Page:Monthly scrap book, for August.pdf/14

14 signified his intention to accompany the guard when they relieved the centinel they had left. At the appointed time they all marched together; and again, to their unutterable wonder, they found the place vacant and the man gone! Under these circumstances, the Colonel hesitated whether he should station a whole company on the spot, or whether he should again submit the post to a single centinel. The cause of these repeated disappearances of men, whose courage and honesty were suspected, must be discovered; and it seemed not likely that this discovery could be obtained by persisting in the old method. Three brave men were now lost to the regiment, and to assign the post to a fourth seemed nothing less than giving him up to destruction. The poor fellow whose turn it was to take the station, though in other respects of incomparable resolution, trembled from head to foot. "I must do my duty," said he to the officer, "I know that; but I should like to lose my life with more credit." "I will leave no man," said the Colonel, "against his will." A man immediately stept from the ranks and desired to take the post. Every one commended his resolution. "I will not be taken alive," said he, "and you will hear of me on the least alarm. At all events I will fire my piece, if I hear the least noise. If a crow chatters, or a leaf falls, you shall hear my musket.—You may be alarmed when nothing is the matter; but you must take the chance as the condition of the discovery."

The Colonel applauded his courage, and told him he would be right to fire upon the least noise which was ambiguous. His comrades shook hands with