faces backward and smiled exultingly as they beheld steeples, roofs, masts and heights teeming with their thousands of eyes bent on the show of their bright array.

As the British lines moved in open view of the little redoubt and began slowly to gather around its different faces, gun after gun became silent, and the curious artillerist or tired seaman lay extended on his heated piece, gazing in mute wonder at the spectacle. There was just then a minute when the roar of the cannonade seemed passing away like the rumbling of distant thunder.

"They will not fight, Lincoln," said the animated leader at the side of Lionel; "the military front of Howe has chilled the hearts of the knaves, and our victory will be bloodless."

answering sound was heard from the Americans, and the royal troops were soon lost to the eye as they slowly marched into the white cloud which their own fire had alone created.

"They are cowed, by heavens! the dogs are cowed!" once more cried the gay companion of Lionel; "and Howe is within two hundred feet of them, unharmed."

At that instant a sheet of flame glanced through the smoke like lightning playing in a cloud, while at one report a thousand muskets were added to the uproar. It was not altogether fancy which led Lionel to imagine that he saw the smoky canopy of the hill to wave, as if the trained warriors it enveloped faltered before this close and appalling discharge; but in another instant the stimulating war-cry and the loud shouts of the combatants were borne across the strait to his ears, even amid the horrid din of the combat. Ten breathless minutes flew by like a moment of time, and the bewildered spectators on Copp's were still gazing intently on the scene, when a voice was raised among them, shouting,

up

No cry of vengeance preceded the act this time, but fifty of the soldiery rushed as by a common impulse on their on their prey. Lionel had not time to utter a word of remonstrance before Job appeared in the air, borne on the lifted arms of a dozen men, and at the next instant he was seen rolling down the steep declivity with a velocity that carried him to the water's edge. Springing to his feet, the undaunted changeling once more waved his hat in triumph and shouted forth again his offensive challenge. Then, turning, he launched his canoe from its hiding-place among the adjacent lumber amid a shower of stones and glided across the strait, his little bark escaping unnoticed in the crowd of boats that were rowing in all directions. But his progress was watched by the uneasy eye of Lionel, who saw him land and disappear with hasty steps in the silent streets of the town.

While this trifling by-play was enacting, the great drama of the day was not at a stand. The smoky veil which clung around the brow of the eminence was lifted by the air and sailed heavily away to the south-west, leaving the scene of the bloody struggle again open to the view. Lionel witnessed the grave and meaning glances which the two lieuten

ants of the king exchanged as they simultaneously turned their glasses from the fatal spot, and, taking the one proffered by Burgoyne, he read their explanation in the numbers of the dead that lay profusely scattered in front of the redoubt. At this instant an officer from the field held an earnest communication with the two leaders, when, having delivered his orders, he hastened back to his boat like one who felt himself employed in matters of life and death.

'It shall be done, sir," repeated Clinton as the other departed, his own honest brow sternly knit under high martial excitement. "The artillery have their orders, and the work will be accomplished without delay." This, Major Lincoln," cried his more sophisticated companion-"this is one of the trying duties of the soldier. To fight, to bleed, or even to die, for his prince is his happy privilege, but it is sometimes his unfortunate lot to become the instrument of vengeance.'

Lionel waited but a moment for an explanation: the flaming balls were soon seen taking their wide circuit in the air and carrying their desolation among the close and inflammable roofs of the opposite town. In a very few minutes a dense black smoke arose from the deserted buildings, and forked flames played actively along the heated shingles as though rioting in their unmolested possession of the place. He regarded the gathering destruction in painful silence, and on bending his looks toward his companions he fancied, notwithstanding the language of the other, that he read the deepest regret in the averted eye of him who had so unhesitatingly uttered the fatal mandate to destroy.

In scenes like these we are attempting to describe hours appear to be minutes and time flies as imperceptibly as life slides from beneath the feet of age. The disordered ranks of the British had been arrested at the base of the hill, and were again forming under the eyes of the leaders with admirable discipline and extraordinary care. Fresh battalions from Boston marched with high military pride into the line, and everything betokened that a second assault was at hand. When the moment of stupid amazement which succeeded the retreat of the royal troops had passed, the troops and batteries poured out their wrath with tenfold fury on their enemies. Shot were incessantly glancing up the gentle acclivity, madly ploughing across its grassy surface, while black and threatening shells appeared to hover above the work like the monsters of the air about to stoop upon their prey.

Still all lay quiet and immovable within the low mounds of earth, as if none there had a stake in the issue of the bloody day. For a few moments only, the tall figure of an aged man was seen slowly moving along the summit of the rampart, calmly regarding the dispositions of the English general in the more distant part of his line, and, after exchanging a few words with a gentleman who joined him in his dangerous lookout, they disappeared together behind the

grassy banks. Lionel soon detected the name of Prescott of Pepperel passing through the crowd in low murmurs, and his glass did not deceive him when he thought in the smaller of the two he had himself descried the graceful person of the unknown leader of the "cauens."

All eyes were now watching the advance

of the battalions, which once more drew nigh the point of contest. The heads of the columns were already in view of their enemies, when a man was seen swiftly ascending the hill from the burning town; he paused amid the peril, on the natural glacis, and swung his hat triumphantly, and Lionel even fancied he heard the exulting cry as he recognized the ungainly form of the simpleton before it plunged into the work.

The right of the British once more disappeared in the orchard, and the columns in front of the redoubt again opened with all the imposing exactness of their high discipline. Their arms were already glittering in a line with the green faces of the mound, and Lionel heard the experienced warrior at his side murmuring to himself,

"Let him hold his fire, and he will go in at the point of the bayonet."

But the trial was too great for even the practised courage of the royal troops. Volley succeeded volley, and in a few moments they had again curtained their ranks behind the misty screen produced by their own fire. Then came the terrible flash from the redoubt, and the eddying volumes from the adverse hosts rolled into one cloud, enveloping the combatants in its folds, as if to conceal their bloody work from the spectators. Twenty times in the short space of as many minutes Major Lincoln fancied he heard the incessant roll of the American musketry die away before the heavy and regular volleys of the troops, and then he thought the sounds of the latter grew more faint and were given at longer intervals.

The result, however, was soon known. The heavy bank of smoke, which now even clung along the ground, was broken in fifty places,

and the disordered masses of the British were seen driven before their deliberate foes in wild confusion. The flashing swords of the officers in vain attempted to arrest the torrent, nor did the flight cease with many of the regiments until they had even reached their boats. At this moment a hum was heard in Boston like the sudden rush of wind, and men gazed in each other's faces with undisguised amazeHere and there a low sound of exultation escaped some unguarded lip, and many an eye gleamed with a triumph that could no longer be suppressed.

ment.

Until this moment the feelings of Lionel had vacillated between the pride of country and his military spirit; but, losing all other feelings in the latter sensation, he now looked fiercely about him, as if he would seek the man who dare exult in the repulse of his comrades. The poetic chieftain was still at his side, biting his nether lip in vexation, but his more tried companion had suddenly disappeared. Another quick glance fell upon his missing form in the act of entering a boat at the foot of the hill. Quicker than thought Lionel was on the shore, crying, as he flew to the water's edge,

"Hold! for God's sake, hold! Remember the Forty-seventh is in the field, and that I am its major."

"Receive him," said Clinton, with that grim satisfaction with which men acknowledge a valued friend in moments of great trial, "and then row for your lives, or, what is of more value, for the honor of the British name."

The brain of Lionel whirled as the boat shot along its watery bed, but before it had gained the middle of the stream he had time to consider the whole of the appalling scene.

The fire had spread from house to house, and the whole village of Charlestown, with its four hundred buildings, was just bursting into flames. The air seemed filled with whistling balls as they hurtled above his head, and the black sides of the vessels of war were vomiting their sheets of flame with unwearied industry.

Amid this tumult the English general and his companions sprung to land. The former rushed into the disordered ranks and by his presence and voice recalled the men of one. regiment to their duty. But long and loud appeals to their spirit and their ancient fame were necessary to restore a moiety of their former confidence to men who had been thus rudely repulsed, and who now looked along their thinned and exhausted ranks, missing, in many instances, more than half the wellknown countenances of their fellows. In the midst of the faltering troops stood their stern and unbending chief; but of all those gay and gallant youths who followed in his train as he had departed from Province House that morning, not one remained but in his blood. He alone seemed undisturbed in that disordered crowd, and his mandates went forth, as usual, calm and determined. At length the panic in some degree subsided, and order was once more restored as the high-spirited and mortified gentlemen of the detachment regained their lost authority.

The leaders consulted together apart, and the dispositions were immediately renewed for the assault. Military show was no longer affected, but the soldiers laid down. all the useless implements of their trade, and many even cast aside their outer garments under the warmth of a broiling sun added to the heat of the conflagration,