“Villain!” shouted De Courcy, who saw with dismay the terrible object of the settler, whose person he had recognized—­“if you would have quarter, release your hold.”

But Desborough, too much given to his revenge to heed the words of the Aid-de-Camp, continued silently, yet with advantage, to drag his victim nearer and nearer to the fatal precipice; and every man in the British ranks felt his blood to creep as they beheld the unhappy officer borne, notwithstanding a desperate resistance, at each moment nigher to the brink.

“For Heaven’s sake, advance and seize him” exclaimed the terrified De Courcy, leaping forward to the rescue.

Acting on the hint, two or three of the most active of the light infantry rushed from the ranks in the direction taken by the officer.

Desborough saw the movement, and his exertions to defeat its object became, considering the loss of blood he had sustained from his wounds, almost Herculean.  He now stood on the extreme verge of the precipice, where he paused for a moment as if utterly exhausted with his previous efforts.  De Courcy was now within a few feet of his unhappy friend, who still struggled ineffectually to free himself, when the settler, suddenly collecting all his energy into a final and desparate effort, raised the unfortunate Grantham from the ground, and with a loud and exulting laugh, dashed his foot violently against the edge of the crag, and threw himself backward into the hideous abyss.

A cry of horror from the lips of De Courcy was answered by a savage shout of vengeance from the British ranks.  On rushed the line with their glittering bayonets, and at a pace which scarcely left their enemies time to sue for, much less obtain quarter—­shrieks and groans rent the atmosphere, and above the horrid din, might be heard the wild and greeting cry of the vulture and the buzzard, as the mangled bodies of the Americans rolled from rock to rock, crashing the autumnal leaves and dried underwood in their fall, some hanging suspended by their rent garments to the larger trees encountered in their course—­yet by far the greater number falling into the bottom of a chasm into which the sunbeam had never yet penetrated.  The picked and whitened bones may be seen, shining through the deep gloom that envelopes every part of the abyss, even to this day.

The end.