"That request is in perfect keeping with your conduct during the fight," returned Mr. Howe, sneeringly. "The plea of saving your battery is a very handy one; but if you are afraid to remain here with us, you may run as fast as you wish. I'd be ashamed to hold up my head after this, if I were in your place."
"I am not afraid to remain here, sir," answered Frank, with a good deal of spirit; "and if you say that I have acted the part of a coward during this fight, I defy you to prove the charge. The idea that I am afraid, because I wish to retreat in order to save my battery, is absurd. Run those guns along lively, lads."
Frank succeeded in getting his howitzers on board one of the tin-clads, which still lay alongside of the bank, without the loss of another man. A moment afterward the sailors came pouring down the bank. As soon as they were all on board, the vessels moved out into the stream, and commenced shelling the woods. While thus engaged, the Ticonderoga came down the river, and, after dropping her anchor, signaled for the officer in command of the expedition to repair on board. Mr. Howe at once put off in a boat to obey the order, while the vessel in which Frank had taken refuge ran alongside of the Ticonderoga, and as soon as the battery had been taken off, the men, covered with dust and blood, and their faces begrimed with powder, stood silently around the guns, while the remainder of the crew gathered on the opposite side of the deck, and regarded their comrades with sorrow depicted in every feature of their sun-burnt faces. Frank knew that the fight had been a most desperate one, and that he had lost many of his men; but he could scarcely believe his eyes, when he found that out of the forty brave fellows who had started out with him in the morning, but _fifteen remained_--more than half had been left dead on the field, or prisoners in the hands of the rebels.
In a scarcely audible voice he called the roll, and his emotion increased when, at almost every third name, some one answered:
In a few moments the captain appeared on deck. The report of the commander of the expedition had, of course, been unfavorable, and the captain's face wore a look of trouble. Hastily running his eye over the line of dusty, bleeding men that stood before him, he said, in a low voice, as if talking to himself: