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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79284 ***
+
+
+WINDS OF REBELLION
+
+In the Dungeon of the Prison Ship
+
+By Ernest Haycox
+
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+  I — THE BLACK FRIGATE TAVERN
+  II — OVER THE RIVER
+  III — A CAPTAIN OF THE KING’S OWN
+  IV — THE PRISON SHIP
+  V — ESCAPE
+  VI — A LIGHT IN THE STORM
+  VII — BLIND MAN’S BUFF
+  VIII — BLADE AND BLADE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I — THE BLACK FRIGATE TAVERN
+
+
+There was a roar and a rush of wind outside the hut and a tattoo of rain
+on the window panes. Loose shakes on the roof slatted at every gust. The
+insecure door strained against the lock, shivered and groaned and
+threatened to burst open at each thrust of the tempest. It was not a
+particularly well constructed hut, for a dozen cold cross-currents of
+air swept in between the logs where the chinking was thin, plucked at
+the lantern’s light and congealed the blood of young Jeffry Peale who
+sat patiently before an open copy of Grotius and at intervals annotated
+certain persuasive passages. It was early 1777, with Washington’s army
+resting on arms amid the Morristown hills. Spring broke gustily over the
+winter-bound brigades and glutted the streams that poured into a
+British-infested valley below.
+
+Jeffry Peale wrapped the cloak tighter about his neck and tried to
+sustain his interest in the volume. It took a man of persistent
+studiousness or strong ambition to keep at such labor in this dreary,
+frigid cell and, though Peale had more than the usual share of those
+qualities, the blood ran too strongly in him to make a monkish penance
+of it. He had done well enough for one bitter night and it was time to
+hasten toward that haven of warmth and cheer where his brother officers
+long had been—the Black Frigate Tavern—and thaw the marrow in his bones.
+
+Through the window he saw a light advancing toward the hut, blurred to a
+vague oval in the turbulent night. An officer of the guard, no doubt,
+making the rounds. He rose to stamp over the boards and clap on his hat.
+Life had about gone out of his limbs, and his fingers were as stiff as
+those of a marble statue. That came, he said to himself in a moment of
+self-derision, of coveting too much glory and advancement.
+
+Sometimes it seemed better to drift good naturedly, as did the rest of
+the subalterns, making the most of a disagreeable campaign, drinking to
+the tavern keeper’s daughter in between the sudden raids on the low
+country. But, even as he thus abjured himself, his mind, clear and
+retentive, was conning the passages on military law which he had just
+finished reading. It was an acquisitive, pushing habit that no amount of
+depression or discouragement could shake off.
+
+“As long as you are Jeffry Peale,” he murmured, striving to tie the
+cloak, “you’ll be wanting to march on. So make the most of it, my lad.”
+
+The long threatening door swept open and slammed violently against the
+inner wall; at the same time an orderly wrapped in a blanket and showing
+only two bleak eyes above the folds, was thrust across the threshold.
+
+“L’tenant Peale, the brigadier wishes your comp’ny at his quarters as
+soon’s possible.”
+
+The orderly accepted the other’s nod and, pulling the door shut after
+him, vanished into the darkness.
+
+Peale tarried a minute, essaying to fathom the meaning of the summons.
+His conscience, however, was clear, and with a small excitement rising
+in his breast he left the hut and forged his way across an uneven,
+stumpy parade ground. The wind attacked him viciously, first on one
+quarter, then on the other. The rain sluiced out of the sky and stung
+his face like so many darts, and it was with real relief that he passed
+between a row of huts and entered a grove of trees where the storm was
+slightly broken. Just beyond was the brigadier’s quarters. He clapped
+one hand to his hat and knocked at the door. In a moment it was opened
+slightly and an urgent voice said:
+
+“Make it quick, man! This —— place is stone cold.”
+
+Peale slipped quickly through. The door banged shut and began a steady
+_rat-a-tat_ against its loose hinges, leaving the lieutenant confronting
+the lone occupant of the room, the general of the brigade. The young man
+stood silent, astonished at the situation. It was not often that general
+officers of the Continental Line rose to admit subalterns.
+
+This swart, medium-sized man with the frank, bold face, had a reputation
+for dispensing with formality between himself and his men. Once a
+private soldier himself, he knew how to command affection and respect at
+the same time. Other generals might insist on their personal guard, but
+no sentry stood outside of Maxwell’s door to suffer in the wind. And
+doubtless he had sent his aide off to the Black Frigate to get warm. It
+was the measure of an officer who was beginning to command a reputation
+as a heady fighter in vanguard skirmishes.
+
+“Come to the light,” said the general, stepping behind his camp desk.
+
+Peale did as ordered and felt himself sharply studied from the half
+shadows.
+
+“You come well recommended,” continued the older officer. “It is a fine
+body you carry around. Where did you get that sweep of shoulders?”
+
+“My father put me to the forge as soon as I could hold a hammer,” said
+Peale.
+
+“Aye, I know _that_ type. One of those yeomen who insists on every keg
+standing on its own bottom. I could wish for more of that brand of
+independence. The war would sooner end. Tell me, have you traveled much
+around the city of New York?”
+
+“I spent some months there in ’78.”
+
+“D’ye know the country between here and the Hudson shore?”
+
+Peale thought a moment.
+
+“I made but one trip, but I have studied the maps at quite some length.”
+
+“Enough to make the trip by dark?”
+
+Peale was not certain of that, but he was not the man to lag behind
+opportunity. So he answered boldly—
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+The general was silent for some time. When he spoke it was as if to
+himself.
+
+“Good muscle, good limb. Apparently sound of wind. A swordsman of parts,
+so your captain said, and with the address of a gentleman. ’Tis those
+things that matter in a tight situation. A little boldness goes far.
+Tell me, can you swim—I mean well?”
+
+“My home is on a sound, sir. I believe I hold some records for
+outdistancing men of the district.”
+
+The general moved to his desk and nodded.
+
+“That’s all. I suppose you’ll be going down to the tavern to thaw. I
+wish I could.”
+
+Jeffry Peale turned away, grievously disappointed. Some signal duty had
+hovered over him and vanished; the mark of that disappointment must have
+showed on his ruddy cheeks, for the general’s eyes flashed in a friendly
+manner.
+
+“Tut, sir. If you knew the trouble ahead you’d not be so hard after the
+mission. Go drink your porto and be thankful for a moment or two of
+warmth in this infernally bleak world.”
+
+“I could wish the honor of any service the general might trust me with,”
+said Peale, tarrying at the door.
+
+“It may yet fall to you when other eggs are broken,” replied Maxwell
+cryptically. “If you see my aide at the tavern send him to me.”
+
+Peale embarked across the stormy parade with a heavy heart.
+
+“Whatever the duty,” he muttered, “it will go to another. Some Southern
+macaroni, no doubt, with the air of a cavalier.”
+
+What good of studying Grotius when promotion came to the man who looked
+like a fighter and talked like a fighter? He struggled against the
+elements, bearing off on a very muddy road that led beyond the lines.
+Earth and sky melted into one vast orbit of tumult as he traveled, eyes
+fixed on the light from the guard-house.
+
+He did himself great injustice when he marked himself so low in
+appearance. But that was the pessimistic Puritan strain which had
+conspired for many generations to keep his folk humble. Independent they
+might be, and greatly set on their rights, but when it came to personal
+valuation they were strangely diffident, disparaging.
+
+He met the guard’s challenge and passed through the lines. The highway
+was a sea of slush that came high around his boots. Once he heard the
+splash of hoofs and stepped aside to let a cavalcade pass him. Another
+scouting party returned from the lowlands. There were more of these
+detachments out lately, Peale decided, as he picked up the glimmer of
+the tavern, directly ahead. The army was waking from its long slumber
+and now was fencing and feinting with small parties. Feeling greatly
+dispirited, Peale shook the water from his cloak and let himself into
+the thick and warm air of the tavern.
+
+It was such a tavern as might have been found on any road in any State—a
+long, low-ceilinged room with a few tables scattered about. Obviously it
+had been built for modest traffic and modest profits, for it fairly
+bulged under the score or more of officers now within. They were of all
+uniforms and all ages and illustrated perfectly the tremendous sectional
+difference of the thirteen States.
+
+Some were neat and dapper and carried their regimentals with pride;
+others wore the clothes like so much draping. Connecticut and Maryland
+rubbed elbows with civility and kept company each with its own kind.
+Through the fog of tobacco smoke Jeffry Peale saw a familiar face and
+crowded his way past several groups to one small corner where a brother
+officer, Priam Lafferty, sat alone.
+
+The man cast an irritated glance at Peale—a glance that fell just short
+of the latter’s eyes—and spoke in a brusk, clipped voice.
+
+“Thought your books held you home this night, Jeff?”
+
+There was one vacant chair beside Lafferty and Peale dropped into it.
+
+“Frozen out. ’Tis bitter weather, Priam. Look at the mud on my boots.”
+
+Lafferty nodded, eyes traveling across the crowded room as if seeking
+some one in particular. Peale caught the tavern keeper’s glance and
+raised a crooked finger, deciding that Lafferty must again be in one of
+his frequent moods of sulky moroseness. There was no accounting for the
+man’s swift changing of humor, and Peale who had known him from boyhood
+shrugged his shoulders and dismissed it from his mind.
+
+The two of them face to face made a great contrast. Peale kept himself
+groomed and though not far advanced in his twenties his face already was
+beginning to settle in steadfast lines; he had apparently passed the
+period of turbulence and had found himself. Perhaps his hazel eyes were
+not very happy, for he shared his father’s oft-expressed belief that
+happiness was a thing people spent too much time in seeking, but they
+were most certainly direct and level and when his interest was strongly
+aroused they contracted slightly and gave the effect of tremendous
+penetrative power.
+
+They were of about the same age, but Lafferty had gone more to bone and
+bulk. His was one of those bodies that are lumpy and disproportionate
+enough to make any suit of clothes look shoddy. When he slouched in the
+chair, a slack-lipped, rebellious-eyed creature whose face was a
+playground for every passing emotion, his waistcoat bulged untidily. His
+chin needed shaving and the coarse jet hair of his head, here and there
+streaked with white, was untrimmed. There seemed to be a magnet in the
+far corner of the room that irresistibly drew his somber attention.
+
+Peale caught sight of the tavern keeper’s daughter flirting outrageously
+with a Jersey captain and chuckled a little. Priam Lafferty was in a
+murderous mood just then, he knew.
+
+“The girl treats you badly, Priam. But ’tis nothing to nurse a broken
+heart over.”
+
+Lafferty’s murky eyes rolled.
+
+“If she’s wishin’ to introduce that gentleman to a duel—”
+
+“Chut! Y’ve led yourself into this tap-room love affair, Priam. D’ye
+think she’s the kind to be led by any single man? Trim yards and square
+into the wind. ’Tis money in her father’s pocket to be engaging to all.”
+
+Lafferty underwent one of his characteristic shifts of temper and
+grinned sourly.
+
+“Oh, I know I’m a bigger fool than most. _You_ may talk of ridin’ on an
+even keel, for that’s in your very marrow. I’ve yet to see the event
+that’ll shiver you. But you sh’d know I’m not the one to live that way.”
+
+“No,” agreed Peale, “you’re not. ’Tis the whole jug of rum for you or
+not a drop. Sometimes I could wish myself a little like that.”
+
+He took the glass of wine brought by the tavern keeper, exchanged a
+sober word with the man and began to sip deliberately. He felt the
+warmth come back into his body; a little drowsy, he watched figures
+shifting through the tobacco smoke and heard the rise and fall of
+voices. Such words as came intelligibly to him dwelt entirely with home
+affairs. How easily men slipped away from martial ardor when the chance
+came.
+
+He looked for General Maxwell’s aide in vain and found himself smiling
+at sight of an ancient uncle sprawled before the fireplace, legs
+widespread and a mug of mulled cider in his fist. He was all of
+forty-five and yet but a subaltern. Only a New Englander, Peale decided,
+could make such a picture of fireside contentment. Coat and waistcoat
+were thrown wide open and hat was laid aside. A nutcracker face with a
+pair of bright, mellow eyes stared into the amber flames. Peale felt
+ashamed of his mirth. There was unquenchable spirit in a man like that
+who would forsake comfort for the field.
+
+He let the wine trickle past his tongue and put the glass against the
+light. Purple rays shot through the liquid. Then he heard Priam Lafferty
+speaking staccato phrases—
+
+“Lieutenant Jeffry Peale—Mr. Otto Trevoris — a friend of mine passing
+through on business.”
+
+Drowsiness deserted Peale. He looked up to find a man of middle age
+bowing ceremoniously; an attentive, unsmiling man dressed in severe
+civilian’s black and leaning slightly on a cane. Peale rose and offered
+his place gravely, but the other had spied an empty chair at a near
+table and drew it over, taking seat between the two and resting both
+hands on the table. Peale looked sharply at the cane and made certain
+mental reservations; he had seen such cleverly contrived things before
+and usually they sheathed swords. When his eyes raised they came in
+conflict with those of Trevoris, and for a moment a singular and
+studious exchange of glances took place.
+
+Priam Lafferty broke this duel with a short laugh, fist smashing on the
+table top.
+
+“Strike me, I’ve waited five minutes for a drink. Hi, Benedick! Advance
+with the wine gourds!”
+
+“It is dev’lish cold out,” said the stranger, Trevoris, shaking his
+shoulders. They were not broad shoulders but Peale was struck by their
+precise erectness.
+
+“I pity any man who must travel abroad in it,” rejoined Peale.
+
+“Then pity me,” said Trevoris. He watched the inn keeper bearing up with
+bottle and glass and poured himself a drink which, after raising it to
+both men, he tossed down with a gulp. “’Tis rank stuff to be calling
+port,” he muttered, “but will serve to keep the cold out. I’ve yet five
+miles ahead of me to the Star and Crescent.”
+
+“You have traveled from a distance?” asked Peale, mildly curious.
+
+Priam Lafferty’s saturnine face turned toward him, scowling from some
+new dissatisfaction. Trevoris helped himself to fresh wine and played
+with the glass stem.
+
+“From Spanish New Orleans,” said he, surveying the smoke and the crowd
+with an air of ill-concealed scorn.
+
+Peale’s interest was instantly aroused.
+
+“That’s a trip I could wish to take. Tell me, how do you find the
+country between here and the Mississippi? It must be dev’lish hard
+going. ’Tis a land for a man with a good rifle eye, is it not?”
+
+Trevoris shrugged those erect shoulders and seemed bored.
+
+“If a gentleman likes hardships I would commend it. As for me, it seems
+like God’s own wilderness.”
+
+“Nevertheless,” insisted Peale, “it is the place for the common soldier
+when this war is won. Cheap land and plenty of elbow room. The seaboard
+is crowded and the South belongs to the nabobs. Give all us old soldiers
+a hundred acres on the Ohio and we’ll fashion a new State for you. But,
+tell me of New Orleans. How large a place is it?”
+
+Trevoris took another drink and seemed amused. Priam Lafferty broke in
+impatiently.
+
+“Oh, —— the catechism, Jeff! Who cares about New Orleans? Choke off the
+inquisition. Never have I seen the like of such a man to ask questions.
+Anything from awls to elephants will command your attention. Here’s a
+toast to the pot-gutted Benedick and his fair daughter.”
+
+Peale smiled a little and drank. Trevoris put down his glass and looked
+to his watch.
+
+“I dislike most infernally to start off, but I must reach Albany Monday,
+a sennight. Gentlemen, I give you one to his Excellency General
+Washington and the next campaign. May the army win its just desserts.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said Peale, bowing.
+
+Trevoris’ face was satiric; Priam Lafferty stared at him, somber-eyed,
+half unwilling to drink. In the end he swallowed the liquor and began a
+tapping on the table with his nails.
+
+“Well, the army must win somethin’,” he grumbled. “We’re a starved,
+frozed lot now.”
+
+“In New York, I hear,” said Trevoris, “they eat, dance and are merry.”
+He rose and threw a silver piece on the table. “I must be going,
+disagreeable as it is. Mr. Peale, it has been a pleasure. I trust I will
+see more of you.”
+
+Priam Lafferty passed a hand across his rumpled hair, frowning heavily.
+
+“Enough of this cursed babble for me. I’ll see you to your horse and
+then go home.”
+
+They crossed the room and stopped momentarily by the door while the
+stable boy slipped out for Trevoris’ mount. Peale saw Priam Lafferty
+glowering blackly at the captain who had usurped the interest of the
+tavern keeper’s daughter. Trevoris stood with his greatcoat covering him
+and even through the swirling smoke Peale could see his eyes sweep the
+room. Then the door opened and the stable boy beckoned. The two went out
+and a heavy draught of air set all the lights to guttering. Certainly,
+decided Peale, the storm had not abated. It took an urgent kind of
+business to force a merchant to brave five miles of mud road on a
+pitch-black night. He settled in the chair and was grateful for the
+warmth.
+
+Outside, Trevoris dismissed the boy and sprang into the saddle. Priam
+Lafferty put a hand to a stirrup and together the pair moved a few rods
+down the obscure highway.
+
+“Ticklish business this,” he grumbled. “I can’t say it’s the best way of
+meetin’.”
+
+Trevoris spoke coldly, through the dark.
+
+“’Tis my policy to meet in as public place as possible. There’s more
+spying ears and eyes in this road than back at the tavern. Rest easy.”
+
+“Easy!” grumbled Lafferty, almost shouting to make himself heard above
+the storm. “Little ye know my temper. This shilly-shally ill suits me.
+Don’t be surprized if I see you in the city before so very long.”
+
+“You can do us better service where you are,” replied Trevoris.
+
+“And expose myself to more danger. ’Tis an uneasy life. Well, you’ve got
+the packet. Avoid the next village as you would the plague. ’Tis full of
+suspicious fellows.”
+
+“Au revoir. Should you find anything important in the next two weeks,
+remember to warn our certain friend.”
+
+With that Lafferty released his grip on the saddle and stopped,
+listening to the slosh of Trevoris’ horse’s hoofs until the tempo of the
+wind overwhelmed the small echoes. He traveled back to the tavern and on
+the threshold debated going in.
+
+“No, ’tis best I leave Jeff and his questions alone. —— the fellow for
+his curiosity.” He gripped the folds of his cloak tightly and, leaning
+against the wind, entered the picket lines of the camp.
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+Jeffry Peale had drunk his gentleman’s quart and was overhearing the hot
+debate of a Massachusetts and a Virginia man on slavery when a finger
+tapped him on the arm. General Maxwell’s aide, bearing the marks of the
+storm, spoke briefly.
+
+“To headquarters with me, Jeffry. And you’d do well to tuck a bottle of
+rum under your arm.”
+
+Peale stood up suddenly.
+
+“’Quarters?” said he, excitement coming over him.
+
+He wrapped the cloak around him and clapped on his hat, striding to the
+door at a gait that left the aide well to the rear. Somewhere in the
+half-gale the officer caught up, complaining bitterly.
+
+“Such an infernal racket abroad. I’ve not been warm for forty hours.
+D’ye have an inkling of your job?”
+
+“Something,” said Peale, picking a course for the brigadier’s hut. They
+passed the pickets and slipped heavily in the mud.
+
+“And yet you hurry,” said the aide. He swore again. “Did anything ever
+beat a soldier’s idea of glory? Rushing through this tempest to be sent
+on a wretchedly cold and hungry affair. Was there ever such a
+perversion—” he ran out of breath and had to stop. But at the
+brigadier’s door he burst out, “Nevertheless, I’d give my right arm to
+be in your place, you lucky devil! Go in!”
+
+General Maxwell was busy with the quill when Jeffry Peale entered,
+slamming the door behind him. The brigadier looked up, stared a moment
+with his bold, frank eyes and then motioned to another chair.
+
+“Draw to the table. You’ve got business to do. Come here where you can
+see the map.”
+
+They were closeted thus, head to head, for the better part of a
+half-hour. In the end Peale said—
+
+“Yes, sir, and where will I find the horse?”
+
+“’Twill be at the door of your hut when you are ready. I give you but a
+few minutes. ’Tis late now and prudence demands you reach the river by
+day. Mind you, this is not an affair to be spread amongst your cronies.”
+
+Peale let himself out of the hut and trudged across the parade ground to
+his own quarters. The trees groaned beneath the impact of the wind’s
+frenzy; all the world seemed a-quiver. In this black, uneasy universe
+there was nothing to distinguish between earth and infinity, yet Peale
+thought he saw a lone star breaking through the pall—his own star. It
+was an illusion, of course, he decided. Such was the fabric on which
+life was built. It took but a word and a gesture to change the course of
+a career, to lift a man from plodding obscurity to the blood-stirring
+path of adventure which now lay before him.
+
+No more the student for Jeffry Peale. Now the clash of saber, the night
+ride and the softly spoken password. This was all that a soldier could
+ask. He plunged into his hut and went to his own corner, oblivious of
+the presence of Priam Lafferty in the opposite bunk. He belted on his
+sword, inspected his pistols and threw over his shoulder a cartridge
+pouch, ranging impatiently around the room.
+
+Lafferty sat up and spoke sullenly.
+
+“Patrol?”
+
+Peale shook his head.
+
+“Off on a private excursion.”
+
+“What, man? On a night like this? Tut, ye’re out on duty or y’d not be
+out at all. I smell a mission. Where away, Jeff?”
+
+“If you can smell the mission,” returned Peale, grinning, “try to smell
+the destination.”
+
+Lafferty got up with an oath, his jowls turned scarlet.
+
+“So I’m told to mind my own affairs, eh? What fine gentleman are you
+turnin’ into? You aspire high, but let me not have airs from you. I’ll
+not stand them.”
+
+It was Lafferty in his ugly mood, brow furrowed and lips twisted in a
+line at once sardonic and contemptuous. Peale squared off, speaking
+shortly.
+
+“If you mean to rag me, it’s best to forget it. A secret once told is a
+secret twice told and none should know it as well as you. Drop your bad
+humor and bid me luck. Be a good wife, Priam, to my property while I’m
+away.”
+
+The door rattled under a fist and Peale put a hand to the latch.
+Lafferty cursed.
+
+“Mind your own property—I’ll not! If you see me again—”
+
+The rest of the phrase was snatched from his mouth when Peale opened the
+door and the wind burst through. A lantern glinted, an orderly held out
+the reins of a mount. Peale got into the saddle and swung away. He
+passed the pickets, the tavern and embarked on that road which Trevoris
+not long before had chosen.
+
+He traveled fast and he traveled far, with always the elements shrilling
+in his ears and the rain soaking him to the skin. Past one sleeping
+village and another; across a creek, with the board bridge rumbling
+beneath him; up hill and down and at intervals a beacon-light shining
+across meadows to reassure him.
+
+He forded the Passaic at flood, turned out at the hint of a night party
+scurrying down the black highway, crossed the treacherous slough of the
+Hackensack, and at last came upon a broad pike that led straight east.
+And just as day was breaking on the horizon he stopped his jaded horse
+at a silent house and knocked on the door. Long after, the bolt was shot
+and a voice challenged him.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Franklin and Deane.”
+
+“Come in.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II — OVER THE RIVER
+
+
+He followed shuffling footsteps down an interminably long hall, with the
+smell of stale furnishings in his nostrils and his drums cracking from
+the surcease of the storm. He could hear it battering furiously at every
+shutter and door as if trying to break through the habitation and
+surround him again with its ice-like fingers. Relieved from that frigid
+embrace he began to feel uncomfortably warm; his ears and fingers burned
+and his eyes stung. His guide turned a corner and opened a door, leaving
+him poised in the darkness with an admonitory whisper.
+
+“Wait till I throw a blanket over the win’ow. Pryin’ eyes—”
+
+The fellow moved away, shuffling. Boards creaked and something
+fluttered; another door opened and presently the man returned with a
+guttering candle and set it on a table.
+
+“I wish ye hadna come,” he growled. “Aye, I wish it infernally strong ye
+hadna come. The countryside is a nest o’ traitorous dogs that ’ud sell a
+neighbor to the gallows fer a shillin’.”
+
+By the feeble beam of light Peale saw him to be a thin, undersized man
+with a narrow face and a crooked nose, dressed like some slovenly
+servant. Furtive eyes met him and glanced away as if afraid of the
+contact.
+
+“’Tis beyant me why I’m served up with so many night birds. Three in the
+last month. Too many, too many. I’m suspected now. Lud, I c’n feel the
+halter on my neck every blessed hour. I suppose,” he said, averting his
+face, “ye’ll be wantin’ to cross ower?”
+
+“That’s the idea,” replied Peale, settling into a chair. “Day’s about
+come, though, so I’ll have to lay by until night. Y’ve got a plain
+citizen’s suit for me—and a cot I can catch a bit of sleep on?”
+
+The man wrung his bony fingers.
+
+“So I’ve got to harbor ye in the house twelve hours? ——, why didna ye
+come sooner? I could’ve put ye across an’ washed my hands of ye. ’Tis
+bad—bad. D’ye unnerstand? There was a file of redjackets in the
+neighborhood this very mornin’!”
+
+“’Tis a risk we must run,” returned Peale wearily.
+
+“Ye mean a risk _I_ run, young man.” The fellow stared gloomily at the
+table. “Well, ye’re hankerin’ fer a bit o’ somethin’ to eat, I’ll vow.”
+
+“I could manage it.”
+
+“’Twon’t be much. Sit still.”
+
+The man rose and slipped through the door. In another part of the house
+Peale heard him throwing wood on the fire. He leaned back in his chair,
+on the point of falling asleep. By and by the man called softly through
+the hall.
+
+“Asa, Asa, come down an’ take a horse to the barn. Hurry now, there’s a
+crack o’ light comin’ ower the eastern line. Ye’ll bury saddle an’
+bridle beneath the hay.”
+
+Peale shook his head, feeling sorry for these people. They lived a life
+of extreme uncertainty, never sure but that the British might not pack
+them off for summary punishment or, on the other hand, that overzealous
+patriots, enraged by their apparent Toryism, would harry them out of
+house and home. It was not so much the actual danger, great though that
+was, but the suspense hanging over them. The furtive, suspicious look on
+the man’s face was plain enough evidence of the strain. Peale opened his
+eyes suddenly, hearing a voice at his side.
+
+“’Tis scant fare, friend, but the tea’s hot an’ plentiful. I keep the
+fireplace burnin’ all the night fer visits like this. Say yer grace an’
+eat.”
+
+Peale fell to without ceremony. A pot of cheese, sour bread and bitter
+tea made his meal, with his host brooding over him.
+
+“Ye’ll take my bed. ’Tis time I was up. In my closet is a fine suit with
+a fawnskin waistcoat fit for any gentleman. I save it fer such
+occasions. Ye’ll wear that well, though I doubt not it’ll be a mite
+strict on yer shoulders. They shouldna send men with such unusual
+carriage on a mission, for when a man commands attention he’s cramped in
+his business.”
+
+“There’s a tavern somewhere across the stream?”
+
+“A place fer every villain in the county —a scant mile above the English
+picket lines. The Red Boar, they call it. Aye, a precious pack of
+scoundrels infest it. It’s direct across the river from me, beyant the
+shore a quarter mile, on the Albany Post Road.”
+
+Peale reached into his pocket and brought out five gold pieces which he
+shoved across the table without explanation. His host took them each
+between his fingers, rubbing the surface in a half-greedy manner.
+
+“Well, ’tis some consolation. Now, come. Ye’d better sleep while ye may.
+At dark tonight we’ll row across. My boat’s floatin’ on the tide in
+the bushes at foot o’ the cliff.”
+
+Peale followed the man through the hall and into a frowsy bedroom. He
+was tremendously tired and promptly sat on the mattress and shed his
+boots. His host muttered something about “pryin’ eyes” again and snuffed
+out the candle, retreating. There was a gray light slipping through the
+shutters as Peale drew the blankets over him. Next moment he was
+profoundly asleep.
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+Somewhere during the afternoon Peale woke from his heavy sleep. The
+storm seemed to have lost its vigor and now only shook the house with
+occasional gusts. Daylight penetrated the shutters, and he rolled over,
+knowing that it would do no good to rise before dusk and that an extra
+hour’s rest would give him that much more power of body for whatever
+befell during the coming night. So he slept again.
+
+When he woke the second time it was with a vague feeling of
+apprehension. There was no one in the semi-dark room and no sound in the
+cold house. Outside, evening was settling and the storm had subsided,
+leaving a silence over the countryside that seemed to Peale to contain a
+threat. Under the propulsion of this inexplicable feeling he got up,
+pulled on his boots and gained the malodorous hallway.
+
+Across the way was the kitchen with a fire burning brightly on the
+stones and something of savory smell steaming in a kettle on the crane.
+But of his host, nothing could be seen or heard. He moved through the
+kitchen to another room, and thence to the funereal parlor he had first
+sat in, before dawn. Going back to the hall, he came to the stairway and
+called, softly—
+
+“What’s up, friend?”
+
+The hollow echo of his voice trembled in the air and evoked no reply.
+Now, thoroughly roused, he started for the front door and was on the
+point of opening it and going out to the barn when a sense of caution
+stayed his hand. Instead, he turned to the nearest window and peered
+through the curtains.
+
+It was the last of a gray, bleak day, but there was enough of light for
+Peale to see through a lane of trees to the dull black surface of the
+North River. Beyond, masked in the settling fog, was Manhattan Isle.
+Peale’s sharply scanning eyes made out a dim beam of light from the
+farther shore—some farmer’s lantern, no doubt, bobbing across a meadow.
+Farther down the Isle and shut from his view by the intervening trees
+was New York town, headquarters of the British forces in America—his
+destination.
+
+A dog barked, shattering the unnatural stillness of the darkening night
+and Peale turned his attention to the immediate foreground. At the
+extreme right of his vision was the barn, and around its edges wound a
+path that he judged must lead down the bluff to the river’s edge. Then
+he caught sight of a figure moving out of the trees, so slowly as to
+seem prompted by stealth. As long as he was in the deeper shadows, Peale
+could make nothing of his countenance or costume, but within a dozen
+strides the man got to clear ground and then the young officer had a
+vague outline of British accouterments and a trailing musket. Almost at
+the same instant he saw others breaking from the thicket at the other
+extremity of his vision.
+
+He left his vantage point and ran to the door, shooting the bolt into
+the catch. Retreating to the bedroom, he swept his arm through the
+closet and brought out a handful of clothes from which he had to choose
+his suit almost by sense of touch. Ripping off his uniform he donned the
+civilian garments. Beneath his coat he buckled securely the brace of
+pistols.
+
+Clapping on hat and cloak, he rolled up his own uniform, thrust it under
+the bed and hurried back to the window. In the fast-thickening fog the
+four or five advancing Englishmen were hardly more than silhouettes
+against the darker mass of woods. Even as he turned a last glance at
+them, some one mounted the flagstone steps and resolutely knocked at the
+door, saying in a bold, ringing voice—
+
+“Open, farmer, ’tis king’s soldiers.”
+
+Peale ran back through the hall on his toes. A rear door promised exit
+somewhere in the darkness, but it seemed to him probable that it might
+be guarded. He swayed on his toes, debating courses, while the front
+portal shivered under the butt of a gun and the challenging voice rose
+to a more irate pitch.
+
+“Open or I’ll break this cursed thing from its hinges!”
+
+At that Peale made up his mind. Drawing pistol, he raised the latch of
+the rear door very cautiously and then flung it open at one sudden,
+unexpected movement. A figure twisted around to meet him, growling:
+
+“Oh, no ye don’t! Stand fast or I’ll stick ye somethin’ ’orrible!”
+
+His pistol went in a true arc and struck the sentry on the head; the man
+fell with a small, expiring breath, sloshing in the muddy earth. Peale
+looked about him, half expecting other opposition. None developed. He
+ran behind a stone house, passed another intervening stretch to a shed
+and thence across twenty yards to the thicket.
+
+It had all been accomplished without commotion or general discovery. But
+he could hear the man at the back door groaning and knew it would be
+but a moment before the unconscious sentry would be discovered. He
+turned riverward and, parting the sodden brush before him, skirted the
+house and barn. Scrambling down a rather sharp slope, he reached a path
+that descended still more abruptly over the face of a rock palisade. As
+he lowered himself, loose rocks shot away from his feet, crashed through
+brush and reached the river’s surface with a plunking sound.
+
+Here in the gorge a small wintry wind scoured upward and numbed his
+exposed members. He groped along the dark stairs with all the speed
+possible, leaving the sound of the British soldiery behind and at last
+putting his feet on level ground. Before him water rippled against the
+stony beach and bushes rustled lightly in the breeze.
+
+The farmer had mentioned his boat tied to bushes, and Peale, on
+exploring forward, found it so.
+
+“Oars, bailing pot and rope,” said he, untying the skiff and shoving
+off. “Having been so unceremoniously left, I shall have to be my own
+guide. ’Tis the gentleman’s own loss that he’s not here to bring his
+boat back from the other shore. I strongly suspect he deserted the house
+at the very first smell of a trap and left me to meet the amiable
+hirelings of Hanover. Ah, well, I should not too strongly condemn the
+poor devil. Now let’s try our luck.”
+
+It seemed no great matter to keep abreast the current and land on the
+opposite shore somewhere in the latitude of the tavern. He pulled
+steadily, muffling his stroke as much as possible; water gurgled gently
+against the skiff’s snout. From the river he looked upward along the
+Jersey Palisades, trying to distinguish his recent shelter, but that
+area was swathed in the same darkness that fell about the river.
+
+In midstream or beyond—he had no way of knowing just where—he heard the
+knock of oars and the boiling of water. He rested, trying to fathom the
+whereabouts of the other craft. Of a sudden it slid within pistol’s
+range, so near that he could hear a man’s heavy breathing. Some one
+spoke with a gibing inflection:
+
+“Wot did ye say ’er name was? Amaryllis, hey? Aye, I know the trull.
+Lad, ye didn’t think to be the only man—”
+
+The sentence was muffled by the fog; the boat passed beyond a heavy wall
+of it and Peale heard only a heavy coughing and a rough expletive. Then
+silence.
+
+He took up his course again and redoubled his efforts to regain lost
+headway in the stream. Ten minutes later the bottom of the boat grated
+on gravel and stopped. He climbed out and, as a precaution, shoved the
+craft again into the stream. The farmer was out one stout skiff; that
+was the fortune of war.
+
+“Now if I’ve held with the current, I should be in a straight line with
+that tavern,” he murmured.
+
+He moved forward, crossing a rocky strip of beach and coming against a
+line of bushes. A bank appeared to hedge him from the rolling land of
+the island. It was useless to seek a path in the darkness, so he worked
+himself between the thicket and climbed straight forward. It was stout
+labor, but presently he left the slope behind him and stood erect on the
+edge of some kind of field. For the first time he saw lights glimmering
+dimly in the southward—lights of New York town.
+
+“Straight eastward, my lad,” he cautioned himself. “The road should be
+hard by.”
+
+A creek splashed along its course on his left, and against the
+metal-black sky he saw the faint tracery of tree branches. Passing
+onward, he arrived at a fence, surmounted it and became engaged in heavy
+woods. At almost the same time he heard, from the immediate foreground,
+the creaking of a carriage and the urging of a driver’s voice. This was
+the reassurance he needed.
+
+Stumbling from one abrupt depression to another, he fought his way from
+the trees, well soaked, and embarked upon the highway, sinking deep in
+the mud. It was villainous stuff that laid a score of traps for him, yet
+within a hundred yards he was rewarded by the sight of a dim, diffused
+light ahead.
+
+It was a feeble beacon, nor did it become much brighter as he
+progressed. When he stood within a few yards of the place he found a
+smudged window winking at him; from within the place came a bawling
+voice. It was a tavern, and undoubtedly that unsavory hostelry known as
+the Red Boar. Peale stood a moment at the door, listing to the groan of
+the tavern shingle in the fitful wind. Then, drawing a pistol, he pushed
+through the door with the abrupt haste of a man seeking trouble.
+
+It was an evil-smelling place, with furniture scarred by many brawls and
+the floor littered with straw. A dozen candles gave it but half enough
+light and a fire smoked dismally on the hearth. In the far corner were
+two men who had kicked back their chairs at his entrance and looked
+about to fall upon him. In all his travels he had never entered an inn
+more charged with the atmosphere of illicit trade and violence. He had
+no doubt that it was the rendezvous of every renegade in the countryside
+and, since it was so close to the British pickets, that scores of
+deserters had made it their stopping place. He waved the weapon at the
+two glowering fellows and spoke crisply.
+
+“Sit down, you rascals and stop that infernal staring at a gentleman.
+Where’s the master of this inn?”
+
+Hardly had he finished the question when an inner door flew open and a
+tremendously fat creature with a perspiring brow entered.
+
+“Eh, eh?” he grumbled, “that be no way to talk to my customers, sir.
+’Tis an honest trade I have.”
+
+“Honest?” cried Peale angrily. “—— of an honest place! Not a
+quarter mile back I was set upon by a brace of ruffians and lost a sound
+horse and saddlebags! I had the voice of one and, by Godfrey, if I hear
+him again I’ll know him well enough to send a ball through his cowardly
+body! You—” pointing to the nearest of the men at the table, “—speak a
+word! Let’s have your voice.”
+
+“D’ye take me fer—”
+
+“Enough,” broke in Peale. “Now your partner!”
+
+“I’m minded to break yer face, my fine—”
+
+The inn keeper clapped his hands together.
+
+“No, no, Job! Hold yer tongue! The gentleman’s well roused and apt to do
+violence. Sir, ye’ve come to the wrong place, I do swear. D’ye think I’d
+harbor birds of that feather?”
+
+“I have your reputation,” said Peale somberly. “’Tis none too savory. A
+pity to me the general doesn’t sweep this island clean o’ such rascals.
+Dash me, I’ll take it out on some one for that miserable half-mile I
+walked!”
+
+“’Tis but a like distance to the pickets,” assured the inn keeper in a
+soothing voice.
+
+“An’ d’ye think I’d go another step in this mud on foot? I’ve got a
+better way. Tell me, d’ye know any of those pickets?”
+
+“I know half the royal army,” boasted the tavern keeper. “They favor me
+with their trade—when a little innocent fun is wanted.”
+
+“You’ll make a fine guide. Bring around a couple horses and guide me
+through the lines.”
+
+“Oh, no, sirrah,” objected the tavern keeper. “A gentleman couldn’t ask
+that much. Perhaps one of these boys—”
+
+“Cursed if I want either of the rascals!” broke in Peale, blowing
+through his nose. “I want a man to explain my lookin’ like a cursed
+rebel spy! Ye’ll go if I’ve got to drag you by the queue. Come, don’t
+purse your lips at me. If it’s a sweetener ye want—here.”
+
+He took a crown from his pocket and tossed it at the fat one’s
+outstretched hand. The latter caught it with astonishing agility and a
+change came over his face. The two at the table exchanged a significant
+glance, which Peale observed.
+
+“If ye’ve thought to waylay me, ye’ll do well to think of safer robbery.
+I’m not a man to tamper with. Come, Benedick, get your horses out, and
+bring a lantern. I dislike waiting.”
+
+The tavern keeper bowed.
+
+“If the gentleman puts it that way, I’m bound to give. A moment, sir,
+while I saddle up. Ye’ll have a drink?”
+
+“Y’ve made your profit off me,” said Peale. “Now go along. I don’t drink
+such bilge-water as ye’d likely serve.”
+
+The tavern keeper took the insolence without protest. He had dealt with
+many great gentlemen with tongues just as sharp as this one owned. In
+particular, he had been favored with the company of some of the British
+officers when they were sweeping the island for deserters, and he knew
+the quality of their scorn only too well. So he ducked his head and left
+the room, while Peale stood wrathfully in the center of the place,
+eyeing the two at the table.
+
+They remained silent, cowed by his steady gaze. In a short while the
+tavern keeper hallooed from the road, and Peale went out to find the man
+in the saddle, holding a spare horse by the reins and carrying a
+lantern. Peale swung up; they pressed forward.
+
+“I hope ye won’t be sayin’ too much about the rascals that set upon
+you,” offered the tavern keeper humbly. “At least ’twould be kind if ye
+didn’t say it was close to my place. The high gentleman officers in town
+look queerly my way. Any excuse would be good enough for them to harry
+me out. Oh, I’ll not say I don’t treat the boys well and mebbe there’s a
+bit of mischief that goes on. But ye’ll allow it would be injustice in
+this case.”
+
+“It’s a —— outrage that a gentleman can’t travel from Philip’s Manor to
+New York without being took by a pack o’ brigands,” growled Peale.
+
+Whereupon the tavern keeper fell silent.
+
+The scattered lights of the city grew closer and the road turned to
+another quarter. Quite before Peale was aware of it they were being
+challenged, and the tavern keeper had slipped from his saddle and was
+advancing, lantern swinging from side to side. Peale heard him speaking
+in a low, amiable tone.
+
+“—a misfortune to the gentleman. ’Tis you, Rob? Gad, that’s luck! Ye’ll
+pass him out o’ favor? Should he be kept till daylight I fear he’d tell
+the general. Then I’d suffer. A matter o’ favor.”
+
+The guard muttered a half inaudible phrase.
+
+“’Tis after enterin’ hours. But let him come on. It’s a raw, cold night,
+ye old rascal.”
+
+By the light, Peale saw a bottle pass. The innkeeper returned,
+chuckling.
+
+“Go right on, sir. About the horse, now—”
+
+“Come with me till we strike the cobblestones,” said Peale, “and you
+shall have your horse back.”
+
+Thus they passed through and were enveloped in momentary darkness.
+Without further conversation they traveled until the houses began to
+scatter along the way, some dark and some with lights a-twinkle in their
+windows. In another twenty minutes they reached a street lamp and here
+Peale drew up and dropped from the saddle.
+
+“Y’re an amiable villain,” he said, handing over the reins. “I shall say
+nothing about the affair.”
+
+“Thanks to ye, sir. ’Tis not every gentleman— There’s a patrol, by ——!
+I’d best be goin’.”
+
+He turned and made off, leaving Peale in the street. Somewhere in
+another block came the steady tread of feet. In the silence of this
+outer section Peale heard a brief command and then the challenging of
+guards. Without listening further, he swung down an alley and passed
+from the radius of the light.
+
+“So far luck has run strong with me,” he murmured, “but, when it comes
+time to leave—ah, that may be another story.”
+
+He had been well coached as to his destination, and within another ten
+minutes he stood at the door of an imposing stone house through the
+windows of which came a cheerful light. He tapped on the knocker, and by
+the glow emanating from the interior began to survey his muddy boots and
+soaked apparel. The door opened suddenly and a girl with corn-colored
+hair and a grave white face stood silhouetted by the rays of a hall
+light. She spoke with a slow, rising inflection—
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I have been told, madam,” said he, after a sharp inspection of her
+face, “that I might find lodging here. I’ve traveled a great distance
+this day and had the misfortune to lose my horse.”
+
+She was silent for a long interval, the wind blowing the folds of a
+voluminous skirt about her. One hand rose toward her face as if to fend
+off a stray lock of hair.
+
+“I’m sorry, but the house is full,” she replied at last.
+
+“The river is deep,” said he, making a gesture with his arm.
+
+“Ah! Come in.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III — A CAPTAIN OF THE KING’S OWN
+
+
+Sunlight invaded the room—the vagrant sunlight of a wintry, overcast
+day. Some time ago the fifes and drums had sounded reveille throughout
+the town; but it was a summons that had not found Jeffry Peale lagging
+in bed. Quite a long while before he had been stationed at the clothes
+closet with his ear pressed against the wall. In the room adjoining, two
+officers had spent their dressing period in a rather acrimonious
+argument concerning military policy, during the course of which Peale
+had picked up a few helpful fragments relating to conditions within the
+city. And after their departure for breakfast he set thoughtfully to
+work brushing his clothes and knocking the caked mud from his shoes.
+
+It was while doing this that there sounded a tapping on his door.
+Adjusting his coat and moving a little nearer to the pistols on the
+lowboy, he said, “Come,” and then was sorry for his aloofness. The
+portal opened quickly and the girl with the corn-colored hair slipped
+through with one swift glance behind her.
+
+“It was the very first moment I could get away,” said she. “The last of
+the gentlemen just now left the table.”
+
+“I had thought to come down earlier,” he answered, “but decided it
+wisdom to wait until I saw you.” He smiled, becoming on the instant a
+fine and engaging gentleman. “’Tis not my custom, I assure you—to let
+others wait on me.”
+
+There was no answering smile.
+
+“You had not meant to mix with the English officers?” she asked. “I
+thought you were to remain under cover, like the rest, until I had given
+you information.”
+
+“My orders are a little broader. I am to take what you have for me and
+spend the day walking about.”
+
+She seemed to be looking through and beyond him, her eyes troubled by
+visions. Jeffry Peale thought he had never seen a woman so soberly
+introspective and yet so plainly made for gaiety and high humor. Once,
+the sun thrust a long beam across the room to become entangled in her
+hair, and under that light it glowed like metal at white heat, sending
+color to her face.
+
+“Why,” she demanded, “are you all so gay and reckless—all you who come
+on these dangerous missions? Is it because you love danger more than
+others—or is it a mask?”
+
+“All men love life,” said he, “and certainly none love it more than I. I
+think we like to play a game. The game is to flirt as near death as
+possible and yet come away with honor. In my imaginings I have done it
+many times in many ways.”
+
+“But when you flirt—and lose? When you see death as surely yours—then
+what?”
+
+“’Tis in the game not to consider losing. But if we do lose, then it’s
+to be played out and the forfeit given. What else?”
+
+“Like Captain Hale,” said she, nodding. “Sometimes I see them—all that
+have passed through here—standing in a rank. They were brave and gallant
+fellows. And in the ranks there’s sometimes a gap, and then my heart
+aches terribly all night.”
+
+“Look to yourself. Do you never think of your own danger?”
+
+“Danger? There is none. Look: My boarding house is always full of
+British officers. Some are very loyal—and—and complimentary. The first
+one to whisper treason about me would have a duel on his hands
+instantly. I am utterly safe. But come, is it not foolish to spend good
+time this way? I brought with me a list kept for two weeks now. It is
+yours. You had better memorize the figures and destroy it.”
+
+A slip of paper came from some mysterious source. Peale took it, bowing
+slightly.
+
+“I should be flattered to know your name,” he said. “Mine is Jeffry
+Peale, of Maxwell’s brigade.”
+
+“Jane Welch. When will you have breakfast?”
+
+“Give me a half-hour with this,” he replied, pointing to the paper. “I
+should like to get it in mind before going abroad.”
+
+She inclined her head and left the room. Peale took a chair by the
+window and began a studious perusal of the finely shaded writing. For a
+while he saw nothing of the figures or words. Jane Welch’s face was
+indelibly outlined on the paper, somber-eyed, the sun shining in golden
+yellow hair.
+
+“’Tis like looking at the sun and seeing the reflection long after,” he
+mused.
+
+He found himself comparing the courage in her eyes with the same quality
+he had seen in those officer ladies who followed the army from campaign
+to campaign, creating makeshift homes in tents or huts, that the men
+might have some moments of homely cheer. Women like Dame Washington,
+Greene’s charming wife or the jolly Mrs. Knox.
+
+He turned resolutely to the list of regiments in and around the city,
+memorizing. Interspersed among the figures were items overheard, such
+as:
+
+“The Fourth Foot is well talked of by officers for discipline, but the
+men are considered undersized and the regiment only half strength.”
+
+“’Tis known that Admiral Howe wishes to see the Colonies conciliated and
+that his brother, the general, has a great regard for American rifles.”
+
+“Cornwallis is considered the strongest fighting general of all the
+English.”
+
+He went through the paper carefully, and then a second time, laying it
+aside with a comment.
+
+“This evening I shall commit it more carefully. ’Tis time now to take my
+tour.”
+
+Slipping the paper beneath the mattress, he finished dressing, took his
+cloak and hat and went down. In the hall the girl met him and pointed
+through an inner door to where a table still was set with breakfast
+dishes.
+
+“Take the head chair. Probably you will have company. There’s an officer
+or two who usually sleep right up to parade and roll-call and have to
+come back later to eat. What,” she asked, in a much lower tone, “shall I
+name you?”
+
+“My own,” said he. “The less of deception, the less of stumbling.”
+
+“But a moment ago,” she remarked, “I remembered I had not yet eaten. So
+if you do not mind—”
+
+He was before her, pulling back a chair.
+
+“Many strange things befall a man in the course of war, but I should not
+have believed yesterday that in twenty hours I would be tipping coffee
+cups with so pleasant a partner. ’Twill brighten the camp-fire many days
+to come.”
+
+She gave him a glance that for the moment was free from the usual
+soberness. It left her face strangely soft and, in a measure, beautiful.
+
+“I do believe war makes all men gallant.”
+
+He took his seat, saying gravely:
+
+“No doubt you hear many pretty speeches. I did not mean it to sound so.”
+
+“I did not take it—so,” she replied and turned her eyes to the silver
+pot. “Your cup, Jeffry Peale.”
+
+The front door opened and slammed violently. A youth in a subaltern’s
+uniform came bouncing in.
+
+“By all that’s sublime, Miss Jane—” he began in a loud voice, then
+stopped short and put on his professional dignity. “Oh, I do beg pardon
+for the racket. Silly of me.”
+
+“Lieutenant Consolven,” said the girl with a slow gesture of her white
+hand, “we have a temporary guest at our table. This is Jeffry Peale.”
+
+The Englishman bowed with his head and shoulders as Peale rose.
+
+“Pleasure,” he grunted and without further ceremony made for a seat
+across from the girl. He had a high color and a long, horsey jaw; there
+was about him the external boisterousness and rudeness of the country
+squire’s son. When he sat down it was with vigor and when he began to
+eat it was with enthusiasm.
+
+“Hungry—lud! Made that parade one leap ahead of the old martinet. No
+more!” He swallowed a quantity of cakes and coffee and turned a frank,
+unsuppressed curiosity on Peale. “Peale? A Surrey Peale?”
+
+“Kent, a hundred years ago. At present a New York Peale, and an
+infernally roused one. Why d’ye allow brigands to invest the roads
+around this city? I was set upon last night and in the scuffle lost a
+good horse and saddlebags. Seems a pity this army can’t suppress such
+nonsense.”
+
+The subaltern threw back his head and laughed noisily.
+
+“Sounds to be the very same tale the ‘martinet’ tells, doesn’t it, Miss
+Jane?”
+
+The girl explained to Peale.
+
+“That’s Lieutenant Consolven’s captain—a very strict gentleman.”
+
+“A ripper! A fire-eatin’, gimlet-eyed monster with the heart of a
+provost marshal,” broke in the subaltern, mouth full.
+
+“—and he’s forever outraged by the lawlessness outside the lines,” she
+finished.
+
+“Must run,” said the subaltern, swallowing his coffee. “Infernal racket
+abroad. Would appear there’s a certain rebel spy in the city. So the
+report comes from headquarters. Now they’ve got details scourin’ every
+low dive in town. Cursed life, this. Always some overturnin’ or uproar.”
+
+“And do they know the gentleman by sight or substance?” asked Peale.
+
+“Not that I’m aware. ’Tis just a smell they have. Troop across the river
+flushed him from a suspect’s house. Found a uniform. Now we’re turnin’
+out the low dives. If he’s about we’ll find him there. Always find spies
+in such filthy dens,” he explained with finality, kicking back his
+chair.
+
+Peale rose at the same time.
+
+“If you’ve no objection I’ll walk down the street with you.”
+
+“Come along then.”
+
+Peale followed the subaltern out, meeting the girl’s sober glance as he
+closed the door. There was a deep concern in those eyes and, though he
+wanted to believe that concern was for his safety, he was too humble to
+suppose it so. Rather it was for the success of his mission and for the
+cause he represented. So thinking, he passed into the windy street, with
+the sun showing fitfully, half up in the heavens and toward the south
+the black clouds of a coming storm.
+
+He had to walk lively to keep up with the Englishman who muttered a fear
+of the Martinet.
+
+“A sly devil,” said he. “I’m supposed to be on tour now—worse luck. The
+man’s eyes are in the back o’ his neck, I fully believe. By gad, ’tis a
+sad state when the son of a Surrey gentleman must fetch and carry to a
+Lunnon weaver rose from the ranks. This principle of equality of
+classes—was there ever a more pernicious, damnable doctrine?”
+
+“Many men hold with it,” observed Peale gravely.
+
+“’Twill be the ruination of all such,” grumbled the subaltern. “Let each
+bottle keep to its own shelf.”
+
+His eyes darted down the street and suddenly, without apology, he bolted
+into an alley, leaving his companion alone.
+
+Peale continued his walk, keenly observant. It had been some years since
+he last had trod these streets, and the change of the town was
+shockingly visible. It had the air of being down at the heels, of sadly
+needing paint and repairs. The streets were littered with débris and,
+though by reputation it bore the name of a city very gay and voluptuous
+under the British régime, Peale could not but notice the shabbiness of
+the passers-by and the air of uncertainty in too many faces. Here were
+concentrated thousands of troops and refugees, a great part of the
+latter living only on the hope of a speedy success of the royal arms,
+subsisting on the last of their incomes.
+
+Fine ladies and gentlemen passed him in coaches, holding their heads
+properly high; tradesmen peeped from their doors at this parade, none
+too cheerful, and here and there lounged rough characters who viewed all
+with insolence. British occupancy had brought untidiness to an orderly
+provincial town. And always there was a passing and repassing of
+soldiers led by stony-faced officers.
+
+It was upon these that Peale bent the closest scrutiny, sometimes with
+professional admiration, sometimes with ill-concealed scorn. The British
+Empire could buy them fine uniforms and new accoutrements and drill them
+until they stepped as one and carried their arms neatly; even so, the
+home government could not conceal the poverty of the recent regiments.
+
+The veterans Peale could tell at a glance by their carriage—men who had
+been trained in the hard school of lifetime enlistments. Peale had met
+them on the battlefield and could testify to their stubbornness under
+fire; but at intervals he saw groups from the new, high-numbered
+regiments—undersized, shoddy men from the docks and gutters of England.
+The very sight of them gave him courage, and he turned toward the North
+River slips, where the spars showed high above the houses, with a
+lightened heart. The Elijahs and Elnathans and Samuels who stood parade
+on the bleak Morristown hills need have nothing to fear from them.
+
+He came to the lowlier part of town, where were lodging houses for
+sailors and barracks for soldiers—a quarter smelling of salt air and
+tar, and traditionally boisterous. Beside him was an apothecary shop and
+on impulse he ducked through the small door and stood in a semi-lighted
+cell, hearing some one growl at him from a dark corner.
+
+“Well, what d’ye want here?”
+
+“A shilling’s worth of horehound,” answered Peale, making out the shadow
+of the fellow, “and a little civility, my friend.”
+
+“If y’ve come from gin’rals headquarters to spy on an honest man’s
+business, _gentleman_, ye can go back. Wirra, ’tis a poor excuse ye
+offer—a shillin’s of horehound, eh? Bah!”
+
+“You talk, friend, strangely like a rebel. Doesn’t his Majesty’s
+gracious government suit you?”
+
+The apothecary moved reluctantly to his shelves.
+
+“I’ll have me rights,” he grumbled. “D’ye think it’s politic to be
+sendin’ agents forever around to snoop? Y’d think th’ blessed army was
+afeerd o’ its shadow. Day an’ night—day an’ night! Between rogues and
+thieves an’ spies I’m fair sick o’ it!”
+
+Here was a malcontent, certainly. Peale threw his shilling on the case
+and waited for the apothecary.
+
+“Some day, friend, you may be rid of the trouble,” said he, and took up
+the horehound.
+
+The cobblestones resounded with those incessant files marching by. He
+bent beneath the door’s shortness and faced the daylight again. And
+immediately every muscle and every nerve in his body sprang to that
+defensive state which rises in great danger.
+
+For, advancing upon him, not a rod distant, was that thin-lipped,
+severe-eyed gentleman whom he had met in Priam Lafferty’s company at the
+Black Frigate tavern—Trevoris. He was no longer the merchant in
+civilian’s black but a captain wearing the bright red, blue and buff of
+the King’s own regiment.
+
+He stopped, even as Peale stopped, and his hand went up to halt the
+dozen soldiers behind him. The severe eyes contracted and the rather
+swart face screwed into an unlovely, predatory mask. Thus he stood for
+an instant, studying the man before him with a terribly sharp gaze. Then
+his sword came flashing out and he moved forward, saying coolly:
+
+“So, my dear Mr. Peale, you have favored us with a brief visit? Stand
+fast, sir, or I’ll run you through!”
+
+It was such an instant as Jeffry Peale had often visioned over his
+books. On those occasions past he was often troubled about his slowness
+of mind, for he never rated himself highly as a quick thinker; but now,
+as the grim, dour-faced captain advanced, blade foremost, and the
+soldiers and bystanders began to crowd around, he saw every avenue of
+escape in one swift glance; understanding, too, that if he were to live
+at all he had to put himself to the gauntlet.
+
+He whirled, threw a man aside with his arm and dashed down the street,
+unhooking his cloak and letting it fall.
+
+There was an alley hard by that angled toward the river and this he
+took, with a motley pack pursuing in full cry and every house disgorging
+men at his heels. Not a hundred yards off he saw the black hull of a
+ship sidling in the water, and beside it a warehouse. It was for that he
+made his break; once inside that shelter, piled high with London
+merchandise, he might temporarily hide, and while the pursuers diffused
+themselves, drop silently into the river and start for the Jersey shore.
+
+He calculated he would have made some progress across before they
+followed him in boats. After that, he depended on his strength to carry
+him safely over. At any rate, it was the lone means of escape open to
+him.
+
+But, as the alley narrowed down, a slatternly woman stepped out of a
+near-by hovel and stood, arms akimbo, gaping at him. She was rolling in
+fat, frowsy-haired and seemingly dazed by the unexpected uproar. The
+voice of the pack, however, was something that stirred her animal
+shrewdness. A human being was being hunted down, the rarest of all
+sports. So, when Peale was but a few yards away she stepped directly
+into his path and spread out her immense arms, cackling.
+
+“No ye don’t laddie! Come here.”
+
+Peale, never expecting this turn of affairs, was unable to halt his
+course. He swerved a little, plunged into an outstretched arm. It threw
+him and he went down, with the slattern on top, clawing his cheeks with
+her nails. Then those fat arms gripped him relentlessly, and before he
+could fight away the mob was around, striking him with boot and cudgel,
+shouting their curses. Dimly, he heard the curt voice of the captain
+lashing at them as at a pack of dogs.
+
+“Back, ye scurvy animals, before I send a volley into ye! Sergeant,
+knock ’em aside! I want that man alive for the gallows!”
+
+The crowd gave way and Peale, rising to a knee, felt the captain’s sword
+at his breast. The man’s face was unmoved and he spoke with cold
+courtesy.
+
+“I could wish that courage expended for a more worthy cause,” said he.
+“Stand, Mr. Peale.”
+
+The game was played out. Peale rose and faced a file of redcoats.
+
+“Your victory, Mr. Trevoris. Or was that a convenient title for your
+recent expedition?”
+
+“My name, Mr. Peale, is Captain Tremble,” said the officer. And he
+added, with a certain grim satisfaction, “My men call me the Martinet
+an’ ’tis certain I shall be on the court martial that sentences ye to
+hang.”
+
+The slattern elbowed her way through the circle, shouting:
+
+“An’ here’s the one who got the laddie, Cap’n! Ye’ll not forget the
+reward, wull ye?”
+
+The captain favored her with a most contemptuous glance and spoke to the
+soldiers; but there was yet another fellow to have his brief say. Some
+one bellowed like a bull and Peale, turning his eyes, saw the apothecary
+standing near, shaking his finger.
+
+“So, ’twas a _rebel_ spy, eh? An’ ye guyed me about loyalty to the king?
+Wirra, I’ll show’ee my measure!”
+
+He ducked from sight and put a shoulder to the spectators in front.
+Before Peale could dodge, the apothecary’s arms carried forward a bucket
+of slops and all the filthy contents splashed in the prisoner’s face.
+The crowd yelled gleefully; Captain Tremble swung and his sword struck
+the apothecary on the head once, then again and again until the latter
+swayed and fell within the circle, a bloody spectacle.
+
+“I’ll teach ye respect of the king’s arms!” he growled, blowing through
+his nose. “Y’re no better than a rebel.” Then, hearing the undertone of
+hostility to the act, he flashed his weapon around at them. “No more of
+it! Disperse! If any wish to taste Provost Cunningham’s hospitality I’ll
+soon enough clap him in the first sugar house on the street. Disperse
+now!”
+
+The citizens fell back and made a lane, through which Peale marched,
+flanked by the captain and followed by the file of soldiers. From behind
+sounded the loud and sustained vilification of the slattern. It
+accompanied them out of the alley and well up the street. Even as they
+turned a corner they could hear her voice rising and falling, expending
+all the well learned curses of a lurid life.
+
+The captain was speaking, but to deaf ears. Peale had plunged himself
+into a stern inquiry, that sort of self-distrusting examination which
+had been his dower from earliest youth. There never was a time when he
+had not belittled his mind and his courage, and never so much as now.
+Another more resolutely forthright man would not have been taken. A more
+subtle man never would have fallen into the snare, never would have left
+a trail behind for British authorities to trace.
+
+And yet, as he argued the other side of the case, he found himself
+cheered. For, after all, the moves of the game had been against him. It
+mattered not how shrewd his might have been—the sharp eyes of Trevoris,
+or Captain Tremble, had fallen athwart his path. That was a contingency
+he could not have foreseen, nor could any decently discreet mind have
+foreseen it. A fortune of war.
+
+For one brief instant he experienced a stealthy fear that Priam Lafferty
+was involved; he immediately stamped this fear as a disloyalty on his
+part and banished it from his mind. Had he not known Priam the best part
+of his life? Priam had been duped, imposed upon by the pseudo-merchant
+from Spanish New Orleans. Nothing more.
+
+And so, by the time they had traversed the street, a spectacle for all
+eyes, he had restored his self-respect and regained the philosophy that
+seemed to him to represent all that was best in a soldier’s life—to
+resign oneself in mind to any fate that might befall, but in action
+never to give up so long as a single living impulse animated muscle and
+mind.
+
+The detail stopped; he was pushed into a door by Tremble. At the end of
+a hall they turned into a room and confronted a seated general who wore
+an order on his coat. Captain Tremble explained the affair in a dozen
+words. Peale saw the general’s face turn stormy.
+
+“I can not understand it,” said the general. “Blessed if I can! What
+more could you provincials wish than the beneficent kindness of his
+majesty? What real, just grievances have you that could not have been
+settled peacefully? ’Tis upon your head—all this bloodletting and
+misery. I have said a thousand times and I say it again, that to all
+disaffected who accept his majesty’s gracious pardon should be shown
+every courtesy—as if they had never erred. But to you, my fine young
+man—to you who have broken every regard, violated the king’s peace and
+gone so far as to engage in the abominable, insidious act of spying—to
+you I shall not show an ounce of mercy! There will be a court for you
+before night and by daybreak you shall die!”
+
+“’Tis such a sermon as I might have expected,” replied Peale sedately.
+“I do not expect you to see on both sides of the wall. But if you should
+wish to find me cringing for pardon, I must disappoint you. I can die as
+well as any man.”
+
+“Captain, send him to the provost!”
+
+Peale bowed himself out and, followed by Tremble, rejoined the file of
+soldiers and set rapidly off down another street. The storm in the south
+had moved closer; shutters were slapping on the house walls and a gust
+of rain sprinkled the cobblestones. Peale drew a deep breath,
+unconscious of all the eyes upon him, and began to feel a strange
+exhilaration of spirit. The reason for it he could not determine, yet it
+was there, a strong, buoyant current that flowed out of some remote
+reservoir. And, prompted by it, he raised his head, to find himself
+looking directly at the house of Jane Welch and to see Jane Welch
+herself staring down from the stoop at him, her hair blowing heedlessly
+across her white face and her eyes mirroring an emotion Jeffry Peale had
+never before seen in a woman’s face.
+
+It was all too brief; one moment he met that glance and the next had
+passed on, seeing Captain Tremble bowing at the girl and hearing the
+guard behind gruffly ordering him to move faster.
+
+Somewhere beyond they stopped at a sugar house. Tremble advanced toward
+the guard. There was a passage of words and another officer turned into
+sight, beginning an immediate protest.
+
+“No, no, Captain. I can not permit another man in this place. ’Tis
+loaded so now there’s not room for all to sleep. Another few treacherous
+dogs and they’ll burst the walls. Try the next.”
+
+And so they went on, while the wind burst over the town with redoubled
+force. Peale, entirely disinterested, took little note of his
+surroundings. Presently they came to another sugar house, stopped and
+waited. Tremble motioned Peale inward. He passed on to a hall and thence
+into a semi-dark, dismally cold area, hearing a lock click behind him.
+Footsteps clattered away and presently he was left alone.
+
+He had no idea how long he waited in this cheerless, draughty place; it
+seemed an endless length of time. He heard the guard changed and the
+occasional rattling of a cart. The day waned swiftly and of a sudden the
+storm roared in all fury about them. It was then that he heard the inner
+door open and was dazzled by the rays of a lantern. A thick booming
+voice challenged him:
+
+“What the —— you doin’ here? ——, there’s rats like you scattered all
+over the town. How in —— do they expect the provost to keep account?
+Guard, who’s this rebel?”
+
+“I be’nt told, sir. The last relief said nawthink about ’im.”
+
+He was another officer, the lantern bearer, and slightly drunk. At a
+peremptory order Peale moved into the hall, to find guards resting on
+their arms. Propelled by a rough arm, he stepped into the rain-drenched
+street and was put into a column of prisoners who huddled miserably
+together. The lantern bearer coughed and said gruffly:
+
+“Off to the prison ship, the whole pack o’ ye. There’s a new set o’
+rascals comin’ to the city an’ we need room. Forward!”
+
+Bending his head against the tempest, Peale followed obediently. They
+trudged from street to street and at last came to the river’s edge,
+where a barge waited. One by one they were herded in. The guards crowded
+after and then, with a prisoner at each oar, they embarked across the
+twisted currents of the East River.
+
+It could not have been more than four o’clock, but it was so dark that
+nothing could be seen twenty yards ahead of the pitching craft. The
+slightly drunken officer cursed them in a dozen ribald ways and once
+cuffed the ear of one of his own men who manipulated the sweep.
+
+“Look, rebels!” he shouted. “There’s your future home! Many’ve rotted
+there before you and many will rot after y’ve been sewed up and tossed
+over!”
+
+Peale raised his head and gazed eastward. A phantom ship rose out of the
+fog and towered over the barge—a battered, stripped hulk that rode
+uneasily in the swells. Not a glimmer of light came from it, not a sound
+of cheer. It floated, a sinister, foul thing—the grave of all hope, a
+living death for thousands of American soldiers.
+
+As the barge passed around the stern, Peale made out the faded name,
+_Whitby_. But on a thousand tongues it was already known as the
+“hell-ship.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV — THE PRISON SHIP
+
+
+The barge, thrust by the current, sheered in toward the hull of this
+ship of death. Peale saw a porthole, strongly barred, a few feet above
+his head and, as they came abreast, a vagary of the wind carried down to
+him an indescribable stench. Nor was he the only one to experience it,
+for there was a general mutter among the prisoners and the slightly
+drunk officer began to lash at them with his tongue.
+
+“Pull out—pull out! Y’ll swamp the barge shortly!”
+
+From the porthole issued a hollow, frenzied voice.
+
+“Better drowned than sech mis’ry! Lads, for God’s sake stay clear of
+this cesspool! ’Tis easier to die in clean air!”
+
+The officer raged and drew his pistol, threatening instant death to the
+unknown speaker, but a sweep of the oars took the barge away and the
+darkness blotted out voice and stench alike. A dozen strokes brought
+them on the lee side of the ship; the officer issued a great shout that
+presently was answered by a sentry’s grumbling voice.
+
+“Aye.”
+
+“Throw over the ladder! Prisoners comin’ up.”
+
+“’Tis after receivin’ hours.”
+
+“Stand there, jackanapes, and refuse an officer’s direct order! Throw
+over the ladder, or by gad, I’ll give you a ball! After hours, indeed!
+Who are you to balk a provost guard? Make it fast now before we stave in
+our sides!”
+
+After considerable delay in which the barge was flung violently back and
+forth, always threatening to hurl itself against the ship’s side and
+splinter into a hundred pieces, the ladder rolled down upon them and the
+prisoners climbed up, one by one.
+
+Peale, being in the rear of the barge, was the last to step on the decks
+of the hulk, with the uncomplimentary farewell of the English subaltern
+behind him. The rest of the unfortunates were huddled in front with the
+solitary guard hovering indistinctly three yards away. There still was
+time to take a step back and hurl himself over into the turbulent water;
+in the darkness none could find him nor trace his route shoreward.
+Precisely at that instant the guard advanced and a bayonet touched his
+chest.
+
+“For’d, rebel and down into the hole!”
+
+Other guards, warned, came running up. Peale went on, seeing those ahead
+stoop and disappear into the bowels of the hulk. Presently he was beside
+the trap-door that led below and, when he likewise bent over, the fetid,
+miasmatic air billowed up and struck him fully in the face.
+
+It was a smell unlike any he had ever experienced. Barnyard and abattoir
+stenches were perfume compared to it. That first full breath threw him
+back, gagging, his vitals revolting at so horrible a destination. Then
+the guard’s steel blade again touched him ungently and, half falling
+through the aperture, he grasped the rungs of the ladder and descended.
+The door of the trap fell into place, sealing this foulness in.
+
+Reaching the bottom, he stood at the center of a whispering group,
+blinded by the utter darkness and wrestling with the revolt of his
+senses. It seemed impossible that men could live at all in such
+atmosphere, or that any authority would permit it. Yet it was so; here
+below was half a brigade of men—the _Whitby_ had the reputation of
+holding better than a thousand—sleeping, or trying to sleep.
+
+The group dissolved, fellows stumbling to right and left, seeking a
+place on the floor. Peale’s ears began to pick up a subdued mournful
+chorus which, when he traced out individual threads of it, proved to be
+men groaning, sighing, choking—every conceivable lament of the human
+spirit. What made it all the more pitiable was the hopeless quality of
+their plaint. To Peale, vigorous and strong and with a memory of the
+fresh, stormy air outside, it was at first unbelievable that so many of
+them would endure this misery when only a trap-door and a skeleton crew
+stood between them and freedom; it was but two or three hundred yards to
+the Long Island shore, and there were boards a-plenty to rig up a raft
+that would carry them across in the darkness.
+
+The answer was too apparent: These men were not in their full vigor and
+never again, probably, would be. Their bodies had begun to rot and their
+spirits were at the last, stubborn level, below which is death. The
+tyranny of one trap-door and one solitary guard was enough to quell
+them.
+
+He saw the gray bull’s-eye of a port across from him and started toward
+it, only to stop, gesturing futilely in the dark. That looked to be the
+sole air vent in all the extent of the ship, and to reach it he knew he
+would have to cross a solid carpet of men. He turned another way. It was
+very slow travel; always he felt bodies in his path and he had to reach
+down with his hand to find space enough to place his feet.
+
+They were like the dead, unprotesting, and with only some small sound or
+twitching to indicate they still lived. Once he lost his balance and
+stepped on an arm, and drew back, expecting protest. None came, and he
+arrived at last at a vacant strip between two silent figures and laid
+himself in it, marveling.
+
+He told himself that he would have a night-long vigil. Never in this
+dungeon of hopelessness could he find rest, and so he rolled face to the
+floor. He knew not how long he was awake; but at last the poisonous
+vapor drugged him and he fell into a state that was neither sleeping or
+waking. Sometime, when the small bull’s-eye of light shone dimmest, a
+great agonized cry rang through the hulk from bow to stern—the death cry
+of a mortal. After that, profound silence settled over all.
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+He was roused at last by a cold draught of air pouring on his body and
+by a ringing cry repeated again and again.
+
+“Rebels, bring up your dead! Rebels, bring up your dead!”
+
+Rising from his confined position, he found a foggy light billowing
+through the open trap-door and the full, ruddy face of an English
+officer peering down. Looking about, he saw the sad spectacle of better
+than a thousand men waking to face another dreary day of confinement.
+They were packed together like sticks of wood, with here and there
+figures sprawling across others, at right angles.
+
+One by one they rose and made their way uncertainly toward the ladder,
+stooping at places to pinch and examine certain bodies who did not move.
+They wore a ghastly color and their faces were drawn and sagged—an
+illusion, he thought, of the early morning light. The man immediately
+behind stirred, put a shaking hand to Peale’s shoulder and with that
+support rose. He had not seen Peale’s countenance, but his finger tapped
+slowly on the civilian suit and he spoke in a dead-level voice:
+
+“’Tis a new man come to crowd this hell. I can see it by the neat
+fixin’s on yer coat.”
+
+When Peale swung about he knew that it was not the gray light that made
+prisoner’s faces so; it was not an illusion but the pallor of
+disintegrating flesh.
+
+This one was nothing but a parcel of bones wrapped indifferently in
+parchment. Something in the eyes told of youth; elsewhere was the sign
+age. His hair was gray, his teeth hung loosely in white gums. Once he
+had been a powerful fellow, for the shoulder joints were far apart and
+his ribs, each of which was outlined through the cotton shirt, were well
+sprung. But the muscles that once he had flexed and felt pride in were
+shrunk to nothing. He must have seen the flaring compassion in Peale’s
+face for he observed, mournfully:
+
+“Well, friend, look on one betwixt earth an’ purgatory. I kin straddle
+both regions mighty easy, I tell you.”
+
+Peale felt the need of liquor then.
+
+“Often have I heard tales of this place but never did they match the
+living truth. Who are you, man, and how long have you been here?”
+
+“Sharon Eastman—Haslet’s regiment. I was took with Stirling at the
+skirmish on Long Island, August last.”
+
+“And not exchanged yet?”
+
+“Not a bit of news have _I_ heard about exchange. But ’tain’t likely I
+would. When I was still strong I tried to escape. See fer yourself how
+far down I come since then. Oh, no, they ain’t no exchange fer me.”
+
+The guard’s warning issued again.
+
+“Bring up your dead, rebels!”
+
+Men worked sluggishly sewing blankets around several figures. A party of
+six spent their feeble effort lugging one such mournful burden to the
+upper deck. Sharon Eastman pointed with his thumb.
+
+“This be a sickly ship. Ten die each blessed night. ’Tain’t long before
+I’ll pass up them stairs like that. ’Ud gone sooner, but I come o’ tough
+stock. Y’ve got no mess, yet, o’course? Well, stick by me for a time.
+’Tis our first turn at the kettle.”
+
+An officer, followed by four stolid, heavily armed mercenaries,
+descended and went toward the center of the hold, where a big copper
+kettle swung from the beams. Beneath it was a pit of earth on which a
+fire was now blazing. The officer raised his voice.
+
+“Bring y’r rations up, rebels! Mess by mess. No tarryin’, now, or I’ll
+see to ’t ye lose y’r proper turn.”
+
+Several fellows grouped about Sharon Eastman who seemed to act in the
+capacity of a non-commissioned officer for his mess. From some place
+along the dark crannies of the ship’s hulk he fetched a shank of beef
+and a bucket of moldy peas. Peale looked upon the meat with a fresh
+disgust of senses. It was raw and in a state hard to describe—a
+stinking, maggoty piece of provender unfit for human consumption.
+
+The group followed Eastman hungrily toward the kettle. Some one had
+already bailed water into the kettle; green-scummed bilge-water, nothing
+more. Without ceremony Eastman dropped the meat into this steaming brine
+and stepped back, eyes cocked on the officer.
+
+“I assure you,” said Peale, “I want none of that. I’ve long felt the
+need of a fast and now’s the opportunity to take it.”
+
+“Such squeamishness will pass,” observed the officer coldly.
+
+Boots tramped across the deck above them and a tackle squealed under
+burdens being lowered over the side. Peale saw a blanketed body pass
+down across a porthole and heard the shouted directions of a guard. Back
+of him clustered a line of men, waiting their turn at the kettle. The
+officer took his watch and, after a period that could not have been more
+than five minutes, raised his hand to Eastman.
+
+“Pull your meat out. ’Tis done.”
+
+“Done?” spoke up Peale angrily. “The filthy stuff’s not even warmed.”
+
+“Take it out and give way.”
+
+“D’ye require men to be cannibals on this cursed ship?” demanded Peale.
+
+His fist went into the tub and emerged with the meat; this stringy
+whitish stuff he thrust under the officer’s nose. The latter stepped
+back with a wry face, at the same time plucking at his sword hilt.
+
+“Fine filth for human bein’s is it not?” asked the irate Peale. “If you
+think it’s done, taste it.”
+
+“None of this —— sedition or I’ll run y’ through!” exclaimed the
+officer. Sharon Eastman grabbed at Peale’s coat and pulled him away,
+whispering:
+
+“None o’ that. ’Twill serve no good. He’d spit you quicker’n a wink.”
+
+Peale surrendered the meat and watched the mess divide it, he himself
+refusing a share. Eastman poured into the hand of each a small measure
+of the peas, and thus they made their meal. Groups collected elsewhere
+going through the same mockery. At places he saw some of the newcomers
+like himself, standing aside and being jeered for their lack of
+appetite.
+
+The trap-door was open and a few of the prisoners were crawling to fresh
+air. With undisguised eagerness he followed and soon stood at the rail,
+looking off through the fog to the city. Guards strode behind
+him—high-helmeted Anspachers whose pigtails and dour faces indicated a
+savagery of heart that they really did not possess. Toward the stern,
+part of the deck had been penned off, and in it Peale saw a half dozen
+pigs and a cow which now was being milked. Forward, another burying
+detail clambered up the ship’s ladder, back from their sad work on the
+Wallabout beaches.
+
+But a scant five hundred yards separated him from Manhattan’s shore; he
+had breasted twice the distance in waters no less dangerous. But to
+accomplish this in daylight was almost impossible, and before night came
+the trap-door would again bar him below decks. He cudgeled his brain for
+a way out. Certainly he could not stay long without embarking on that
+decline of flesh and spirit which so marked the other poor devils.
+
+If he meant to break, he must break shortly. Through fire, sword or
+water—any chance was preferable to rotting away. Moreover, Captain
+Tremble must soon be looking for his prisoner and, failing to find him
+in the sugar-houses, would surely come to search the ship and march him
+back before a summary court. Therefore, if the man did not come during
+this day, the first darkness was time to move on his contemplated
+course. Somewhere on deck, in the pigsty or in a shadow of the guards’
+housing, he might hide. Or, failing that, a crown in an itching palm
+might help. These Germans had an unholy lust for plunder and felt no
+particular pride in the war they waged.
+
+Anything to reach mainland, see Jane Welch once more and take that
+dossier he had put under the bed; then regain the Jerseys. The thought
+of the girl brought forward a fear that had been with him since the
+first moment of capture. Had he implicated her in any way by his
+presence at the house? Had Tremble’s sharp glances pierced her secret?
+Peale, moving uneasily, believed not. She had said she was above
+suspicion and that the Englishmen residents in her house were too loyal
+to countenance the thought. For that matter, she had a plausible
+explanation; she might say Peale had looked like just another of the
+many traveling provincial squires who applied at her door for lodging.
+
+In the fog he seemed to vision her as she had been on the hour of his
+capture—a tense figure, whipped by the wind, one white hand to her
+breast and her eyes filled with an emotion such as he had never seen
+before. Where could another woman be found like her?
+
+Sharon Eastman stepped beside him, mumbling. There was a sly look on his
+face and he pointed furtively toward the pen of hogs.
+
+“They’re a-feedin’ the porks. If y’ll come quiet we’ll steal some o’ the
+bran.”
+
+“From where?”
+
+“Why, out o’ the trough. ’Tis not so hard to do an’ it makes great
+porridge. When the Hessian turns his back—”
+
+Peale shook his head. Eastman grumbled disapprovingly.
+
+“Better take hold o’ that p’ticklar appetite, friend. Y’ve got to eat.”
+
+“Where,” asked Peale, “do they bury the dead?”
+
+Eastman’s bony finger swept the mud flats of Wallabout Basin. “There.
+But it’s no great rest the dead get. When the tide washes out y’ll see
+white bones from Rapelje’s Mill to Remsen Point.”
+
+Peale ground his foot into the deck, swearing roundly.
+
+“Is there no spark of decency in their —— hearts? Gad! It makes a man
+want to break them between his fist! Oh, I’ll call some of their proud
+officers to account!”
+
+“Not for a while, friend,” was the dispirited answer. “If it’s escape ye
+think about, better put the idea away. It’s been tried many a time and
+but once do I know of a man succeedin’. And if ye fail it’s outright
+death or suthin’ worse. There’s a dark hole for’d they use fer proud
+devils—half awash with bilge an’ squealin’ with rats the size o’ your
+arm. Think twice, friend.”
+
+“I am done with thinking,” replied Peale, gustily. “Did you ever hear of
+a guard bein’ bribed?”
+
+“I’ve considered it,” said Eastman wistfully. “If I was the strong lad
+of another day an’ had a gold piece I’d be tempted to try that method.
+These Hessians, they’d sell their mothers fer a bit o’ plunder.”
+
+“Once the trap-door was left open—after dark I mean—and a dozen stout
+fellows got to the deck—”
+
+“No, no!” said Eastman with as much emphasis as his frail body would
+admit. “I tried that. ’Twon’t work. Y’ll only make a fury that’ll bring
+down the guards. And the new lads like yerself—there ain’t enough o’
+them to push through by force. If ye mean to escape, do it by yerself.
+The poor boys below are beneath movin’. The last example was a-plenty to
+put fear o’ God in ’em. Five slaughtered outright, friend, and two more
+in the dark hole till the rats bit ’em and they died o’ plague, ravin’
+mad. Look to yerself only. Can ye swim?”
+
+“Better than most.”
+
+“Then it’s a fair chance ye have. But, mind me, if y’ fail, carry right
+through till ye fall stone dead. Never let ’em pinion ye down alive.”
+
+An officer saw them together, talking thus earnestly, and came over with
+a sharp warning.
+
+“No sedition on board! Separate!”
+
+Eastman slid away. Peale stared at the shoreline, mind filling with the
+hope of release from the leprous hulk that swayed uneasily in the water.
+Once overboard, he would have no fear. Even in darkness he would have a
+few glimmering lights from the town to guide him on. Ashore, he would
+again be a free agent. Free enough at least to fight for himself. Here
+on the prison ship he could only watch disaster overtake him. And there
+was Maxwell waiting in the Morristown hut for his reply; there was Jane
+Welch—
+
+This new-found turbulence of spirit caused the day to drag on
+interminably, made doubly dull by the lack of sun. Not once did the
+heavy fog disperse, or a clear sky appear. Occasionally rain fell and
+drove some of the feebler ones below. Toward midday there was a general
+movement toward the hold, but though Peale got as far as the trap, his
+freshened sense of smell rebelled at the sickening stench and so he
+returned to his post and began a study of the guards.
+
+The previous night, on coming aboard, an English voice had assailed him,
+and even in the shadows he had seen the guard’s stubborn English face.
+But, during the early hours there had been a change. Hessians now
+lounged at particular posts on deck, arms carelessly ready, their
+taciturn visages made all the more gloomy by their fashion of pigtailing
+their hair and by their tall, helmeted hats. Not one who did not wear an
+extraordinarily thick mustache. A child would have been frightened at
+the first glimpse of them; and indeed America had trembled when first
+they arrived.
+
+Trenton had dissipated their false ferocity, and the towns and farms
+along the route of their march knew them now as greedy, lustful
+marauders more set on stealing the lead weights out of a clock than on
+fighting. They kept their places stolidly, watching like so many lazy
+mastiffs. Once Peale saw a prisoner sway and rub the elbow of such a
+Hessian. The man spoke a word of jargon and pushed the weak one away
+with his hand, not ungently.
+
+He still had a few precious gold crowns in his pockets, saved from
+confiscation by his swift changing of prisons. Now, as his ideas of
+escape expanded, the money seemed the chosen instrument of salvation.
+From hour to hour he watched, until time came to change reliefs and
+another took post over the trap-door. They appeared to stand the regular
+two-hour shift and Peale calculated that the following relief would come
+on some short time before darkness; that guard was the one to approach
+with the offer of money.
+
+He moved restlessly around the pigsty to starboard. The path from the
+trap-door to the ship’s side was not an open one. Several kegs of
+molasses were piled between and a kind of alley led through them: Once
+past the guard he had to thread this and throw himself over the bulwark.
+He visualized every step of it. All he asked was but a moment’s
+forgetfulness on the part of the Hessian sentry; a moment in which the
+trap-door might be left unbolted. So thinking, he watched the East River
+grow darker and more turbulent.
+
+A cautious voice spoke into his ear.
+
+“Come below, sir. There’s a council goin’ on.”
+
+Before he could turn his head one of the newer prisoners walked past,
+took a tour of the deck and descended. Peale tarried some moments,
+feeling conscious of an overseeing eye. Casually looking about, he saw
+no one watching and so followed down the trap and ladder to the hold.
+
+Already dusk settled in the place and men were assuming attitudes around
+the portholes. Some of the messes were fixing for the night meal. There
+seemed to be a sly expectancy in the faces he passed; faces that
+explored his stature as he walked along the dim alleys. News, he
+decided, traveled quickly among prisoners.
+
+Toward a far corner he saw the messenger who had summoned him and
+pursued his way with a certain air of disinterest. Yet his intuition
+told him what was abroad half-way toward the stern, and therefore he was
+in a measure prepared when Sharon Eastman rose from a blanket and
+intercepted him, whispering rapidly:
+
+“Remember what I told ye, friend. Play a lone fiddle. Have nothin’ to do
+with gen’ral mutiny. _That’s_ beyant hope!”
+
+Peale nodded and went on. Beyond a square oak post, green with mold, he
+came upon six of those with whom he had ridden on the barge. All were
+resolute fellows, though ragged and dirty, and all turned on him a
+singular glance of hope that the messenger presently undertook to
+explain in a subdued voice:
+
+“We got our bearin’s on this ship, sir. ’Tis the opinion of six of
+us—all that’s got spirit—that if we ever wish to see liberty again it
+would be better to make the attempt now. And since I knew you to be one
+of Maxwell’s officers—seen you on parade one day—I made it plain to the
+rest you should take the lead and give us some encouragement.”
+
+“What had you thought?”
+
+“Ah, that’s the infernally hard question to answer. We’d thought to
+force the trap-door after dark and scatter. Once the passage was open
+the rest of the poor devils might take heart and follow after. That
+would simplify things. ’Twould be no task then to disarm the Hessians
+and control the ship.”
+
+“But if not?” asked Peale.
+
+“Well, if we must count on only ourselves, it’s a matter o’ reaching the
+bulwarks and divin’ for it.”
+
+“Can all swim?” persisted Peale.
+
+The spokesman was interrupted in his answer by another, more forthright.
+
+“No, but —— all tories, I’ll take my chance on sinkin’ ruther’n fester
+here! Besides, half them molasses kegs are empty, an’ bunged up. Good
+support fer a bad swimmer. I’ll chance it!”
+
+“You’ll give us a lead?” persisted the first speaker anxiously. “’Twas
+in the mind of some that maybe we’d be bringin’ trouble down on the
+heads of the helpless. ’Twas the reason we should like your direction in
+case o’ trouble.”
+
+Peale harked to Sharon Eastman’s warning and dismissed it. If there were
+men to make the effort at liberty his was the privilege of throwing in
+his lot with them.
+
+“I had thought of a plan,” he said, scanning the circle of anxious
+faces. “It’s fair dark now. Make no undue move together, but slip toward
+the foot of the ladder, after it’s beyond being seen, and wait for my
+word. Once on deck, quiet is the word and every man to his own
+resources.”
+
+He left them and made his way back through the thickening gloom.
+Overhead was the tread of sentries, and when he reached the deck again
+and expelled the cloying air from his lungs he found a new guard had
+been posted at the trap—another dour creature, hardly distinguishable
+from his brethren. Peale, glancing about him, thought each and every one
+of these mercenaries possessed the same avidity of plunder in their
+eyes.
+
+There were, at the moment, no inquisitive faces bent his way and the fog
+of the coming dusk had begun to foreshorten distance on the ship. So,
+mustering his resources, he caught the Hessian’s attention by a nod of
+his head.
+
+“Do you understand English, friend?”
+
+The mercenary stood at ease, arm thrown around his bayoneted weapon. His
+features were cast in one unblinking, taurine expression. Peale felt a
+degree of helplessness.
+
+“I could wish for a knowledge of languages now,” he murmured. “I doubt
+if he’ll comprehend signs and it would draw attention. But there is one
+tongue he’ll understand, I vow.”
+
+Taking a crown from his pocket, he bent as if to look at the buckle of
+his shoe and slipped the crown beneath his heel. Rising, he moved away,
+exposing the money.
+
+The guard’s eyes fastened instantly upon it and remained there for an
+indefinite period. Peale stepped back on the piece to recover the man’s
+attention and then looked at the cloudy sky. The mercenary’s bold
+features lost their rigidity when the prisoner moved his attention to
+the trap-door and rather pointedly crossed glances with him. Deserting
+the coin a second time, Peale walked to the aperture and kicked his toe
+against the iron bolt which, at night, held the trap down. Again he
+commanded the Hessian’s face with a steady glance, and ended by passing
+between the kegs and leaning on the bulwark of the ship.
+
+The Hessian looked about to find whether he were unobserved, and then in
+a swift motion retrieved the crown. Peale nodded and flirted one finger
+not too conspicuously out toward the river. The Hessian seemed to nod
+his head—Peale could not be sure of that, but the sign looked
+favorable—and resumed his stolid posture, one arm wrapped around the
+bayonet.
+
+An officer came from aft, calling out.
+
+“Below rebels! Get below to your blankets!”
+
+Not many had elected to stay above until the last moment of grace.
+Enfeebled, lack-luster creatures, they preferred stench and a little
+warmth to the chilly draughts of the harbor wind. Peale, almost the last
+one to duck through the trap, turned to catch the Hessian’s eye. As he
+passed below, closely followed by another straggler or two, the trap
+slammed and the iron bolt clanked. The English officer spoke a word and
+marched away, his boots making a small, mincing echo in the hold. They
+were trapped once more for the night.
+
+Of a sudden it was dark with no more than a grayish beam shooting
+through the ports. Peale, standing at the ladder, began to make out once
+more the rising chorus of human misery. Here were the hours when courage
+ebbed. Men, shut in upon themselves by the lack of vision, began to be
+aware of their proximity to death and to bewail the fact in slow and
+measured groans. Peale shook his head compassionately at the sound,
+hardly able to master a torrential anger. These creatures were going
+through purgatory before their time.
+
+A hand touched his elbow.
+
+“Is there a flaw in the guards? Did you coax one?”
+
+“I think so,” murmured Peale. “If you hear the bolt—”
+
+A musket butt grounded on the trap, and they were aware that the bolt
+was being worked from its slot, inch at a time, faintly protesting.
+Peale touched his neighbor and felt the man reach out to signal another.
+Advancing up the rungs, he stationed himself with his arms ready to
+raise the door. The protesting iron became silent and the musket butt
+tapped again, this time with less of noise. Peale was aware of his
+followers clustering behind and, reaching down to communicate a word of
+caution, he put his weight against the door and shoved, a little at a
+time.
+
+Waist high to the deck, he looked around to reassure himself. The guard
+had slipped into the outer ring of darkness, apparently. There was no
+living sound from fore or aft and nothing but the small sough of wind
+and sigh of the East River current. Between the molasses barrels Peale
+saw the glimmering lights of New York town.
+
+Reassured, he got to the deck, laid the trap soundlessly down, and stood
+silent, checking his following one by one as they emerged, breathing as
+if from great physical exertion. There was an even half dozen of them
+and he wanted all to be assembled at the ship’s railing before breaking
+the silence. As for a general uprising, he had banished it from his
+thoughts long ago. The bulk of the prisoners had ostentatiously rolled
+themselves into blankets before dusk, as if washing their hands of all
+trouble. It was for the chosen six to run the gauntlet.
+
+His senses were preternaturally sharpened by suspicion, and he had not
+taken a step forward before he knew that the worst of his fears was
+about to be realized. They were ambushed, trapped, betrayed by the
+Hessian who had taken his crown. He could see nothing or hear nothing to
+justify this belief, yet he knew that they were ringed around by guards
+and that the next pace toward the molasses barrels would loose a bitter,
+bloody encounter.
+
+It was one of those impalpable shutter-like warnings that rise from
+utter blackness; all stalking animals know these, and sometimes men,
+fighting for their existence, are pitched to a condition where they,
+too, become aware. Poised on the balls of his feet, he was at the
+necessity of making a decision, with Sharon Eastman’s warning rising to
+guide him: “If y’re caught, go down fightin’. Don’t let ’em take ye
+alive!” And were it not far better for men to die instantly than to
+suffer decay? In the encounter they might score something for their
+imprisonment; the gods willing, they might come out on even terms.
+
+“Break!”
+
+It was a signal. From the molasses barrels came a driving storm of lead.
+A bullet fanned his cheek and his nearest companion sobbed like a
+broken-hearted child and fell at his very feet. The kegs rolled away and
+they were hemmed in. The silence of the river was riven by lusty cries.
+
+Peale knew, even as he crouched low and came up beneath a guard’s
+weapon, that he and the rest were utterly lost. The attack was too
+vicious and too sudden; there was too much weight behind it. If a single
+man escaped over the side that tragic night, he might account himself
+lucky. So thinking, he got his arm around a mercenary’s fat throat and
+brought him down.
+
+The both of them were trampled on and kicked as others passed and
+repassed the piece of deck over which they fought. The Hessian, greatly
+overbalancing Peale by his bulk, sought to bring his rifle to bear.
+Peale felt the bayonet gouge his chest; he ran his hand down the length
+of the blade and found a good grip.
+
+His knee knocked the Hessian’s wind from the paunchy stomach. A twist
+and a solid blow and the trick was done; the Hessian lay still. Rising,
+he dashed toward the ship’s side.
+
+A lantern flared in his face and a sword flashed before his eyes. His
+bayonet averted a disastrous swipe of the blade; but at the same time he
+heard the alarm go out and resistance crumble behind and knew that the
+freed guards were swarming toward him.
+
+“Rally! Here’s the malcontent! Steady! Spit him if ye must, but try to
+bag the devil alive!”
+
+That officer’s very back was to the ship’s bulwark. But a distance of
+five feet was between Jeffry Peale and liberty—a five feet that he could
+not cut his way through.
+
+Lunging and smashing, he saw faces drop before him while the lantern’s
+glow took on a bloody color. He felt blows on his body, innumerable
+blows, and his ears rang. Still he fought, trying to reach the elusive
+officer who held the treacherous light upon him and made him a fair
+target for all the surrounding mercenaries.
+
+Barbaric oaths rang in his ears; he saw the point of his bayonet plunge
+through a tunic and come out with a jet of blood behind it. After that
+his vision reeled. Something thundered against his head and he heard, as
+from a remote distance, the officer saying curtly:
+
+“Don’t kill the devil! Take him for’d to the lazarette and throw him in.
+We’ll give the rats company for a while. Ah! Well done! He’s down!”
+
+Vivid shells burst in his brain and a cannon roared and reverberated.
+After that salute all was dark. His last flash of thought was—
+
+“Jeffry Peale, you are dead!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V — ESCAPE
+
+
+Jane Welch’s house was a very comfortable place to be that blustery
+night, for the east wind, which all week long had whipped the coast with
+its sly temper, was making a final grand tour of the city. It swept the
+streets with malevolent intent, sending all pedestrians to the nearest
+shelter, fingertips stinging cold and eyelashes burdened with frost
+particles.
+
+More than once officers of the guard had stamped in for a moment’s
+stolen warmth and crawled reluctantly out again, enviously leaving
+Ensigns Bunch and Osbaldeston to attend the flaming pyre of oak on the
+andirons. These two were off duty this night and each in his own manner
+was trying to impress the lady of the house as she sat in the rocker and
+fashioned something with cloth and needle.
+
+Both were rather desperately in love with Jane Welch, and showed it.
+With Bunch it was the sighing breath and languorous eye that begged for
+response; in short, every such artifice as the fashionable manuals on
+love-making indicated as proper for gentlemen. Osbaldeston, no less
+smitten, was severely handicapped by nature, for he scarcely uttered a
+word in the course of an hour and the least attention from the girl
+caused him to blush to the crown of his ungainly head and pucker his
+lips to hide a most painful self-consciousness.
+
+Bunch was very scornful of his comrade and by every token considered his
+case as the farther advanced; but when she rose and put four mugs of
+cider in the ashes to mull Osbaldeston well nigh fainted; in passing she
+accidentally touched his boot and this, according to the manuals, was a
+secret sign of young love coyly advancing to meet the gentleman’s humor.
+Bunch noted it with thunderous brow and stabbed his brother officer with
+a killing glance, receiving in return a more or less ribald snoot.
+
+All of this, of course, behind poor Jane Welch’s back. The ardent
+ensigns considered that she had never seemed more beautiful or more
+reserved; but in truth she was torn by every sound of the storm and when
+she ventured to raise her eyes to the men it was with a fear that they
+would read the truth in her eyes. This was the penalty of dissembling.
+They might harry Jeffry Peale throughout the miserably bitter-cold
+countryside or already have sent a stray shot into his heart; it made no
+difference. She must smile and politely respond to their small conceits.
+
+Very fervently she thanked God there was sewing to bend over that they
+might not see printed on her face a question that would not leave her.
+Where—and why could not a kind Lord tell her?—was Jeffry Peale? Sleeping
+and waking, through three long days and nights, she had asked herself
+that. The provost guards had searched their dungeons and the irate
+Captain Tremble had inspected the hulks in the bay, all to no avail.
+Innumerable parties had gone out and more than one tavern—the Red Boar
+among them—had been wrathfully wrecked in the search.
+
+And two court martials had sat as a result of the spy’s disappearance.
+Perhaps no such uproar would have been caused had it not been for
+Tremble. But he, of all men, was not one to rest.
+
+There was not an officer in New York more devoted to the royal cause,
+nor one more bitterly opposed to those who had rebelled against it. The
+man was a zealot, a humorless martinet who seemed incapable of pity. It
+was on record that he favored war without quarter; and the higher
+officers were well aware that if the result of the struggle depended on
+the sacrifice of a single life, Captain Tremble would be just the sort
+to step out and offer himself as the martyr. His was not a temper to
+cross lightly and his men detested him, at the same time carrying a
+discipline few other companies of the royal army could boast. All in
+all, he was an implacable, shrewd sort of character and perhaps the only
+one in the city Jane Welch feared. His eyes were too cold, too
+penetrating.
+
+She woke from her thoughts to find Bunch speaking in his affected
+manner:
+
+“Do you not think, lady, it would be jolly in Old England now? Sewing in
+a fine English hall before just such a fire and, mayhap, a few hounds
+snoozin’ at hand?”
+
+Osbaldeston looked worried, and started to speak. Then, remembering his
+shortcomings, he shut his mouth like a trout on a fly and watched the
+girl.
+
+“Indeed it would be pleasant,” she said. “But you must remember,
+gentlemen, I love New York, too. We provincials are stubborn people
+about leaving this land.”
+
+“Ah,” muttered Osbaldeston in satisfaction, and then turned ruddy as she
+looked his way.
+
+“Nevertheless,” said Bunch gloomily, “I could wish for a stall at a
+Lunnon coffee house this night.”
+
+“And now,” said she, “you have changed your desire. Which is it you
+would be? The squire or the townsman—”
+
+The wind whipped into the room and the front door slammed. The girl’s
+grave eyes turned quickly and then dropped. Captain Tremble stood in the
+hall, throwing off his cloak and hat. He turned, unsmiling, and bowed
+with a precise kind of courtesy toward her. As for the ensigns, he
+dismissed them at one glance and left them sitting silent and
+uncomfortable, constrained by his sternness. Taking a chair betwixt the
+fire and the girl, he rubbed his hands in dour silence for some
+minutes—the nearest he ever came to permitting himself luxury.
+
+Either Osbaldeston or Bunch would have topped him by a head, for he was
+not a large man nor big-boned. And doubtless the combined age of the
+ensigns was not greater than his, for his temples were graying and fine
+lines showed in his face. But for all that, he bore himself like a
+fighting man; and he was known as a dangerous sword.
+
+“Very cold,” said he to the girl.
+
+“Yes. I am glad I don’t stand a guard tour.”
+
+“My belief is you’d stand it better than some of the nincompoops this
+army is now cluttered with.” He snapped a finger at the ensigns. “One of
+you fetch some sticks for the fire.”
+
+Osbaldeston excused himself and went back through the house. Bunch
+endeavored to make conversation.
+
+“Have they got a smell yet of the spy, sir?”
+
+“D’ye think I’d be tarryin’ here if they had?” demanded Tremble sharply.
+
+“Three days since he appeared at this house,” mused the girl, head bent
+over the sewing. “What do you think happened to him, Captain?”
+
+It was a question perhaps not wise, but it had to be uttered. She could
+not see Tremble’s face, but she was very certain his gimlet eyes were
+fixed on her.
+
+“And what do _you_ think happened to him?” asked Tremble.
+
+Jane Welch raised her head, startled.
+
+“Me? La, what could you expect me to know, sir? He has vanished and—”
+here was a gentle gibe at him “—not all the king’s gallant soldiers
+ensembled can find him.”
+
+Bunch spoke reassuringly.
+
+“Be assured he’ll never put his scurvy foot in these premises again.
+’Tis nothing for you to worry about.”
+
+“Perhaps she’d not be worried.”
+
+It was a cryptic sentence, with the implication of more than one
+meaning. When Jane Welch caught Tremble’s eyes she saw a faint malice in
+them and of a sudden she put her hands together and collected her
+courage. Bunch moved uneasily and blurted out a protest—
+
+“Oh, now, I must protest—”
+
+“Be quiet!” was Tremble’s sharp rejoinder. He bowed a little at the
+girl. “’Twas not a charitable or Christian remark. I do beg your
+pardon.”
+
+But the malice, the slight doubt persisted. It was the first word of
+doubt ever directed at her and it came like a direct challenge. She had
+always feared him for his penetration, his animal-like intuition. Now
+she knew she had him for a critic, an enemy. Without answer, she dropped
+her head and, quite unannounced, the picture of Jeffry Peale was before
+her, as it had often been the past eventful hours.
+
+He was like many others who had traveled the dangerous path before him;
+and yet he was like none. Those others were gallant fellows from every
+State and every rank; they were gay and, like gentlemen, they paid her
+brief court as an appreciation of her own courage. Then they were gone
+and in time their faces merged, one into the other, until she could not
+remember them as individuals.
+
+But she knew she would never forget the sight of Jeffry Peale, even if
+ten thousand others came after. The secret of Jeffry Peale was in his
+eyes. There his strength and weakness rested side by side. She had never
+seen this wistfulness of a hungry man, this mild distrust of self, this
+shining light of ambition so twisted and entwined before. A brave
+soldier he might be, but first and always he was like a boy looking at
+some far-off star. Quite clear, quite humble.
+
+Tremble’s dry, brittle voice broke athwart her communing.
+
+“If the lady would be so kind as to give us her society a moment—”
+
+She smiled.
+
+“You must excuse me. I often fall into a dreaming.”
+
+Bunch smirked, as if he quite well knew what this dreaming was about.
+Osbaldeston came tramping back with the wood and, greatly to Tremble’s
+irritation, threw it a-clatter on the floor.
+
+“Quite a few of these provincial women keep secret company with
+themselves,” announced Tremble. “I sometimes wonder if they are so Tory
+as they profess to be.”
+
+Osbaldeston, behind Tremble’s back, drew one finger across his throat
+and swiftly pointed to the captain, grimacing. But Jane Welch knew she
+was being fenced with and, on her guard, answered evenly enough:
+
+“You have no great regard for a people of these provinces, have you,
+Captain Tremble? Neither for rebels or Tories or women or children.”
+
+“I could wish,” said Tremble with a quietness that chilled the girl’s
+blood, “that everything pertaining to the provinces had never existed. I
+could wish to see it all in ashes—a desert—back to the red Indian.” He
+bowed again, without offering pardon, and pointed toward the fire. “I
+had wondered if that cider—”
+
+“It is quite ready,” said she, putting her sewing aside and rising. She
+drew out a mug and handed it to Tremble. “I offer this to you, Captain,
+with better grace than to return your compliments.”
+
+His thin lips pressed to an even finer line.
+
+“I never dissemble my feelings,” said he and blew into the hot drink.
+
+He was not destined to taste it. The door burst open again and a very
+frozen aide came into the room, speaking to Tremble!
+
+“The colonel’s wish, sir, is that you will turn out your company and
+scour the city. The spy has come to life—bursting out of a dungeon on
+the _Whitby_ and leaping into the river.”
+
+Tremble set the mug on the floor, transfixed the courier with a steely
+gaze and thundered:
+
+“On the _Whitby_? Ye mean to stand there and tell me they’ve kept the
+rascal _concealed_ from the gallows? I inspected that ship two days
+ago!”
+
+“You know the commander of this ship, sir. And the quality of the
+dungeon.”
+
+“Thought to kill him by a more eventful way, eh? By gad, there is too
+much of private vengeance going on in this army! And now he’s loose once
+more! Well, I’ll find him if I must wreck every house in the town. And
+when that’s accomplished I’ll see to it the fine gentleman in charge of
+the _Whitby_ is kicked out of the king’s service! Bunch—Osbaldeston—come
+with me!”
+
+He stalked into the hallway with something very near predatory joy on
+his face. Bunch, cowed by the captain’s manner, followed humbly after,
+casting a last beseeching glance at the girl who sat still, unmindful of
+her needlework. But Osbaldeston kept his place, turned dogged. Tremble,
+ready to go, found him tarrying and sent a more peremptory challenge at
+the young man.
+
+“Osbaldeston! D’ye hear my command?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” answered Osbaldeston, “but I’m not of your company and
+therefore not under your immediate command.”
+
+“D’ye mean to disobey?” shouted Tremble, advancing a step.
+
+“I obey such as have direct authority over me,” replied Osbaldeston
+stubbornly. “But y’re not _my_ company commander and this is my free
+night. I’m within my rights, sir, and you well know it.”
+
+Tremble’s hand went to his sword and it seemed as if he meant to force
+the subaltern from the room at the point of the blade; then his features
+resumed their noncommittal cast and he retreated, flinging a warning
+over his shoulder:
+
+“Very well, sir. I shall see you properly scorched, when this affair is
+over. Bunch? Why’re you rooted there, a-gaping? Out, man!”
+
+The door slammed and Osbaldeston was left alone with Jane Welch, a great
+deal disturbed, but sticking manfully to his contention.
+
+“He’s a born devil,” muttered the ensign. “Maybe I’d gone without a fuss
+if he’d not played the boor to you.”
+
+“You have upset the will of a dangerous man,” warned the girl. “He will
+give you trouble.”
+
+“I’m not sure. My captain bears a vile hate toward the martinet; if it’s
+to be a court, I’m bound to have plenty of friends.”
+
+She returned to her work and, thus screened of countenance, asked a
+question—
+
+“When the messenger spoke of the dungeon—of private vengeance—what did
+he mean?”
+
+Osbaldeston squirmed.
+
+“Some things are better unsaid.”
+
+“And as long as I have been here I have not heard about it. It must be a
+silent conspiracy among you. I should like to know.”
+
+Osbaldeston scowled.
+
+“You’ll find some officers who don’t approve—and I’m of that party. The
+simple fact is, Miss Jane, there’s some foul holes on the _Whitby_ where
+a man can be put in solitary until he dies. ’Tis at the discretion of
+the prison ship commander. Perhaps this spy was unruly—he did seem a
+stubborn fellow—and they chucked him down in such. I wouldn’t doubt but
+what he had a hand in the last prisoners’ break.”
+
+“Ah,” said the girl, and began to sew furiously.
+
+Osbaldeston, having spoken more in the preceding quarter hour than
+during a whole week, subsided, staring into the flames. Outside, the
+wind began to carry toward them sounds of the freshened pursuit. A
+section went by at the double, boots making a great deal of racket in
+the night. A rifle sounded elsewhere, the first false alarm of several
+to follow as the evening went on. And at each such shot the girl
+flinched until at last she had to get up and move toward the window. A
+troop of horse passed the street on the gallop.
+
+“What are they doing?” she demanded impatiently. “Do they need to send
+the whole army to scout for a single man? La, it seems ridiculous.”
+
+Osbaldeston looked surprized.
+
+“Now, Miss Jane, I shouldn’t let your sympathy carry you away. He’s but
+a spy and he knew the odds when he took up the game.” Then, with a quiet
+boyish frankness he added, “Perhaps it ain’t fair, exactly, to harry a
+creature—but would you ever call war fair? Oh, I’m no fire-eater and,
+between you and me, I’d as soon they’d give the rebels terms and call it
+quits.”
+
+She made a great effort at controlling herself and resumed her seat.
+Hardly had she done so when an elderly housemaid came through from the
+kitchen. She knelt at the fire and put on a fresh log; then, taking up
+the mug of cider so recently abandoned by Captain Tremble, she shot a
+glance at Osbaldeston, who was turned a little away with his face to the
+flames and his mind somewhere in merry England, then with a swift motion
+of her finger, caught the attention of Jane Welch. She was a dark,
+sharp-faced woman and at this particular moment her eyes rolled with
+unwonted agitation, rising and falling to convey a wordless message. Her
+head bobbed forward, indicating the rear of the house, after which she
+went back through the door and closed it with a telltale slam.
+
+Jane Welch’s needle poised, and of a sudden she uttered a small,
+disappointed “La!” and turned a vexed brow on Osbaldeston, who emerged
+from his reverie.
+
+“What?” he asked.
+
+“I had meant to get three yards of good sagathy cloth this very
+afternoon from the mercer—and I forgot. Well, the evening’s wasted now.
+If I but had it—”
+
+Osbaldeston was instantly on his feet. “’Twould be only pleasure for me
+to get it, Miss Jane. The mercer at the corner?”
+
+“No, the mercer farther down—on Beaver Street. I am ashamed to send you
+on such a night and mayhap the shop will be closed.”
+
+He was already struggling into his cloak and half-way to the door, a
+pathetically eager young man scarcely beyond the school age—a subaltern
+who found little to please him in the swashbuckle of the military.
+
+“If the fellow’s not open I’ll soon enough bring him ’round,” he assured
+her and ducked into the turbulent night.
+
+The girl sprang up as the latch of the door fell and hurried to the
+kitchen where the housemaid awaited, out of breath, eyes wide with
+excitement.
+
+“Oh, laws—laws! Missy Jane, _he’s_ in the shed, half dead and the
+clothes on him no less’n so much ice! Laws, what _will_ we do?”
+
+She wrung her hands and plucked at the younger girl’s shawl. Jane Welch
+drew in her breath.
+
+“He lives then? Oh, how kind is life! Sally, don’t wring your hands so!
+Bolt the front door and close the hall door. Hurry! I’ll help him in
+while you watch! He must go in my room—’tis the safest! Don’t stand
+there so cravenly—run!”
+
+She pushed the woman away with both hands and then, pulling the shawl
+about her, went through the back door, crossing a windy yard and coming
+to a stone house. It was very dark and very cold and when she got into
+the shed she heard the short, uneven breathing of a man badly shaken.
+She struck his foot and instantly she was crouched beside him, her white
+hands crossing his face and feeling his body tremble uncontrollably. It
+was as the maid had said; his clothing was like so much ice armor and
+his hair was beginning to freeze together. Water dripped from every part
+of his clothing.
+
+“Oh, my poor boy! Come, can you raise yourself a little? Here’s my arm.
+You are shaking terribly! Make one effort—Jeffry. One big effort. Are
+you past it?”
+
+“In—in the house? No. Bad for you. Get me a blanket—and—let me lie!”
+
+“And perish! Come up!”
+
+He made the effort and fell back; but it served to send the blood into
+chilled members and with her arm beneath him he finally got to his feet.
+Steadying him, she led the way out of the shed and to the house. Once in
+the kitchen it was easier, but when the light fell on his haggard,
+bloodless countenance she checked a cry.
+
+It looked as if he had been cruelly beaten. Long welts lay across his
+cheeks and blood was still caked in his hair, even though he had crossed
+a river. He looked tired, tired beyond the power to tell, and there were
+lines on his face that had never been there a short three days ago. The
+prison ship had left its mark.
+
+But it passed belief that he had succeeded in coming away at all.
+
+The girl, guiding his feet upstairs, could hear his heart beating slow
+and hard. Coming to her bedroom door, she threw it open and as quickly
+shut it.
+
+Peale swayed a little and then without any great expense of effort,
+walked to the bed and sank down. The maid put her head in the room and
+was dispatched on an errand.
+
+“The wine, Sally, and a plate of that fowl we had for supper. Bring hot
+water. Leave the door bolted. If the ensign must knock we’ll say we had
+become afraid.”
+
+Peale looked up at her, speaking easier.
+
+“My lady, they had about run me down. ’Tis strange how a man’s mind will
+stay clear while muscles grow dead and the heart falters. I saw myself
+die, tonight—and yet here I am. ’Tis not so bad as I had thought, for I
+feel a little life coming back.”
+
+“You have gone through more than you can forget,” said she. “The mark is
+on you.”
+
+He moved his hand.
+
+“Oh, that will fade. In another hour I shall be fit. Where a man is
+sound, his muscles soon come back.”
+
+She went over and knelt by the fire, stirring it up with fresh wood.
+
+“I have heard rumors about the prison ship—all unpleasant. They spoke of
+a dungeon. Were you in it? How did you get out?”
+
+“The ship’s commander,” replied Peale, with a very faint trace of humor,
+“had his own notions of torture. I failed of one escape and so was put
+away with the rats, knee high in bilge-water and nothing but bran and
+water once a day. They thought they had me broke, but the guard who fed
+me tonight at dusk was a careless rascal and I surprized him and hauled
+him into the hold after me. A simple thing then to dive over and swim.
+
+“I had not figured the water to be so cold. It cuts like a knife. Once
+ashore I was hemmed in and this was the only shelter I knew. I thought
+to get that list from you and make my way out. But the candle must have
+been rather low, for when I knocked on your back door and regained the
+shed it seemed to flicker.”
+
+She had remained crouched by the fire, hands interlaced.
+
+“So easy to say—and still—with all the black world about you and your
+marrow frozen—oh, Jeffry Peale, why is it you still remain doubtful of
+yourself?”
+
+“Eh? And how could you know that?”
+
+“Plain—so very plain.”
+
+She meant to say more, but the maid slipped into the room with a tray of
+food. Peale rose from the bed and walked unsteadily to the fire,
+choosing a chair. The girl went out, without comment, and after quite
+some interval returned with an arm freighted with a man’s suit.
+
+“Your own must be gotten off quickly. Here is what my father once wore.
+’Twill be small, but it’s only makeshift until your own dries.”
+
+“Give me an hour,” said he, “and I will be gone.”
+
+Jane Welch looked troubled.
+
+“I could wish to believe it. But you don’t know Captain Tremble. He has
+raised half the army in search. La! That’s Ensign Osbaldeston rattling
+at the door, Sally. Go down and let him in. I shall be there in one
+moment.”
+
+“Come,” grumbled Peale, “I’ll not be caught here. ’Twould mean your
+betrayal.”
+
+“Rest awhile and I’ll hear what’s being said. As for betrayal—I fear but
+one man.”
+
+“Who is that?” demanded Peale with a show of concern.
+
+Jane Welch noted his manner and dropped her eyes.
+
+“Captain Tremble. But never mind. Eat and change your suit and rest.
+I’ll be back after a bit and tell you the news.”
+
+He turned in his chair and watched her. As she closed the door she met
+his glance and saw there again the recurrence of that wistfulness which
+had so strongly marked him out from all others. She treaded the stairs
+and came upon Osbaldeston holding a package.
+
+“Terribly long time,” he apologized, “but I had to read the mercer out
+of bed and lecture him on the duties of a tradesman.”
+
+She took the package with a brilliant smile and reduced him to
+speechlessness with one short compliment.
+
+“You are a most obliging gentleman.”
+
+There was a commotion outside and a sharp command. Dispersed soldiers
+ran for barracks and presently Tremble stamped in the house, a glum,
+bitter-mouthed figure.
+
+“Luck, Captain?” she asked.
+
+He warmed his hands at the blaze.
+
+“He’s in the city—that’s certain. And I’ll wager my commission he’ll
+never get out after such guards as I’ve posted. The lines are doubled.
+Oh, I’ll run him down! If day comes and he’s not taken I’ll make very
+short work of it with other means.”
+
+She folded her hands, smiling gently.
+
+“It is no light matter to cross the power of a captain in his majesty’s
+army, is it, sir?”
+
+He favored her with a sharp glance and broke out, suddenly—
+
+“Why don’t you ask me what means I intend to use?”
+
+“Why, sir, to what purpose? I am not interested.”
+
+He started for the stairs.
+
+“No? Ah, madam, I doubt _that_. You are a very clever woman. But then
+all women are clever.”
+
+And with this shot he climbed upward. Osbaldeston glowered. Jane Welch
+collected her things and nodded at the clock.
+
+“I shall follow his example. Good night, sir.”
+
+She summoned the maid with a glance. Together they climbed the stairway
+and passed into the room.
+
+Jeffry Peale had made the change of clothing and was warming himself.
+Raising a warning finger, the girl moved over and spoke in very low
+tones.
+
+“You can not go tonight. Captain Tremble has the whole city guarded. It
+would be death to try. You must sleep in this room.”
+
+Peale shook his head.
+
+“But it’s your room, my lady.”
+
+She pointed toward the other end of the place where a second bed rested
+in the shadows.
+
+“Sally and I will sleep there. No, you must be quiet. Captain Tremble
+would see or hear any change we made. Sally, blow out the candles.”
+
+The maid obeyed and the room was plunged in entire darkness, save as the
+flames in the fireplace made a small yellow pool of light against the
+wall. At the end of the hall Peale heard a door close cautiously. It was
+Tremble’s door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI — A LIGHT IN THE STORM
+
+
+He slept deeply, and perhaps that was why he thought he had been in bed
+but a few minutes when he was awakened by a sound. The room was
+deserted, a fire burned cheerfully on the hearth and through the windows
+came a dim light like that of the hour before dawn. Throwing aside a
+quilt, he crossed the room—still dressed in the misfit suit—and looked
+out of the curtains. People moved in the street and soldiers filed by;
+overhead the clouds were particularly dense and momentarily growing
+blacker. It was so still that he heard quite plainly the voices of
+children around the corner and the click of feet on the cobbles. On
+looking at his watch he was astonished to find it almost noon.
+
+His long abused body had taken opportunity to recoup its vitality, and
+while he slumbered the night and the day had rolled on and the storm had
+changed tactics, recalling the cavalry of the east wind and massing all
+the artillery of the sky.
+
+There was a light tapping at the door, and on his summons Jane Welch
+slid quietly through bearing a tray. There was food in sight and, what
+excited Peale’s attention, a brace of dueling pistols. The girl put the
+tray on the bed and lifted a cautioning finger. On coming closer he saw
+her face had assumed a deep concern.
+
+“The city’s been scoured all day,” she said in a low voice. “You’ve
+never heard of a wilder search. Five poor people in gaol as suspects and
+thrice some one shot at, being mistaken for you.”
+
+“And what are the pistols for?” he asked, watching her pour coffee.
+
+“Bring up a chair, Jeffry, and eat. I am beginning to be afraid for you.
+Last night you couldn’t have gone on. You were dead tired and the guards
+were double-posted, with every man on the street being stopped to
+explain himself. Today is your only chance, and it must be soon. Captain
+Tremble left ten minutes ago to bring back hounds from a farm up the
+island.”
+
+Peale lowered his cup.
+
+“I’m to be treed with dogs, then?”
+
+“But you have two or three good hours. It will take him that long to
+fetch them.”
+
+A sense of the danger—which he had before considered—came back to him
+fourfold.
+
+“My lady, I should not have come. But my memory failed me as to the
+exact figures in that dossier you gave me to study. I meant to get it
+and go on. But I must’ve overguessed my strength, for when I reached the
+shed I could do no more than to make a small noise and give way. I had
+never considered they would use dogs—had not thought dogs would be
+available hereabouts.”
+
+“You can’t harm me. They will carry the scent to the stone shed and no
+farther. Sally spread pepper between there and the house and even now is
+scrubbing the floor and the hall stairs. I am safe. And it will rain
+soon.”
+
+“Nevertheless the trail comes into the yard. That will be enough to put
+a suspicion into men’s minds. Into Tremble’s above all else.”
+
+“They may suspect—but they can prove nothing,” she returned stoutly.
+
+“You are brave—very brave. I sometimes wonder how you manage all the
+louts who come storming into your house.”
+
+A slight shadow came over her face.
+
+“Sometimes—not often—but sometimes a man of ill-breeding presumes on
+decency. There is one below now. A friend of Captain Tremble, evidently,
+for they sat beside the fire, head to head, and spoke very low for
+better than a half-hour. He dresses like a gentleman but is none.”
+
+“Then he does not keep his place?” demanded Peale, deserting his cakes
+and standing before her.
+
+Her eyes flashed. She had touched a spark to tinder and the knowledge
+made the rich color come to her face, visible even in the darkened room.
+
+“La, why do I worry you with my poor affairs? You must put your mind to
+getting away from here. These pistols may help you. And here in the
+closet is a sword of my father’s.”
+
+She rummaged among clothes and brought it out, the scabbard gleaming in
+the fire-light. Peale glanced through the window to the ever blackening
+sky. One drop of rain splashed on the glass; in the street lights were
+twinkling, though it was past noon.
+
+“While they look for me in every back alley I shall try a bolder way.
+What I need is an officer’s suit that will fit and the list of troops
+you have. Is the house clear?”
+
+“Save for this stranger.”
+
+“Go down and bolt the door and come back.”
+
+He heard her descend and presently, listening through the aperture of
+the portal, made out the wheedling, strangely familiar voice of a man.
+Jane Welch answered in curt monosyllables, at which the stranger’s
+manner grew louder, more persistent. Peale closed the door with a
+feeling of impotent anger and crossed to the window.
+
+The sky was a mottled black; far off to the north he saw a pale blue
+streak. Of a sudden lightning flashed and printed a vivid sprawling
+track across his brain which lasted long after its disappearance. In a
+moment a clap of thunder shook the town and sent its echoes thunderously
+back and forth. There was a moment’s lull in which he heard a wind
+rushing through the street and the first small patter of rain. Then a
+second, more overwhelming flash lighted the buildings and streets in an
+intense electric glare and heralded a sound as of the heavens falling
+in. The windows rattled and the flames shot from the hearth into the
+room, scattering ashes.
+
+He heard the door open and swung around. There, faintly illumined by the
+fire, he saw a man’s arm encircling Jane Welch and a man’s face bending
+forward in a vain effort to catch her evading lips. Her arms flailed at
+his chest and she spoke with a gusty passionate anger.
+
+“Drop your arms, you swine!”
+
+It was too dark to make out the character of the fellow. Peale seized
+the sword on the mantel and strode forward, feeling the blood rush
+toward his head.
+
+“Step away or you are a dead man!”
+
+The intruder sprang back and his hand went to the gentleman’s blade at
+his side. Peale, peering at the blur of his face, had an uncomfortable
+memory flash into his head and elude him. Precisely at the moment the
+whole room was made day-bright by another of those transitory streaks of
+lightning and he recoiled as a man does from the sight of horror.
+
+The intruder was Priam Lafferty—the same bulky, uneven comrade of the
+Morristown camp-fires. The same Priam with the lust of pleasure in his
+eyes. Out of that moment came Jeffry Peale’s cry of detestation—
+
+“Oh, you —— decoy duck!”
+
+“Ha! So here you are! Tremble said ye’d been abroad. Well, my fine lad,
+your meat is burnt now. I shall have the pleasure—”
+
+“You scurvy traitor!” cried Peale. “D’you stand there and feel like a
+man? Why, you dog, you should be hiding your face! And to top it y’
+pursue a woman! Gad!”
+
+“The trull was not backward about bein’ pleasant—”
+
+“Stop! ’Tis always been your abominable conceit that all women were
+forward. Another word about it and I’ll slit your heart!”
+
+“Well, cockatoo, d’ye want to test blades?”
+
+Peale turned from flame to ice. Silence fell across the room like a
+blanket and he saw in one tragic picture the course of his friendship
+with Priam Lafferty from boyhood up. And where before he had always
+denied Priam’s weakness he recalled now the odds and ends of pettiness,
+the bullying spirit, the avid search of pleasure. They led step by step
+to the present treachery. He bowed toward the girl and said evenly—
+
+“My lady, if you will go outside and close the door.”
+
+In the following flash of lightning he saw her body swaying and her face
+turned on him, pale and concerned. Then it was dark and she had
+vanished.
+
+He took a grip on the sword and shook it in his wrist, observing
+Lafferty’s shoulders loom larger and hearing the man’s mocking voice.
+
+“It irks your straight-laced mind to find me turnin’ politics, don’t it?
+Why, —— you, Jeff, I’ve played false to the army almost a year! And I’m
+not ashamed! What’s the use of sufferin’ for nothin’? Bah, I’ll be a man
+of consequence, drinkin’ my wine long after you’re dead and the army
+beaten. ’Tis only little intellects that abominate a change o’ side. As
+for me, I am pliant and to show you how I cherish my new allegiance I
+shall spit you nicely and render you up to Captain Tremble.”
+
+“That,” replied Peale without emotion, “reveals the heart of a jackal.”
+
+“—— you!” shouted Lafferty. “Up blade! Y’ve always assumed a superior
+air to me! Gad, but I’ve endured it for the last time! Up blade! At
+you!”
+
+Peale was silhouetted, his back to the fire; out of the darkness he saw
+Lafferty’s blade sweep, a flash of yellow running from tip to guard. His
+own weapon sang gaily and they were at grips.
+
+Lafferty pressed; always he pressed. It was his temper, a temper that
+fitted well with any kind of conflict, growing hotter, stronger, more
+violent as the contest endured, with a small core of shrewdness within
+all this heat to preserve him from that blindness which usually rises of
+rage.
+
+Peale gave way, feeling the opposite blade slide in and out with
+gathering strength. This was a tide he did not feel able to stem. Let
+Priam wear himself out. Parry, lunge, parry! The shuffling of feet
+across and around the floor. The click and rattle of steel on steel,
+overborne by the thunder and the fury of the rain just bursting about
+the house.
+
+In the lightning he saw Priam’s jaws set as they had never been before
+and the frenzy of combat blazing in his eyes. Darkness again.
+Parry—lunge! That time the man was halted. Priam who took defeat badly
+and stooped to conquer by trickery. Trickery! He must watch that.
+
+Priam’s voice taunted across the whining blades.
+
+“You’re strong, Jeff, but I’ll wear ye down! Remember, I’ve done it
+before!” His own breath rose and fell in great sweeps and when they
+fought close to the fire-light his cheeks glistened with beads of sweat.
+Lunge! And this was the Priam so careless of his courtesies with Jane
+Welch. Power came to Jeffry’s tiring arm. Here was a time to press! His
+blade ripped into substance and across the small space he heard Priam
+gasp.
+
+“Done! Oh, by God, I’m done, Jeff!”
+
+Peale halted, blade outstretched, seeing Lafferty’s figure sag; if the
+man was done, why didn’t that sword arm drop. Treachery! He leaped,
+hearing Priam’s point penetrate his sleeve. His voice, remote from his
+body, spoke.
+
+“Now I know I shall kill you, Priam. Stand fast, you dog, and meet my
+point!”
+
+His arm was made of lead. It was suffocatingly hot and his neck-piece
+choked him. On blade! Thank God it stormed outside, that men might not
+hear! He saw the bulky figure shift in front of him and followed. Once
+more they circled and then he felt the weapon opposed him begin to
+tremble. Press!
+
+Above the elements that clash of metal sounded and stopped. It was done!
+Priam Lafferty had got his pay. He stood, an uncertain figure with a
+face that, in the ensuing flash, was quite disturbed, drenched in sweat.
+The man’s blade fell with a clatter and he began to sag, going upon his
+knees as if he meant to pray. Then he collapsed and the floor sounded
+under his bulk.
+
+“—— you—Jeff—you beat me—this time!”
+
+The door burst open and the girl ran through. Jeffry Peale dashed the
+perspiration from his brow and relaxed his aching muscles. Into his head
+came the most pressing thought.
+
+“Now, my lady, your usefulness here is at end! You must come away with
+me!”
+
+“Thank the Lord—oh, thank the Lord!”
+
+By the light Jeffry saw again that wide-eyed emotion so inexplicable to
+him. He stepped away and ran an eye down the length of his blade to
+where the tip showed crimson in the yellow rays. He sheathed it and went
+to the girl.
+
+“Come, we’ve got to be moving. Yourself and your maid. Is there a
+shelter you can find outside the lines?”
+
+“My maid need not stir beyond the city. She has particular friends here.
+Once I give her the word she will disappear as if the earth had
+swallowed her. ’Tis her own secret.”
+
+“And you?”
+
+She studied him for several moments, speaking at last in a subdued
+voice.
+
+“I have friends beyond the Passaic.”
+
+“No nearer?” He shook his head. “My dear girl, d’ye mean you must travel
+back through all this weather with me? ’Twill be a hard trip. Have you
+no nearer friends?”
+
+“I am sturdy,” said she, almost meekly. “I can stand hard travel.”
+
+“Then we go. Haste! Company may burst in any moment. I must get a
+uniform.” He caught up a candle and lighted it in the fire.
+
+“Come, Ensign Osbaldeston is nearly as tall. This room—next Captain
+Tremble’s.”
+
+He stood in the hall and issued swift directions.
+
+“Have the maid get you a coach. Do you have the power to get beyond
+lines?”
+
+“Oh, yes. It’s been my habit to go into the country every week for fresh
+vegetables. I have a pass.”
+
+“Good! Then have the maid tell the stableman to bring around a horse.
+Wrap yourself well, meanwhile.”
+
+He slipped into Osbaldeston’s room and crossed to the clothes closet.
+There were several uniforms hung on the wall, some of them rather
+splendid things for parade, even by candlelight. Without much hesitation
+he picked himself a plainer field-service suit and set about getting
+into it, speeded by the thought that at any moment officers might return
+to the house —and that Tremble was probably at this time returning with
+hounds. The hounds, he told himself, would be of little use after the
+torrent of rain.
+
+Pulling on boots, he looked for a cloak and hat. With them he returned
+to the girl’s room, to find her standing ready, holding out a slip of
+paper to him. It was the list. He thrust on his cloak, buckled on the
+sword and pocketed the pistols.
+
+“My lady, you are going to share rough fare.”
+
+“I am not afraid—hush!”
+
+She ran to the door and after a bit drew in the maid, dripping wet.
+
+“’Tis ready, ma’am. And the driver bids ye come. The horse, sir, is
+behint.”
+
+Peale nodded.
+
+“Go ahead, my lady. Pass through the lines and have the coachman drive
+at a fair rate. I shall be coming behind.”
+
+“If you meet a like officer,” she mused, “or the guard refuses you—”
+
+“’Tis as dark as a cave out, and they would have to peer close. As for
+the guard—that will take care of itself.”
+
+The girl bent forward and kissed the maid.
+
+“Fend for yourself, Sally. After this war—”
+
+Peale turned away, a little affected by the parting of the two.
+Presently he heard them go down and not long after the coach rolled
+away. It was time for his own adventure. With a last look at the dead
+Lafferty he left the room and passed down to the front door. Holding the
+cape tightly, he ducked out, to be met by a fierce, driving wind. A
+hostler stood at the steps, holding a restive horse. Without comment
+Peale sprang into the wet saddle.
+
+“An’ who, sir, shall I s’y stan’s back o’ this?” asked the hostler.
+
+“Put it to the account of Captain Tremble,” replied Peale and spurred
+the animal into the gale.
+
+He followed the street for a short distance, seeing here and there a
+solitary passer-by and once overhauling a file of soldiers who bent
+their necks against the bitter rain. But he felt safe; the elements
+conspired to protect him, and with a degree of elation he turned into a
+side alley and came presently to the guard where he was brought to a
+halt by a sentry’s sharp challenge. He came abreast the man and leaned
+down.
+
+“Have you seen a coach roll by the past few minutes?”
+
+The guard, seeing the boots and the binding on the hat, spoke
+respectfully.
+
+“Yes sir. Not five minutes ago. Your pass—”
+
+“——!” shouted Peale. “Why did you let it get through?”
+
+“The lady showed a pass,” replied the sentry. “’Tis common for her to go
+out in the country, though I can’t see why she should choose this day.
+Your pass—”
+
+“Damnation!” exclaimed Peale. “You made a mistake! The pass was forged!
+That coach must come back!” And, without further parley he put a spur to
+his horse and dashed onward. He half expected to have a bullet sent
+after him; but as the semi-darkness took him under cover no rifle report
+sounded in his ears and finally, looking back, he saw the sentry
+standing in the roadway, an indistinct, uncertain figure. His ruse had
+worked.
+
+“’Tis the same as has been done by reckless officers on our own lines,”
+he muttered. “The British guard is no less gullible than the American.”
+
+He urged his mount to as fast a pace as the rutted, unreliable road
+would allow, expecting at every bend to catch a view of the coach. It
+had gone on at a better rate than expected, and with some small concern
+he began to count the odds yet ahead of them. The road was patrolled at
+intervals by outguards and dragoons, and sooner or later he must
+encounter one or the other unless he turned aside.
+
+Thus thinking, he found himself thrust without warning into the jaws of
+a trap. Riders loomed not twenty yards away—four of them—and in another
+five paces he saw a pack of dogs being led behind. This was Tremble
+returning home!
+
+He jammed his hat farther on his head and rode boldly up to the group,
+giving way to the side of the highway. The rain was falling in torrents
+and the wind fairly drove his breath into his lungs. By the half-light
+he saw the riders straighten and turn toward him; and by viewing the
+size of their figures he picked upon the slight one on the far side as
+being Tremble.
+
+The near man drew up as if to talk. Peale shouted a meaningless phrase
+into the teeth of the wind, pointed and kept on. The other man tarried,
+then gave his horse the rein. They forged southward and soon were lost.
+And at the next turn Peale saw the lumbering coach making hard progress
+in the mud.
+
+Coming abreast the driver, he held up his hand and motioned to the side
+of the road. When the driver hesitated, Peale drew his sword and at that
+the horses swerved and the coach wheels, reaching the soft shoulder,
+sank deep and were stuck. Jane Welch put her head out of the door; Peale
+rode alongside, threw back the latch and opened it.
+
+“Your arm!” said he.
+
+She understood. Balancing herself on the coach step, she gave her arm
+and in a moment had swung outward and was sitting in front of Peale. He
+hesitated one moment, debating as to the coachman. But it was dark and
+the storm seemed in no way abating. Pursuit could not be particularly
+dangerous in the next hour. And so he forgot the man and drove his mount
+off the road and through the brush.
+
+There was a field ahead and this he took, traveling at the best speed
+possible. They were met by a fence which they skirted for fifty yards
+before finding a gap. The storm pounded them on all quarters, ceaseless,
+stinging in its force. Southward the thunder muttered, following the
+less frequent flashes of lightning. Out of this turbulence they saw the
+winking of a light, toward which the girl pointed.
+
+“That’s Tory—I know them!” said she, raising her voice against the wind.
+“You had better go around it.”
+
+He nodded and guided the horse into a ditch swollen with water. The
+ground rose sharply and fell away with equal abruptness. In front of
+them was the Hudson, a river of strength always, and now whipped and
+lashed by the gale sweeping through the gorge. They had a view of the
+immediate stretch out from the shore and could see the waves driving in
+upon the gravel. The girl turned a wondering face to him.
+
+“Where are we going?”
+
+He stopped the horse and slid off, offering her his arm. Once on the
+ground, he pointed directly beneath them. There, drawn beyond the
+water’s reach, was an overturned boat and beside it lay a pair of oars.
+
+“Fortune is with us! There is your Tory’s skiff. I had expected to look
+farther. Here is our escape from Manhattan Isle.”
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+It was not much more than an hour later when the sodden afternoon was
+giving way to a premature night. Captain Tremble stood before the
+general with the look of a man bitterly disappointed. His usually severe
+face was even darker and his lips were nothing more than sharp edges.
+
+“Give me leave to observe, sir, that I have never approved the freedom
+allowed suspicious characters within this city. It is here proved. This
+Jane Welch well duped us.”
+
+The general frowned.
+
+“She bore excellent character, Mr. Tremble.”
+
+“I did not believe it and had I been given the support of any officer at
+all I should have searched that house last night. But, knowing the
+general infatuation for the girl—”
+
+“Tut, sir,” broke in the general testily. “We can not all have your
+penetration of mind.”
+
+The captain drew himself up rather stiffly.
+
+“I do not mean to call any officer’s ability into question.”
+
+“But,” continued the general, “this girl and this spy must be overtaken.
+’Tis a most flagrant flouting of his majesty’s forces. I want them back
+here to suffer their fate. The coachman said they turned to the left,
+riverward. And now comes the word from Mr. Symmes that his boat is
+missing. There’s a piece of addition for ye.”
+
+“Give me twenty horse and I shall bring them back,” said Tremble.
+
+“Get your dinner, sir, and I shall have a barge to put you over the
+river with an order on the dragoons stationed there.”
+
+“Let me disregard the dinner, sir. The sooner started the better.”
+
+The general favored him with an extraordinarily long glance and then
+reached for quill and paper.
+
+“You live well up to your reputation. I believe you will get them.”
+
+“There can be no question of that,” answered Tremble coldly. “I make it
+a matter of personal honor. They will not dupe me again.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII — BLIND MAN’S BUFF
+
+
+They crouched beneath the shelter of an oak, watching the glint of a
+farm house light some hundred yards away. Both were drenched, for the
+passage of the river was a tempestuous affair and the unchecked wind
+drove the raindrops through their clothes like so many knives. The
+ascent of the palisades on the western side was almost as difficult, and
+they wandered like lost children until a rugged pathway presented itself
+in the ever blackening night.
+
+Overhead the tree branches cracked ominously, and now and again a weaker
+member came dashing down. The girl stood beside the trunk of the oak,
+shielded thus and by Peale’s body.
+
+“There is our next point of attack,” he decided, indicating the farm
+light. “Give me your hand. I believe I can make out a path ahead.”
+
+“The rain is slacking, or else the wind’s dying.”
+
+It seemed so, for as they stumbled toward the beacon the wind ripped
+less gustily across the parapets of the palisades. Peale waded boot-high
+through grass and came to a very muddy yard—the yard between barn and
+house most probably. Going onward at a sedate pace, he listened for
+dogs, blessing the tumult of the evening as he did so.
+
+The light was of a sudden cut off from their view; passing onward, they
+again met it and stopped. The door of the place was directly in front of
+them. Peale left the girl with a whisper and advanced to the adjoining
+window. Between the drapes he had a view of a man sitting alone before
+the kitchen blaze, head bowed a little and lips moving soundlessly over
+the passages of a book. He was well past middle age, as evidenced from
+his very gray hair, and he seemed to be quite settled of conscience,
+else he would have closed his shutters long ago. Peale, sweeping the
+place with a curious eye, returned to the girl and led her to the door,
+rapping vigorously on the panels.
+
+It came wide open after a brief moment. The farmer stood across the
+threshold, holding a candle high and shielding it with a palm. Before
+either of them could say so much as an apology he was speaking gravely.
+
+“Come in to the fire.”
+
+The fugitives passed through to the kitchen while their host shot the
+door’s bolt. Peale reached for the girl’s cloak and held it near the
+fire; water began to puddle on the stones. The farmer removed the book
+he had been reading from the chair—Peale saw it to be the Bible—and
+beckoned the girl to sit.
+
+“Drenchin’ wet, the both o’ ye. Let me knock up a stronger blaze. ’Tis
+well I let the coffee kettle simmer. Nawt a minute now an’ y’ll both
+have a hot drink o’ it.”
+
+It struck Peale a little odd. He noted that when he removed his own
+cloak the farmer gave the British uniform but one short glance, after
+which his placid face changed not a whit. Certainly he was either a bold
+man or a very discreet one. At any rate, he poked the fire and presently
+had poured them both coffee, well mixed with cream.
+
+“Sugar,” said he, offering the drink, “I can’t offer ye—and well ye
+should know why, with both armies payin’ its weight a’most in gold.
+Anyhow, it’ll sarve to keep off the chills. My lady, y’d best draw a
+little closer to the heat.”
+
+“You are very obliging,” remarked Peale. “One would think we were
+expected.”
+
+“Ain’t it the Lord’s command to entertain strangers?”
+
+“Tory and rebel alike?” parried Peale.
+
+The farmer’s mild face set in rather resolute lines.
+
+“That’s a distinction the Bible knows nawthin’ about.”
+
+“I vow,” said Peale, “but you are a strange gentleman. Do you not run
+the risk of being called easy in politics?”
+
+“Easy?” The farmer’s temper was roused. “Nawt a bit of it! I have
+politics a-plenty. Reckon I could ask the same o’ ye.”
+
+“You see the uniform,” replied Peale, pointing to his borrowed
+regimentals.
+
+“Eh! What of it? Is it likely a British officer would be flounderin’
+around this unsettled country in the dark o’ night—an’ afoot?”
+
+“Then let’s consider the other side of the case,” said Peale. This mild
+looking farmer was a great deal shrewder than first appearance
+indicated. “If my politics are doubtful it is the same with most Jersey
+civilians.”
+
+“True enough,” agreed the farmer. “An’ why? Because, friend, we’re
+harried first by one side, then t’other. Never a sure day do we know,
+nor a peaceful night do we own. ’Tis all right for the soldier inside
+his camp to speak ill of the citizen for not holdin’ a faster
+allegiance. Put yourself in between fire for a month and y’ll see the
+reason we _seem_ fickle.”
+
+“To come to business,” said Peale, “have you got a team and wagon?”
+
+The farmer hesitated, then with some reluctance admitted he had.
+
+“We need it,” continued Peale, “with you to guide us. We must put
+ourselves well to westward before daylight.”
+
+It was not a pleasant prospect for the farmer and he mulled it over in
+his mind at great length, finally coming to a mild dissent. The weather
+was vile, the streams they had to cross were badly swollen and at any
+juncture they might be taken up by partisan troops.
+
+“You see,” broke in Peale with a trace of irony, “I am discovering your
+politics after all. As for discomfort and danger, look you to this lady.
+Are you less able to share such adventures than she? If you are a
+patriot, you will go of your own free will. But if you are comfortably
+Tory then I must confess I’ll have to induce you with other weapons than
+persuasion.”
+
+The farmer shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“If ye put it thataway, I’m your man. We’ll hitch up. Ma’am, I’m a
+widower. If y’ll go into the bedroom and raise the chest cover y’ll find
+all my ol’ woman’s clothes. Better put on suthin’ warm.”
+
+Peale accompanied him to the barn and held the lantern while the team
+was hitched.
+
+Some twenty minutes later they were traveling over a black, uncertain
+road toward the Hackensack River. It was nothing more than a flat,
+springless farm wagon, uncomfortable in every respect and open to the
+steady fall of rain which now came straight down out of the sky. Peale
+and the farmer sat in the seat; behind and below this a place had been
+made for the girl, shielded by their bodies and wrapped in a piece of
+ship’s canvas.
+
+Peale held a well shrouded lantern for emergencies.
+
+“Bear off to the right,” he directed. “’Tis not discretion to take the
+road through Bergen or New Ark.”
+
+“So I’m to travel every cow path an’ git stuck in every mire?” grumbled
+the farmer. “Well, y’ll not make great progress.”
+
+“Bear off.”
+
+The farmer had some confidence the first few miles and they jolted away
+from the Hudson at a brisk pace. Peale lost sense of time; the night
+turned to a more impenetrable black, the water sluiced about them.
+Nothing was said, save that at long intervals the farmer urged his horse
+on with a “G’yup, Leader—Pull, —— ye, Prince.”
+
+And after what appeared to be six miles, but could not have been much
+more than three, he halted the team and clambered down from the seat
+with a very brief comment.
+
+“Hackensack.” He vanished beyond for some minutes, reappearing with a
+word of encouragement. “Luck’s with ye, my boy. Tide’s out an’ the ford
+won’t be so bad. Ma’am if you don’t want to git wetter—”
+
+Peale abandoned the seat and lifted the girl into it. The farmer set the
+brakes; they slid down a sharp embankment, wheels skidding. Water
+muttered through the spokes and as the driver released the brakes he
+began to berate the horses:
+
+“G’yup—Prince—Leader! Tarnation ain’t ye ever been in water afore?
+_G’yup!_”
+
+The river slapped the wagon bed and surrounded Peale’s boots. They were
+swung downstream, team and all. The farmer, unmindful of his company,
+swore roundly and lashed out with his whip. Perched thus between defeat
+and victory, the horses struck a sand bar and dug in. The wagon came to
+a halt that very nearly knocked all of them into the water. The whip
+lashed again and then they were splashing to the shore. They climbed the
+far bank and once more settled to a steady gait.
+
+“Dangerous chances ye take by keepin’ to the back roads,” warned the
+farmer. “That ford now—we made it by no more’n a lick an’ a promise.”
+
+“’Tis plenty. We got across,” replied Peale quite simply.
+
+In something less than an hour they reached the Passaic; here a very
+rude bridge spanned the stream, the work of the near-by settlers. They
+crossed gingerly, feeling the rush of current sway the whole structure.
+Once beyond, Peale was offered the choice of a main highway to
+Morristown or a lesser road that swung south. He chose the latter and
+they jolted onward, silence settling.
+
+They had now entered a land of great uncertainty, situated between the
+outposts of both armies and belonging to neither. Each week saw some
+raid, British or American; no man knew just when a company of dragoons
+might swoop down, confiscate a few supplies, overturn a wagon train and
+dash back for shelter. And when hoofs drummed in the distance it was
+always uncertain until the party came to view which side was to present
+itself. The inhabitants, accustomed to these swift, unexpected forays,
+had long past learned to conceal all livestock and all grain; and they
+hid their true allegiance behind countenances either artful or
+suspicious.
+
+It was a strip of territory full of peril for the fugitives. At no
+place, short of their own outguards, could they show their faces without
+the risk of betrayal. They could count on absolutely no help, and at
+every hint of traffic on the roads, were under the necessity of hiding.
+
+Jeffry Peale grew more and more apprehensive as the night wore on and
+the wagon made increasingly poor progress over the abominable highways.
+The farther they went, the greater appeared the farmer’s caution.
+Perhaps two hours beyond the crossing of the Passaic he stopped his
+wagon and crawled down, taking the lantern with him. When he returned
+from a short reconnaissance of the road he offered Peale another choice
+of directions.
+
+“Reached the hills. If ye go on straight it’s nigh fifteen miles to
+Morristown, with the Passaic to cross again. Er ye can branch south
+to’rd Springfield. What’s in yer mind?”
+
+“South. My destination’s—” Peale was about to announce the location of
+his brigade’s headquarters, but checked himself. It helped nothing to
+give the man his true course. So he contented himself with repeating.
+“Turn south. And press the team a little faster. We’ve made poor
+progress the last hour.”
+
+“Nawt a bit d’ye think o’ the team,” grumbled the farmer.
+
+“A great deal I think of them,” contradicted Peale. “But somewhat more
+of our own hides. Press on.”
+
+They turned, the road if anything worse than that which they left, and
+the texture of the night as black as the bottom of a well. One comfort,
+indeed, came to them; the rain fell off and after another hour or so of
+miserable travel turned to a dense mist that hung suspended in the air.
+The farmer noted it with a prophecy. “I know this land right well.
+T’morrer the fog’ll be thick enough to cut with a knife. Won’t see a
+dozen steps in front o’ ye.”
+
+Peale crawled from the seat and knelt beside Jane Welch.
+
+“I can’t help but think of all the misery I have brought upon you.”
+
+“Don’t. This is the sauce of a very uneventful life to me.”
+
+“I wish I could believe it,” he muttered. “But it’s no weather to expose
+you to.”
+
+“Ah, but Jeffry, I am strong. Do you know, I was raised on a farm and
+did all the chores a boy would do? La, I’m not afraid. Don’t vex
+yourself. Don’t think of me as a woman this night.”
+
+“And how shall I think of you, then?”
+
+“As—a comrade.”
+
+“Well,” said he, speaking rather low, “I have thought of you in many
+ways—Jane.”
+
+Several minutes later she began again.
+
+“I see Captain Tremble’s face as clearly as if he stood before me.”
+
+“And it’s a face that augurs no good to us,” replied Peale. “I sh’d be
+willing to wager my commission he’s abroad in the Jerseys this moment,
+not far from our trail.”
+
+“Might he overtake us?”
+
+“If we tarried too long in this contrivance. Are you at all warm?”
+
+“Jeffry Peale, _will_ you stop worrying about me?”
+
+Nevertheless he tucked the tarpaulin around her and, feeling unusual
+pleasure at having done it, clambered back on the seat.
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+Thereafter there passed between the party not a dozen words in four or
+five hours. Once the farmer stopped his horses to give them a breathing
+spell and they sat still and frigid. In that dreariest of periods, just
+before daybreak, the driver began a vigorous complaint.
+
+“Look ’ee now. Hain’t I gone fur enough to suit ye? A turrible hard trip
+it’s been—and I’ve got to do it all over again.”
+
+Peale nodded in the darkness.
+
+“Stop the team.” He vaulted to the road and was gone for better than
+five minutes. Presently his voice rose from the wagon side. “Your
+journey’s over. Give me your hand, Jane.”
+
+He lifted her to the ground, hearing her catch a breath.
+
+“My body seems to have gone asleep. Oh, it will pass.”
+
+Peale spoke to the farmer.
+
+“Sorry to say I haven’t a penny. If you will give me your name I shall
+see—”
+
+“Nawt a bit o’ _that_,” replied the driver in a suppressed, emphatic
+voice. “I’ll have no name o’ mine harked about. I’m peaceful. Let it
+go.”
+
+There was a rustle of cloth; the girl caught Peale’s fist and pressed
+some solid coin into it.
+
+“Let the gentleman have it. We are very grateful.”
+
+The farmer muttered a short thanks. With a great deal of caution and
+much murmuring at his team he got the wagon around. They heard it
+slushing off, unseen, and in a very short time even the echoes were lost
+in the night’s thick air.
+
+“I pity the man,” confessed Peale. “But pity is a poor article for us to
+be spending now. Come, we’ve not far to go.”
+
+“Within the lines?”
+
+“No, not that good. I judge we’re something like five miles away. But
+there’s a farmhouse and barn a short distance off. I’ve been past it
+many times before.”
+
+“Patriot?”
+
+“Lord, a man can’t tell about politics in this region. No, I suspect the
+fellow is strongly Tory. It makes no difference. We are going to use his
+barn for a few hours.”
+
+She was tired and, without knowing that she did it, leaned a little
+against him. They walked two or three hundred yards and entered a lane
+that brought them within hand’s reach of a barn before they were aware
+of it. Peale fumbled for the door catch; not finding it, he put his arms
+to the nearest aperture and brought the portal away from the wall
+sufficiently to admit the girl and himself.
+
+It fell back into place with a small protest. They were within shelter
+again, and presently buried in hay, feeling the first comfortable warmth
+since leaving the house on the Hudson. It was just beginning to get
+light. Afar, a dog barked.
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+Captain Tremble stopped the troop at dawn and rode alone to the house
+door, leaning over to knock with the butt of his pistol. After a great
+deal of delay a head appeared out of the window.
+
+“What ye want?”
+
+“Have you seen a man and woman riding along this road—the man wearin’
+British regimentals?”
+
+“Nary,” answered the citizen, pulling a nightcap from his head. “But I
+heerd a wagon pass summat beyant midnight.”
+
+“Going which way, sir?”
+
+The citizen waved his hand westward. Tremble fixed his sharp eyes on the
+informer and inquired in a ringing voice—
+
+“Are you loyal or rebel, sir?”
+
+“As to that,” grumbled the citizen, “it ain’t none o’ your business. But
+I’m Tory, if it’ll ease ye any.”
+
+“So?” sneered Tremble. “A blessed fickle lot all you Jerseymen are. I
+should not misdoubt greatly if ye harbored rebels yourself.”
+
+“Yer privileged to come an’ look,” replied the citizen tartly, and
+withdrew from the window.
+
+Tremble debated this course in his mind a moment. But the man had not
+seemed averse to inspection and so he turned away, loath to waste time.
+
+Gaining the road, he led the troop onward at a rather rapid pace,
+considering the fact they had traveled very hard the past ten hours. Man
+and beast alike were coated with reddish mud and all were uncomfortably
+chilled. The fog pressed about them with increased density, seeming more
+like rain suspended in mid-air. Indeed, it was so thick that it burned
+their lungs. Two paces in front the highway vanished behind the gray,
+clammy wall.
+
+Not much later Tremble burst through this wall and came unexpectedly
+upon a team and wagon greatly spattered with mud, the gray-haired driver
+half asleep in the seat. He came awake with a jump when Tremble issued a
+ringing “Halt!”
+
+“Where, sir, have you been?” he demanded.
+
+“Morristown,” replied the driver promptly.
+
+It was the guide who had conducted Peale and Jane Welch so far during
+the previous night. But if he was alarmed at the sudden appearance of a
+British patrol he did not show it. Instead, he stretched himself and
+returned the captain’s fiercely antagonistic look with admirable
+serenity.
+
+“Morristown!” thundered the captain. “Within the enemy’s lines, eh?
+Trafficking with the rebels at midnight! D’ye know I could hang you
+properly for that?”
+
+“For a-goin’ to see my son who’s held prisoner there?” asked the farmer
+very mildly. “I’m a respectable subject o’ the king, mister, but I’ve
+noticed you gentlemen soldiers make little distinction between one side
+or t’other when it comes to plain citizens. Y’d as soon sack my house as
+the greatest rebel’s.”
+
+“And so I would,” replied Tremble with the utmost frankness. “This ——
+country is a nest of snakes. Have ye seen a fugitive couple pass by? Man
+an’ woman—the man doubtless wearin’ British regimentals?”
+
+The farmer shook his head.
+
+“Nawt a bit.”
+
+Tremble wasted no more time with him. Within the half-hour he had
+reached another house and had propounded the same query in a like tone
+of ferocity. No, the citizen had seen no such fugitives. But he had
+heard a wagon creak past not more than an hour or two ago, just before
+daylight, bound southward in the direction of American outposts. Tremble
+considered it at some length and finally turned to his sergeant.
+
+“’Tis our game, I’ll lay ten guineas it is. Forward.”
+
+And he put the weary troop to a very fast gait. He was at that moment
+not more than three miles from the two, and rapidly closing up the
+distance.
+
+                *        *        *        *        *
+
+They had been comfortably swathed in the hay, Peale and Jane Welch, for
+twenty minutes or so, listening to the crunch of bovine teeth and the
+stamp of hoofs, when a small side door opened and a short, very stout
+farmer came in with a milk bucket. Peale had only to part the hay in
+front of him to command a perfect view, for he was directly above the
+mangers.
+
+The farmer took a pitchfork and threw down a small amount of hay for
+each of the three cows in the barn and then did the like operation for a
+pair of sleek draft animals and one scrubby looking saddlenag. Peale
+cast a covetous eye on this last. With a great deal of caution he
+brought out a pistol and after letting the farmer milk the first cow,
+rose from the hay.
+
+There was no need to issue warning. The farmer heard the noise above him
+and reared back quite frightened. Even before daring to cast his eyes
+upward to the mow, his free arm reached for a pitchfork. Then he found
+himself looking directly into the muzzle of a pistol.
+
+“No racket, my friend,” said Peale. He helped the girl up—at which the
+farmer was frankly astonished—and together they slid to the flooring.
+
+“’Tis most extraordinarily abrupt,” added Peale, “but unavoidable.”
+
+“I’m a stout Tory,” broke in the farmer, noting the British uniform. “If
+yer runnin’ from the rebels, y’d better keep very low. There’s been a
+patrol established on this road, an’ it comes by every mornin’ early.”
+
+“So? Well, we’ve had no breakfast and that milk looks—”
+
+The farmer was willing enough to oblige his unbidden guests.
+
+Peale took the bucket and tipped it up to the girl’s mouth, smiling. “I
+had never expected to offer you refreshment under these circumstances,
+Jane.”
+
+“Is it not the unusual that people cherish?” she asked. She drank until
+want of breath stopped her; a drop of the milk clung to the tip of her
+nose. “La, I must look like the cat that forgot to clean his whiskers,”
+she added ruefully, and began to scrub her face with a handkerchief.
+
+She was somewhat paler than usual and the long, disagreeable ride had
+left its mark in her eyes. Still, she had an answering smile for him.
+Woman-like she began to study herself and the sight of the hay clinging
+to her skirt was enough to set her to a furious cleaning.
+
+The farmer eyed the both with a species of greediness.
+
+“I’m a stout Tory,” he repeated, “but yer in dangerous country, friends.
+Washington’s had cavalry scourin’ the country a-main since Tuesday. Why,
+I vow I dunno. ’Tis but four odd miles to the outguards. ’Tain’t my
+business what yer after, sir; but for two gold crowns I’ll to’t they
+won’t find ye.”
+
+“Have you gear for that sway-back nag?” demanded Peale. Then his eyes
+caught sight of bridle and saddle hanging on a peg. “Yes, I see you
+have. I shall be forced to ask the loan of it.”
+
+“Ridin’ in broad day?” exclaimed the farmer. “Oh, no, sir. ’Tis folly!
+Stay here till night. I’ll see ye well pertected—fer two crowns, gold.”
+
+“And what if I haven’t two crowns, gold?”
+
+The farmer’s countenance became much less friendly.
+
+“How much have’ee, then?”
+
+“Come. Enough of this barterin’. Saddle the horse and we’ll be gone.”
+
+“An’ wot shall I get in return?”
+
+“You’ll be paid in due time. Hurry.”
+
+The farmer dropped his milk bucket and went toward the horse with a
+great deal of grumbling.
+
+“’Tis the last I’ll see o’t. An’ no money, either. Godfrey’s bells, but
+I like it little enough!”
+
+Peale opened the door and the farmer, after saddling, led the mount into
+the foggy morning, still protesting. Though he was obviously a sharp and
+unscrupulous fellow, Peale could not help but pity him a little. The
+settlers of this debated land suffered a great deal; he made a note that
+the man should be recompensed for the trouble.
+
+The fog, if anything, had thickened, and though the road was not more
+than twenty feet away it stood shrouded. Peale bent his ear one way and
+then another and called to the girl. Getting into the saddle, he reached
+for her arms and swung her up before him.
+
+“What’s your name, friend?”
+
+“Tull,” responded the fellow, very surly. His eyes sparkled. “I vow, I
+ain’t goin’ to consider myself bound to secrecy if the rebels should
+happen along. No, I ain’t.”
+
+“I should say,” remarked Peale, “that judging from your very amiable
+temper you might consider yourself bound for a very debatable region.”
+The horse skittered away at a mincing pace and the farmer was lost in
+the fog. As they swung southward on the road, however, they found him
+bellowing. “Hey! ’Tis the wrong direction, jackanapes! Turn back!” And
+when he heard the hoofbeats continue unchecked, he was beside himself.
+“So, I been gulled, eh? Oh——!”
+
+He was still ranging around the barnyard when Captain Tremble rode out
+of the fog not a quarter hour later. At the very first sight of the rank
+of British uniforms he related the whole story. Captain Tremble surveyed
+him with a blasting eye.
+
+“Ye assume too much grief, yokel. ’Tis not that you love the royal; it’s
+because you lost a horse. A condemned, infernal land o’ snakes, this! A
+little solid money and y’d as soon cry for Mr. Washington’s rabble. On,
+dragoons! We’ll have our fine birds within twenty minutes!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII — BLADE AND BLADE
+
+
+Peale traveled with as much speed as the nag would allow, which was not
+a great deal, considering the beast’s lack of stamina and the burden it
+had to carry. The road had seen a great deal of traffic and was in
+execrable condition, deeply rutted and pock-marked throughout by other
+hoofs sinking to the fetlock. Over this the unfortunate animal slipped
+and grunted.
+
+“We should make as good time walking, I swear,” remarked Peale. “Should
+have requisitioned one of the man’s plough horses. Less spirit in a nag
+I have never seen. A decent feed of grain would founder the poor brute.”
+
+“We have been fortunate,” interposed the girl, clinging to his arm. “Are
+we not within sight of safety?”
+
+“’Tis but a dim sight,” said he, throwing an arm toward the fog. “Well,
+it has been a cloak to us. Without it we should never have ventured
+abroad.”
+
+He stopped the horse and turned in the saddle; but there was no sound he
+could definitely distinguish, so he resumed travel and began a
+calculation of the distance yet to go.
+
+“We have covered a mile—which makes it something like three miles to
+Maxwell’s outguards, I should judge. ’Tis a dangerous neighborhood for
+British horse to invade. Yet with this fog they might safely do it. I
+have a feeling Tremble is not far behind. The man is stubborn. Press
+along, Bluegrass! Now where is that sound?”
+
+He did not pause this time, though it trembled on his eardrums,
+something too vague to place, and too distinctive to dismiss.
+
+“If we are overtaken, Jane, you will drop—”
+
+Then the troop was upon him without further warning. The fog, long
+useful, had played him false and blanketed the approach of the dragoons
+until they were within striking distance. The swash of hoofs and the
+clinking of furniture rose from a vague echo to a plain alarm. He
+stopped the horse.
+
+“Down! Into the brush! I’ll run them out and come back. If not, make
+your way—”
+
+She was half across the road. The nag trembled at the haunches and
+sprang on as he drew his pistols and glanced behind. The van of the
+dragoons dashed through the swirling curtain, Tremble foremost, dark
+face grimly satisfied.
+
+“Halt, sir! Sergeant, aside into that brush! The girl’s taken cover!”
+
+A pair of dragoons forged ahead of the captain, swinging their carbines
+clear of the leather buckets. Peale fired at the foremost and saw him
+fall, the rest of the troop jamming up in the road. Tremble cried like a
+madman—
+
+“On, you fools!” And presently he was to the fore again.
+
+Peale heard the girl utter a short scream of alarm and surmised that she
+had been overtaken. It set his pulse racing, and of a sudden he swung
+from the highway and dashed into the brush, determined to make some sort
+of stand of it. That folly lasted but an instant—long enough for the
+leading dragoons to follow him into the thicket—and in a very clear
+vision he saw that for the present he had to count the girl out. There
+was a dossier resting beneath his coat which came before all else.
+
+It could not be far off to American cavalry. Tremble had put himself in
+a convenient trap. Jaded horses—a long distance from the British lines—
+
+The broad chest of a dragoon presented itself; a carbine exploded in his
+face, so near that he tasted powder smoke. Then he caught the fellow
+with his second pistol, dropped it and went to his sword. In the
+confusion he slipped farther through the brush and for a moment had the
+screening fog as shelter. Again a figure penetrated it and spurred up to
+where his own frightened mount was pitching—a gaudy non-commissioned
+officer with a leathern face.
+
+The non-com crowded abreast and slashed down with his heavy saber. Peale
+ducked aside and parried. Out of the dragoon’s throat emerged a rusty
+shout. The momentum of the blade carried him off balance and, as he
+bent, Peale’s weapon flashed through the red tunic. Again he was away
+while the pursuit eddied and clamored. Captain Tremble’s voice rose to a
+frantic timbre.
+
+The woods crashed under the fanwise spread of the dragoons. Peale turned
+his nag and raced for the road. Then, through the morning’s mist, came
+the thrum of other troops advancing at the gallop. The bushes were
+flailed flat beside him and Tremble sprang to view, hatless, eyes
+bitter-bright. He, too, had caught the approaching echo and now,
+balanced between pursuit and retreat he came to a halt, sword poised.
+His men were collecting out on the road to meet this unknown troop, the
+sergeant’s voice summoning them from all quarters. Peale drew his
+breath.
+
+“Y’ve over-reached yourself, Tremble,” said he.
+
+“Ha!” muttered Tremble, eyes cocked toward the distance. He was about to
+fling himself back toward his detachment and Peale knew it. So, swinging
+the sorry nag around, he blocked the captain’s passage.
+
+“You came too far in search of satisfaction, sirrah,” he repeated.
+“There’s an American patrol come to investigate this hullabaloo. You’re
+done for. Dismount and show me your metal.”
+
+The oncoming patrol swept by and without warning collided with the
+English dragoons. There was a shot or two and a ringing command that
+rang through the obscured area. Then blade beat upon blade and the lust
+after victory resounded high and imperious. Tremble scowled tremendously
+at his opponent.
+
+“D’ye think your scurvy mounted men can beat me? No, sir! Do you
+surrender?”
+
+“Dismount.”
+
+“I shall kill you quick enough,” answered Tremble dropping from the
+saddle, itching to be with his party. “Hurry, man!”
+
+They faced each other quite warily, circling slowly in the small glade,
+testing their footing on the sodden carpet of leaves, and reading such
+emotions as flashed to the surface of the opposite’s countenance. For
+quite as much does victory depend on the forward spirit as on the
+sensitive blade; and by that token Peale knew he had come upon a
+redoubtable foe.
+
+That British captain knew no fear. His was an arrogant, zealous courage.
+His blade whipped over the intervening space and touched Peale’s weapon
+with a skimming sound. His knees bent and his free arm began to dance
+outward at his side.
+
+“On guard, you fool! _I_ have never yet missed my man.”
+
+“You will need that breath later,” said Peale very grimly.
+
+And with that they were met. Peale had selected his spot and was
+determined to hold it. Within the first three parries he had forgotten
+the resolution and was circling. Here was no bludgeoning opponent; the
+steel had a diabolical lightness about it. When he countered and closed
+he saw Tremble’s nut-brown face to be utterly expressionless save for a
+sparkle coming through half-shut eyes and a slight flare of nostrils.
+The man had well learned his lesson; he was a bundle of muscle, a
+storehouse of swift energy. Peale, stiffening his defense, withstood a
+slashing attack and drove home his point. He had broken up that advance.
+On retreating he found his vision obscured; there was blood dripping
+down his brow.
+
+“Do you give?” demanded Tremble. “I most assuredly will kill you and I’d
+rather have the pleasure—ah, sir, take _care_!—of seeing you hang.”
+
+It was not braggadocio. The man was serenely confident. On that
+confidence he harried Peale mercilessly around the glade, flicking away
+the other’s guard with careless effort. The American, worn down by
+twenty hours of constant travel, began to feel a treacherous weight
+steal along his shoulder and into his fingers.
+
+That would never do! He could afford no handicaps with this master of
+the duello. Spurred by the knowledge of his weakness, he began to throw
+away caution. He closed. The glade rang with the sharp exchange. Of a
+sudden the gallant captain, unmindful of his slippery footing, made a
+long thrust and went down on a knee.
+
+Peale sprang back and dropped the point of his weapon, waiting.
+
+It was a natural gesture, yet it came so much as a surprize to Tremble
+that he forebore rising for a second.
+
+“Gallant, eh?” he snarled. “Whyn’t ye take advantage?”
+
+“Up!”
+
+“Ah, ye think ye need no advantage?”
+
+And thereupon Tremble lost a measure of his confidence, never to regain
+it. The man was unafraid! He rose and assumed a more cautious posture.
+Thus Peale brought the battle to him and time after time was beaten
+away. The captain never moved a step. There was an endless repetition of
+movement. In darted the American’s blade, to be parried and thrown out.
+This was novice work! And the stealthy weight was tricking Peale. He was
+excessively hot and somewhat blurred of vision. He saw Tremble standing
+so sure and so solid. There must be an end of this!
+
+The glade rang again, the steel snarled. Peale towered over his man. The
+captain broke—and broke again. Peale filled his lungs and sent a long,
+rollicking cry over Tremble’s head and drove. The steel whined. One
+blade wavered uncertainly—and was down. Down! Home, point!
+
+“Touch,” said Tremble, imperturbably. He stood like a statue. “A touch
+for Mr. Peale.”
+
+Down some distance in the road the fight lost its tenor and fell to a
+low note. A horse galloped toward the glade. Peale shook the persistent
+sweat out of his eyes and tried to draw a full breath. He was winded,
+useless of shoulder. He could not have lifted his weapon horizontal for
+all the mortal danger in the world. But there was no need to. Tremble’s
+face became quite saturnine and his legs failed him. Down he went in a
+heap. There was one burst of energy left in him and he used it
+characteristically. Up came arm and sword and he flung the blade
+straight at Peale, then fell back dead. The weapon missed its mark and
+dropped harmlessly on the leaf mold.
+
+The leaves shivered and a ruddy youth burst through, in the saddle, and
+whirled around to keep from riding over Peale.
+
+“Cornered, sir! What the ——?”
+
+“Peale—of Maxwell’s brigade, Lieutenant,” explained the victor, shaking
+his head wearily. There was a tugging at his elbow and unexpectedly he
+found himself resting on the girl’s shoulder, quite glad to have the
+support. His muscles quivered.
+
+“——!” exclaimed the patrol lieutenant. “It _must_ have been a sight!”
+
+“The best swordsman,” said Peale simply, “lost. My shout, I believe,
+took him off guard. Have you routed the party?”
+
+“Somewhat!” said the lieutenant energetically.
+
+“Pick us up, then,” said Peale. “I bear despatches for General Maxwell.
+The lady must find warm shelter very soon or she’ll take cold.”
+
+“If I may observe,” said the officer, “y’ve a nasty cut there.”
+
+“Come, no delay!”
+
+The patrol leader rode to the highway and began to collect his men. From
+some particular source the girl had gotten a piece of cloth and wrapped
+it around Peale’s head.
+
+“Infernal headache the captain bequeathed me,” said he. “My lady, you
+said you had folks around here. I shall have the pleasure of ordering
+these men to escort you there.”
+
+“To the nearest tavern then.”
+
+“But your folks—”
+
+“I have no folks. Neither here nor elsewhere.”
+
+His head cleared somewhat; he found himself looking at a very bedraggled
+girl whose eyes were at this moment sober and resigned. Her courage
+seemed to have deserted her. In truth, she was forlorn. And she answered
+his inspection with a very meek explanation.
+
+“’Twas fiction I told you in New York. But I feared you would not care
+to be bothered with taking me if I said it elsewise. I am very grateful,
+Mr. Peale. To the first tavern, then, and I shall no longer be a
+burden—”
+
+“Oh, ——,” exclaimed the harassed young man, entirely to himself.
+“_That’s_ an ill-sounding reason.” He put a muddy finger under her chin.
+“After all’s passed am I to be thrown over like a worn shoe? Look you,
+Jane—there’s a chaplain in the brigade.”
+
+“Take me to the first tavern sir! La, I’d not have you askin’ me while I
+looked like this! I’d think it was marriage out of pity!”
+
+He led her to the road and in a moment both were riding south toward the
+American lines. He had been rebuffed, undoubtedly; but on a second
+glance he knew he had won another victory. He leaned over and spoke in a
+humble subdued tone.
+
+“I shall send you home to my mother, then.”
+
+“Jeffry, no. It’s not in me to be so far away. I follow you as close as
+fortune will let me. Do not other officers’ ladies make their homes on
+the edge of the camp?”
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
+July 15, 1927. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
+United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79284 ***