- "and with - the same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't
you hear the cannon last night?"

"Then, there was firing!" he said to himself.

"I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that," I returned, "for
we heard it up at home, and that's further away, and we were shut
in besides."

"Why, see now!" said he. "When a man's alone on these flats, with a
light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he
hears nothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling.
Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the
torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number
called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets,
hears the orders 'Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!' and
is laid hands on - and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing
party last night - coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp,
tramp - I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist
shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day - But this man;" he
had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there; "did
you notice anything in him?"

"He had a badly bruised face," said I, recalling what I hardly knew
I knew.

"Not here?" exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly,
with the flat of his hand.

"Yes, there!"