How long a time came in between my futile5 dash for liberty and this harsh preface to their dragging of me back to the manor6 house, I could not tell. It must have been an hour or more, for now a gibbous moon hung pale above the tree-tops, and all around were bivouac fires and horses tethered to show that in the interval7 a troop had come and camped.
The scene within the great fore-room of the house had been shifted, too. A sentry8 was pacing back and forth9 before the door—a Hessian grenadier by the size and shako of him; and when the two trooper bailiffs thrust me in, and I had winked10 and blinked my eyes accustomed to the candle-light, I saw the table had been swept of its bottles and glasses, and around it, sitting as in council, were some half-score officers of the British light-horse with their colonel at the head.
As it chanced, this was my first sight near at hand of that British commander whose name in after years the patriot12 mothers spoke13 to fright their children. He did not look a monster. As I recall him now, he was a short, square-bodied man, younger by some years than myself, and yet with an old campaigner's head well set upon aggressive shoulders. His eyes were black and ferrety; and his face, well seasoned by the Carolina sun, was swart as any Arab's. A man, I thought, who could be gentle-harsh or harsh-revengeful, as the mood should prompt; who could make well-turned courtier compliments to a lady and damn a trooper in the self-same breath.
This was that Colonel Banastre Tarleton who gave no quarter to surrendered men; and when I looked into the sloe-black eyes I saw in them for me a waiting gibbet.
"So!" he rapped out, when I was haled before him. "You're the spying rebel captain, eh? Are you alive enough to hang?"
His lack of courtesy rasped so sorely that I must needs give place to wrath14 and answer sharply that there was small doubt of it, since I could stand and curse him.
He scowled15 at that and cursed me back again as heartily16 as any fishwife. Then suddenly he changed his tune17.
"They tell me you were in the service once and left it honorably. I am loath18 to hang a man who has worn the colors. Would it please you best to die a soldier's death, Captain Ireton?"
I said it would, most surely.
He said I should have the boon19 if I would tell him what an officer on the Baron20 de Kalb's staff should know: the strength of the Continentals22, the general's designs and dispositions23, and I know not what besides. I think it was my laugh that made him stop short and damn me roundly in the midst.
"By God, I'll make you laugh another tune!" he swore. "You rebels are all of a piece, and clemency24 is wasted on you!"
"Your mercy comes too dear; you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton. If, for the mere25 swapping26 of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would be too good for me."
"If that is your last word—But stay; I'll give you an hour to think it over."
"It needs not an hour nor a minute," I replied. "If I knew aught about the Continental21 army—which I do not—I'd see you hanged in your own stirrup-leather before I'd tell you, Colonel Tarleton. Moreover, I marvel27 greatly—"
"At what?" he cut in rudely.
"At your informant's lack of invention. He might have brought me straight from General Washington's headquarters while he was about it. 'Twould be no greater lie than that he told you."
He heard me through, then fell to cursing me afresh, and would be sending an aide-de-camp hot-foot for Falconnet.
While the messenger was going and coming there was a chance for me to look around like a poor trapped animal in a pitfall28, loath to die without a struggle, yet seeing not how any less inglorious end should offer. The eye-search went for little of encouragement; there was no chance either to fight or fly. But apart from this, the probing of the shadows revealed a thing that set me suddenly in a fever, first of rage, and then of apprehension29.
As I have said, this gathering-room of our old house was in size like an ancient banquet hall. It had a gable to itself in breadth and height, and at the farther end there was a flight of some few steps to reach the older portion of the house beyond. The upper end of this low stair pierced the thick wall of the older house, and in the shadows of the niche30 thus formed I saw my lady Margery.
She was standing31 as one who looks and listens; and my rage-fit blazed out upon the descrying32 of a shadowy figure of a man behind her; a man I guessed in jealous wrath to be the baronet—a reasonless suspicion, since the volunteer captain would certainly have made his presence known when his colonel had called for him. But while my heart was yet afire my lady moved aside as if to have a better sight of us below; and then I saw it was the priest behind her.
While I was watching her, and we were waiting yet upon the aide-de-camp's return, there was a stir without, and when it reached the door the sentry challenged. Some confab followed, and I overheard enough to tell me that a scouting33 party had come in, bringing a prisoner. The colonel bade me stand aside, and passed the word to fetch the prisoner before him. When the thing was done I set my teeth upon a groan34. For it was Richard Jennifer.
Luckily, he did not single me out among the bystanders, being fresh come from the night without to the glare of candle-light within; and while the swart-faced colonel plied3 him with questions I had a chance to look him up and down. Though his arm was still in its sling
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