II.—THE HORSEMAN AND HIS MESSAGE.
And while the battle swelled fiercest, and the flame flashing from the
windows of Chew's house was answered by the volley of the continental
brigade, two sounds came sweeping along the air, one from the south, and
the other from the northwest. They were the sounds of marching men—
the tread of hurrying legions.
On the summit of a gentle knoll, surrounded by the officers of his staff,
Washington had watched the progress of the fight around Chew's mansion,
not more than two hundred yards distant.
With his calm and impenetrable face, wearing an unmoved expression,
he had seen the continentals disappear in the folds of the fog, he had seen
file after file marching on their way of death, he had heard the roar of contest,
the shrieks of the wounded and the yells of the dying had startled his
ear, but not a muscle of his countenance moved, not a feature trembled.
But when those mingling sounds of marching men came pealing on his
ear, he inclined slightly to one side of his steed and then to the other, as if
in the effort to catch the slightest sound, his lips were fixedly compressed
and his eye flashed and flashed again, until it seemed turning to a thing of
living flame.
The sounds grew near, and nearer! A horseman approached from the
direction of Germantown, his steed was well nigh exhausted and the rider
swayed heavily to and fro in the saddle. The horse came thundering up
the knoll, and a man with a ghastly face, spotted with blood, leaned from
the saddle and shrieked forth, as he panted for breath—
“General—they are in motion—they are marching through Germantown
—Kniphausen, Agnew, and Grey, they will be on you in a moment, and—
Cornwallis—Cornwallis is sweeping from Philadelphia.”
The word had not passed his lips, when he fell from his steed a ghastly
corpse.
Another messenger stood by the side of Washington—his steed was also
exhausted, and his face was covered with dust, but not with blood. He
panted for breath as he shrieked forth an exclamation of joy:—
“Greene is marching from the northwest—attracted by the fire in this
quarter, he has deviated from his path, and will be with you in a moment?”
And as he spoke, the forms of a vast body of men began to more, dim
and indistinctly, from the folds of the fog on the northwest, and then the
glare of crimson was seen appearing from the bosom of the mist on the
south, as a long column of red coated soldiers, began to break slowly on the
vision of Washington and his men.
