A letter was received from the
governor's daughter pleading with her lover to come and be reconciled
with her father, who had now no prejudice against the exiles; but in
the letter were two or three tiny red threads such as might have {120}
been pulled out of a dress sleeve. The letter had been written under
force.
Benyowsky's answer was to marshal his fifty-seven men in three
divisions round the village; one round the house, the largest hidden in
the dark on the fort side of the ravine, a decoy group stationed in the
ditch to draw an attack.
By midnight, the sentinels sent word that the main guard of Cossacks
had reached the ravine. The decoy had made a feint of resistance. The
Cossacks sent back to the fort for reinforcements. The Pole waited
only till nearly all the Cossacks were on the ditch bank, then
instructing the little band of decoys to keep up a sham fight, poured
his main forces through the dark, across the plain at a run, for the
fort. Palisades were scaled, gates broken down, guards stabbed where
they stood! Benyowsky's men had the fort and the gates barricaded
again before the governor could collect his senses.
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