In Hostile Red

"Have you heard the sound of arms?" she asked. "Surely if any attack had been made we could hear it, even as far as this, in the night."

"I have heard nothing," I replied, "save the noise made by the galloping of our own horses. We are not yet too late."

"No, and we will not be too late at any time," she said, with sudden energy. "We cannot – we must not be too late!"

"How strong is the American force?" I asked.

"Strong enough to save itself, if only warned in time," she replied.

We came to a shallow brook which trickled peacefully across the road. Our horses dashed into it, and their flying hoofs sent the water up in showers. But almost before the drops could fall back into their native element we were gone, and our horses' hoofs were again ringing over the stony road.

Before us stretched a strip of forest, through the centre of which the road ran. In a few moments we were among the trees. The boughs overhung the way and shut out half of the moon's light. Beyond, we could see the open country again, but before we reached it a horseman spurred from the wood and cried to us to halt, flourishing his naked sword before him.

We were almost upon him, but on the instant I knew Belfort, and he knew me.

"Out of the way!" I cried. "On your life, out of the way!"

"You traitor! You damned traitor!" he shouted, and rode directly at me.

He made a furious sweep at my head with his sabre, but I bent low, and the blade circled over me, whistling as it passed. The next moment, with full weight and at full speed, my horse struck his, and Belfort's went down, the shriek from the man and the terrified neigh from the horse, mingling as they fell.

With a snort of triumph, my horse leaped clear of the fallen and struggling mass, and then we were out of the forest, Mary Desmond still riding by my side, her head bent over her horse's neck as if she were straining her eyes for a sight of the patriots who were still two miles and more away.

"You do not ask me who it was," I said.

"I know," she replied; "and I heard also what he called you."

"'Tis true, he called me that," I replied. "But he is in the dust now, and I still ride!"

We heard musket-shots behind us, and a bullet whizzed uncomfortably near. So Belfort had not been alone. In the shock of our rapid collision I had not had the time to see; but these shots admitted of no doubt.

"We will be pursued," I said.

"Then the greater the need of haste," she replied. "We cannot spare our horses now. There is a straight road before us."

No more shots were fired at us just then. Our pursuers must have emptied their muskets; but the clatter of the horses' hoofs told us that they were hot on the chase. Our own horses were not fresh, but they were of high mettle, and responded nobly to our renewed calls upon them. Once I took an anxious look behind me, and saw that our pursuers numbered a dozen or so. They were riding hard, belaboring their mounts, with hands and feet, and I rejoiced at the sight, for I knew the great rush at the start would tell quickly upon them.

"Will they overtake us?" asked Mary Desmond.

"It is a matter of luck and speed," I replied, "and I will answer your question in a quarter of an hour. But remember that, come what may, I keep my word to you. I am your servant to-night."

"Even if your self-sought slavery takes you into the American lines?" she asked.

"Even so," I replied. "I told you my mission, though you seemed to believe it not."

With this the time for conversation passed, and I put my whole attention upon our flight. My loaded pistol was still in my belt, and if our pursuers came too near, a bullet whistling among them might retard their speed. But I held that for the last resort.

So far as I could see, the men were making no attempt to reload their muskets, evidently expecting to overtake us without the aid of bullets. I inferred from this circumstance that Belfort, whom I had disabled, had been the only officer among them. Otherwise they would have taken better measures to stop us. Nevertheless they pursued with patience and seemingly without fear. By and by they fell to shouting. They called upon us to stop and yield ourselves prisoners. Then I heard one of them say very distinctly that he did not want to shoot a woman. Mary Desmond heard it too, for she said, —

"I ask no favor because I am a woman. If they should shoot me, ride on with my message."

I did not think it wise to reply to this, but spoke encouragingly to her horse. He was panting again, and his stride was shortening, but his courage was still high. He was a good horse and true, and deserved to bear so noble a burden.

Presently the girl's head fell lower upon the horse's neck, and I called hastily to her, for I feared that she was fainting.

"'Twas only a passing weakness," she said, raising her head again. "I have ridden far to-night; but I can ride farther."

The road again led through woods, and for a moment I thought of turning aside into the forest; but reflection showed me that in all likelihood we would become entangled among the trees, and then our capture would be easy. So we galloped straight ahead, and soon passed the strip of wood, which was but narrow. Then I looked back again, and saw that our pursuers had gained. They were within easy musket-range now, and one of the men, who had shown more forethought than the others and reloaded his piece, fired at us. But the bullet touched neither horse nor rider, and I laughed at the wildness of his aim. A little farther on a second shot was fired at us, but, like the other, it failed of its mission.

Now I noted that the road was beginning to ascend slightly and that farther on rose greater heights. This was matter of discouragement; but Miss Desmond said briefly that beyond the hill-top the American encampment lay. If we could keep our distance but a little while now, her message would be delivered. Even in the hurry of our flight I rejoiced that the sound of no fire-arms save those of our pursuers had yet been heard, which was proof that the attack upon the Americans had not yet been made.

The road curved a little now and became much steeper. Our pursuers set up a cry of triumph. They were near enough now for us to hear them encouraging each other, I could measure the distance very well, and I saw that they were gaining faster than before. The crest of the hill was still far ahead. These men must be reminded not to come too near, and I drew my pistol from my belt.

As the men came into better view around the curve, I fired at the leader. It chanced that my bullet missed him, but, what was a better thing for us, struck his horse full in the head and killed him. The stricken animal plunged forward, throwing his rider over his head. Two or three other horsemen stumbled against him, and the entire troop was thrown into confusion. I struck Miss Desmond's horse across the flank with my empty pistol, and then treated my own in like fashion. If we were wise, we would profit by the momentary check of our enemies, and I wished to neglect no opportunity. Our good steeds answered to the call as well as their failing strength would permit. The crest of the hill lay not far before us now, and I felt sure that if we could but reach it, the British would pursue us no farther.

But when I thought that triumph was almost achieved, Miss Desmond's horse began to reel from side to side. He seemed about to fall from weakness, for, of a truth, he had galloped far that night, and had done his duty as well as the best horse that ever lived, be it Alexander's Bucephalus or any other. Even now he strove painfully, and looked up the hill with distended eyes, as if he knew where the goal lay. His rider seemed smitten with an equal weakness, but she summoned up a little remaining strength against it, and raised herself up for the final struggle.

"Remember," she said again to me, "if I fail, as most like I will, you are to ride on with my message."

"I have been called a traitor to-night," I said, "but I will not be called the name I would deserve if I were to do that."

"It is for the cause," she said. "Ride and leave me."

"I will not leave you," I cried, thrilling with enthusiasm. "We will yet deliver the message together."

She said no more, but sought to encourage her horse. The troopers had recovered from their confusion, and, with their fresher mounts, were gaining upon us in the most alarming manner. I turned and threatened them with my empty pistol, and they drew back a little; but second thought must have assured them that the weapon was not loaded, for they laughed derisively and again pressed their horses to the utmost.

"Do as I say," cried Miss Desmond, her eyes flashing upon me. "Leave me and ride on. There is naught else to do."

But my thought was to turn my horse in the path and lay about me with the sword. I could hold the troopers while she made her escape with the message that she had borne so far already. I drew the blade from the scabbard and put a restraining hand upon my horse's rein.

"What would you do?" cried Miss Desmond.

"The only thing that is left for me to do," I replied.

"Not that!" she cried; "not that!" and made as if she would stop me. But, even while her voice was yet ringing in my ears, a dozen rifles flashed from the hill-top, a loud voice was heard encouraging men to speedy action, and a troop came galloping forward to meet us. In an instant the Englishmen who were not down had turned and were fleeing in a panic of terror down the hill and over the plain.

"You are just in time, captain," cried Miss Desmond, as the leader of the rescuing band, a large, dark man, came up. Then she reeled, and would have fallen from her horse to the ground had not I sprung down and caught her.

Chapter Twenty — The Night Combat

But Miss Desmond was the victim only of a passing weakness, and I was permitted to hold her in my arms but for a moment. Then she demanded to be placed upon the ground, saying that her strength had returned. I complied of necessity; and turning to the American captain, who was looking curiously at us, she inquired, —

"Captain, the American force, is it safe?" "Yes, Miss Desmond," he replied; and I wondered how he knew her. "It is just over the hill there. The night had been quiet until you came galloping up the hill with the Englishmen after you."

"Then we are in time!" she cried, in a voice of exultation. "Lose not a moment, captain. A British force much exceeding our own in strength is even now stealing upon you."

The message caused much perturbation, as well it might, and a half-dozen messengers were sent galloping over the hill. Then the captain said, —

"Miss Desmond, you have done much for the cause, but more to-night than ever before."

But she did not hear him, for she fell over in a faint.

"Water!" I cried. "Some water! She may be dying!"

"Never mind about water," said the captain, dryly. "Here is something that is much better for woman, as well as for man, in such cases."

He produced a flask, and, raising Miss Desmond's head, poured some fiery liquid in her mouth. It made her cough, and presently she revived and sat up. She was very pale, but there was much animation in her eye.

"You have sent the warning, captain, have you not?" she asked, her mind still dwelling upon the object for which she had come.

"Do not fear, Miss Desmond," said the leader, gravely. "Our people know now, and they will be ready for the enemy when they come, thanks to your courage and endurance."

Then he beckoned to me, and we walked a bit up the hill-side, leaving Miss Desmond sitting on the turf and leaning against a tree.

"A noble woman," said the captain, looking back at her.

"Yes," said I, fervently.

"It was a lucky fortune that gave you such companionship to-night," he continued.

"Yes," replied I, still with fervor.

"Lieutenant Chester," he said, "that is not the only particular in which fortune has been kind to you to-night."

"No," I replied, with much astonishment at the patness with which he spoke my true name.

"I have said," he continued, with the utmost gravity, "that fortune has been very kind to-night to Lieutenant Robert Chester, of the American army. I may add that it has been of equal kindness to Lieutenant Melville, of the British army."

"Who are you, and what are you?" I cried, facing about, "and why do you speak in such strange fashion?"

"I do not think it is strange at all," he said, a light smile breaking over his face. "So far as I am concerned, it is a matter of indifference, Lieutenant Chester or Lieutenant Melville: which shall it be?"

I saw that it was useless for me to pretend more. He knew me, and was not to be persuaded that he did not. So I said, —

"Let it be Lieutenant Robert Chester, of the American army. The name and the title belong to me, and I feel easier with them than with the others. I have not denied myself. Now, who are you, and why do you know so much about me?"

"Nor will I deny myself, either," he said, a quiet smile dwelling upon his face. "I am William Wildfoot, captain of rangers in the American army."

"What! are you the man who has been incessantly buzzing like a wasp around the British?" I cried.

"I have done my humble best," he said, modestly; "I even chased you and your friend Lieutenant Marcel into Philadelphia. For which I must crave your forgiveness. Your uniforms deceived me; but since then we have become better acquainted with each other."

"How? I do not understand," I said, still in a maze.

"Perhaps you would know me better if I were to put on a red wig," he said. "Do not think, Lieutenant Chester, that you and Lieutenant Marcel are the only personages endowed with a double identity."

I looked at him closely, and I began to have some glimmering of the truth.

"Yes," he said, when he saw the light of recognition beginning to appear upon my face, "I am Waters. Strange what a difference a red wig makes in one's appearance. But I have tried to serve you and your friend well, and I hope I have atoned for my rudeness in putting you and Lieutenant Marcel to such hurry when I first saw you. It is true that I have had a little sport with you. I thought that you deserved it for your rashness, but I have not neglected your interests. I warned Alloway in the jail not to know you, and I helped him to escape. I learned about you from Pritchard, but no one else knows. I bound you, too, in Sir William Howe's room, but I leave it to you yourself that it was necessary."

His quiet laugh was full of good nature, though there was in it a slight tinge of pardonable vanity. Evidently this was a man much superior to the ordinary partisan chieftain.

"Then you too have placed your neck in the noose?" I said.

"Often," he replied. "And I have never yet failed to withdraw it with ease."

"I have withdrawn mine," I said, "and it shall remain withdrawn."

"Not so," he replied. "Miss Desmond must return to her father and Philadelphia. It is not fit that she should go alone, and no one but you can accompany her."

I had believed that nothing could induce me to take up the character of Lieutenant Melville of the British army again, but I had not thought of this. I could not leave Miss Desmond to return alone through such dangers to the city.

"Very well," I said, "I will go back."

"I thought so," returned Wildfoot, with a quick glance at me that brought the red blood to my face. "But I would advise you to bring Miss Desmond to the crest of the hill and wait for a while. I must hurry away, for my presence is needed elsewhere."

The partisan was like a war-horse sniffing the battle; and, leaving Miss Desmond, myself, and two good, fresh horses on the hill-top, he hastened away. I was not averse to waiting, for I expected that a sharp skirmish would occur. I had little fear for the Americans now, for in a night battle, where the assaulted are on their guard, an assailing force is seldom successful, even though its superiority in arms and numbers be great.

From the hill-top we saw a landscape of alternate wood and field, amid which many lights twinkled. A hum and murmur came up to us and told me that the Americans were profiting by their warning and would be ready for the enemy.

"You can now behold the result of your ride," I said to Miss Desmond, who stood by my side, gazing with intent eyes upon the scene below, which was but half hidden by the night. She was completely recovered, or at least seemed to be so, for she stood up, straight, tall, and self-reliant.

"We were just in time," she said.

"But in good time," I added.

"I suppose we shall see a battle," she said. "I confess it has a strange attraction for me. Perhaps it is because I am not near enough to mark its repellent phases."

She made no comment upon my British uniform and my apparent British character. She did not appear to remark anything incongruous in my appearance there, and it was not a subject that I cared to raise.

"See, the fighting must have begun," she said, pointing to a strip of wood barely visible in the night.

Some streaks of flame had leaped up, and we heard a distant rattle which I knew must be the small arms at work. Then there was a lull for a moment, followed by a louder and a longer crackle, and a line of fire, flaming up and then sinking in part, ran along the edge of the woods and across the fields. Through this crackle came a steady rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub.

"That is the beat of the drums," I said to Miss Desmond, who turned an inquiring face to me. "The drum is the soldier's conscience, I suppose, for it is always calling upon him to go forward and fight."

I spoke my thoughts truly, for the drum has always seemed to me to be a more remorseless war-god than the cannon. With its steady and tireless thump, thump, it calls upon you, with a voice that will not be hushed, to devote yourself to death. "Come on! Come on! Up to the cannon! Up to the cannon!" it says. It taunts you and reviles you. Give this drum to a ragamuffin of a little boy, and he catches its spirit, and he goes straight forward with it and commands you to follow him. It was so at Long Island when the Maryland brigade sacrificed itself and held back the immense numbers of the enemy until our own army could escape. A scrap of a boy stood on a hillock and beat a drum as tall as himself, calling upon the Maryland men to stand firm and die, until a British cannon-ball smashed his drum, and a British grenadier hoisted him over his shoulder with one hand and carried him away. There is a league between the drum and the cannon. The drum lures the men up to the cannon, and then the monster devours them.

Above the crackle rose the louder notes of the field-pieces, and then I thought I heard the sound of cheering, but I was not sure. We could see naught of this dim and distant battle but the flame of its gunpowder. The night was too heavy for any human figure to appear in its just outline; and I saw that I would have to judge of its progress by the shifting of the line of fire. The British attack was delivered from the left, and the blaze of the musketry extended along a line about a half-mile in length. Though while the light was leaping high at one place it might be sinking low at another, yet this line was always clearly defined, and we could follow its movements well enough.

The line was stationary for full fifteen minutes, and from that circumstance we could tell that the Americans had profited well by the warning and were ready to receive the attack. Still, the action was sharper and contested with more vigor than I had expected. Having made the attack, the British seemed disposed to persist in it for a while at least. But presently the line of fire began to bend back towards the west at the far end.

"The British are retreating!" exclaimed Miss Desmond.

"At one point, so it would seem," I said.

"Yes, and at other points too," she cried. "See, the centre of the fiery line bends back also."

This was true, for the centre soon bent back so far that the whole line was curved like a bow. Then the eastern end yielded also, and soon was almost hidden in some woods, where it made but a faint quivering among the trees. In truth, along the whole line the fire was dying. The sputter of the musketry was but feeble and scarce heard, and even the drum seemed to lose spirit and call but languidly for slaughter.

"The battle is nearly over, is it not?" asked Miss Desmond.

"Yes," I replied, "though we could scarce call it a battle. Skirmish is a better name. I think that line of fire across there will soon fade out altogether."

I chanced to be a good prophet in this instance, for in five minutes the last flash had gone out and there was naught left but a few echoes. It was clear that the British had suffered repulse and had withdrawn, and it was not likely that the Americans would follow far, for such an undertaking would expose them to destruction.

I now suggested to Miss Desmond that it would be the part of wisdom for us to begin our return to Philadelphia, and we were preparing for departure, when we heard the approach of horsemen, and in a moment or two Wildfoot and three of his men approached. "It was not a long affair," said the leader, "though there was some smart skirmishing for a while. When they found that we were ready, and rather more than willing, they soon drew off, and they are now on the march for Philadelphia. I tell you again, Miss Desmond, that you have ridden bravely to-night, and this portion of the American army owes its salvation to you."

"My ride was nothing more than every American woman owes to her country," replied Miss Desmond.

"True," replied Wildfoot, "though few would have had the courage to pay the debt. But I have come back mainly to say that some of my scouts have brought in Lieutenant Belfort, sorely bruised, but not grievously hurt, and that he will have no opportunity to tell the English of your ride to-night, Miss Desmond, at least not until he is exchanged."

I had forgotten all about Belfort, and his capture was a lucky chance for both of us. As for the other Englishmen who had pursued us, I had no fear that they would recognize me, even if they saw me in the daylight, and they had seen me but dimly in a hot and flurried pursuit.

Captain Wildfoot raised his hat to us with all the courtesy of a European nobleman and rode away with his men, while we turned our horses towards Philadelphia, and were soon far from the hill on which we had stood and witnessed the battle's flare. Miss Desmond knew the way much better than I did, and I followed her guidance, though we rode side by side.

"You do not ask me to keep this matter a secret," I said, at length, when we had ridden a mile or more in silence.

"Is not your own safety as much concerned as mine?" she asked, looking with much meaning at my gay British uniform.

"Is that the only reason you do not ask me to speak of it?" I said, still bent upon going deeper into the matter.

"Will you speak of it when I ask you not to do so?" she said.

I did not expect such a question, but I replied in the negative with much haste. But presently I said, thinking to compliment her, that, however my own sympathies might be placed, I must admit that she had done a very brave deed, and that I could not withhold my admiration. But she replied with some curtness that Captain Wildfoot had said that first, – which was true enough, though I had thought it as early as he. Had it been any other woman, I would have inferred from her reply that her vanity was offended. But it was not possible to think such a thing of Mary Desmond on that night.

"Have you any heart for this task?" she asked me, with much suddenness, a few minutes later.

"What task?" I replied, surprised.

"The task that the king has set for his army, – the attempt to crush the Colonies," she replied.

There was much embarrassment in the question for me, and I sought to take refuge in compliment.

"That you are enlisted upon the other side, Miss Desmond," I replied, "is enough to weaken the attachment of any one to the king's service."

"This is not a drawing-room," she replied, looking at me with clear eyes, "nor has the business which we have been about to-night any savor of the drawing-room. Let us then drop such manner of speech."

She was holding me at arm's length, but I made some rambling, ambiguous reply, to the effect that a soldier should have no opinions, but should do what he is told to do, – which, though a very good argument, does not always appease one's conscience. But she did not press the question further, – which was a relief to me.