Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/222

 216 The firing was stopped on both sides, and I advanced to the breach to hold a parley with them. One of the Irish lieutenants came forward and took aim at me; my second son, Peter, saw what he was about, before I observed him, and he immediately caught hold of me and drew me one side, barely in time to save me from being the victim of their treachery; for the ball passed within two or three inches of my stomach.

I was extremely indignant, and said, "Ah! you traitors! was it then merely with the view of surprising me, that you proposed a parley? Fire upon these traitors, my sons; fire, I say." The boys obeyed me without loss of time, and fired upon the deceitful miscreants.

I had foolishly exposed myself to a very great danger, by placing confidence in the good faith of an enemy whom I might have known was destitute of all honorable feeling. The ever watchful providence of God again interposed for my deliverance. We kept up an incessant fire for another quarter of an hour, when the enemy called out to us again, and made a second offer of good quarter. I reproached them with their recent perfidy, and told them I could not trust persons who had already attempted to betray the confidence I had reposed in them.

They then threatened that, if we refused to surrender, they would throw a barrel of powder in the breach, and blow us all up.

"I have three or four at your service here," said I, "and I intend to scatter their contents over this floor and the inner hall, and whenever you are pleased to enter, I, will throw a lighted turf upon it, and make you dance. You may depend upon it, I will not perish without you."