Chapter 23

_Hect_. Is this Achilles?
_Achil_. I am Achilles.
_Hect_. Stand fair, I pray thee--let me look on thee.

Troilus and Cressida.

It may now be necessary to take a rapid glance at the situation of the
whole combat, which had begun to thicken in different parts of the valley.
The party led by Dudley, and exhorted by Meek, had broken its order on
reaching the meadows behind the fort, and, seeking the covers of the
stumps and fences, it had thrown in its fire, with good effect, on the
irregular band that pressed into the fields. This decision quickly caused
a change in the manner of the advance. The Indians took to covers, in
their turn, and the struggle assumed that desultory but dangerous
character, in which the steadiness and resources of the individual are put
to the severest trial. Success appeared to vacillate; the white men at one
time widening the distance between them and their friends in the dwelling,
and, at another, falling back as if disposed to seek the shelter of the
palisadoes. Although numbers were greatly in favor of the Indians, weapons
and skill supported the cause of their adversaries. It was the evident
wish of the former to break in upon the little band that opposed their
progress to the village, in and about which they saw that scene of hurried
exertion which has already been described--a spectacle but little likely
to cool the furious ardor of an Indian onset. But the wary manner in which
Dudley conducted his battle, rendered this an experiment of exceeding
hazard. However heavy of intellect the Ensign might appear on other
occasions, the present was one every way adapted to draw out his best and
most manly qualities. Of large and powerful stature, he felt, in moments
of strife, a degree of confidence in himself, that was commensurate with
the amount of physical force he wielded. To this hardy assurance was to be
added no trifling portion of the sort of enthusiasm that can be awakened
in the most sluggish bosoms, and which, like the anger of an even-tempered
man, is only the more formidable from the usually quiet habits of the
individual. Nor was this the first, by many, of Ensign Dudley's warlike
deeds. Besides the desperate affair already related in these pages, he had
been engaged in divers hostile expeditions against the aborigines, and on
all occasions had he shown a cool head and a resolute mind.

There was pressing necessity for both these essential qualities, in the
situation in which the Ensign now found himself. By properly extending his
little force, and yet keeping it at the same time perfectly within
supporting distance, by emulating the caution of his foes in consulting
the covers, and by reserving a portion of his fire throughout the broken
and yet well-ordered