The cry was echoed from hill to hill, and along the snow-covered banks of the great river. The grim fight for life was over. They had won. How like a pack of famished wolves did they kill, cook, and devour the cattle!

The next day, two companies dashed through the icy waters of the Du Loup River, and, shortly afterwards, greeted with cheers the first house they had seen for thirty days. Six miles beyond, was Sartigan,—a half dozen log cabins and a few Indian wigwams.

A snowstorm now set in, but the joyful men hastily built huts of pine boughs, kindled huge camp fires, and waited for the stragglers. The severe Canadian winter was well begun. It kept on snowing heavily. As Quebec might be reënforced at any moment, every captain was ordered to get his men over the remaining fifty-four miles with all possible speed.

"Quebec!" "Quebec!" was in everybody's mouth.

With his usual bravado, Arnold planned to capture the "Gibraltar of America" at one stroke. He little knew that, a few days before, some treacherous Indians had warned the British commander of his approach.

On the night of November 13, Arnold ferried five hundred of his men across the St. Lawrence, and climbed to the Heights of Abraham, at the very place where Wolfe had climbed to victory sixteen years before. At daybreak the walls of the city were covered with soldiers and with citizens. Within half a mile of the walls, which fairly bristled with cannon, the ragged soldiers halted and began to cheer lustily. The redcoats shouted back their defiance. Arnold wrote a letter to the governor of Quebec, demanding the surrender of the city. The bearer of the letter, although under a flag of truce, was not even allowed to come near the walls.

After six days the little army slipped away one dark night, and tramped to a village some twenty miles to the west of Quebec. Here they hoped to join forces with Montgomery, who had already captured Montreal, and then come back to renew the siege.

Meanwhile, on November 19, Sir Guy Carleton had left Montreal, and, having made his way down the river, in the disguise of a farmer, slipped into Quebec. This was the salvation of Canada.

The British general was an able soldier. He at once took energetic steps for the defense of the city. At every available point he built blockhouses, barricades, and palisades; and mounted one hundred and fifty cannon. He took five hundred sailors from the war vessels to help man the guns, and thus increased the garrison to eighteen hundred fighting men.

For two weeks the patriot army fired their little three-pounders, and threw several hundred "fire pills," as the men called them, against the granite ramparts and into the town. Even the women laughed at them, for they did no more harm than so many popguns. The redcoats kept up the bloodless contest by raking with their cannon the patriots' feeble breastworks of ice and snow.

At midnight on the last day of 1775, came the snowstorm so long awaited. The word was given, and about half past three the columns marched to the assault. Every man pinned to his hat a piece of white paper, on which was written the motto of Morgan's far-famed riflemen, "Liberty or Death!"

Arnold and Morgan, with about six hundred men, were to make the attack on one side of the town, and Montgomery, with three hundred men, on the other side.

The storm had become furious. With their heads down and their guns under their coats, the men had enough to do to keep up with Arnold as he led the attack. Presently a musket ball shattered his leg and stretched him bleeding in the snow. Morgan at once took command, and, cheering on his men, carried the batteries; then, forcing his way into the streets of the Lower Town, he waited for the promised signal from Montgomery.

Meantime, the precious moments slipped by, while the young Montgomery was forcing his way through the darkness and the huge snowdrifts, along the shores of the St. Lawrence. When the head of his column crept cautiously round a point of the steep cliff, they came face to face with the redcoats standing beside their cannon with lighted matches.

"On, boys, Quebec is ours!" shouted Montgomery, as he sprang forward.

The enemy were now free to close in upon Morgan and his riflemen, on the other side of the town. All night long, fierce hand to hand fighting went on in the narrow streets, amid the howling storm of driving snow; and the morning light broke slowly upon scenes of confusion and horror. Morgan and his men fought like heroes, but they were outnumbered, and were forced to surrender.

The rest of this sad story may be briefly told. Arnold was given the chief command. Although he was weakened from loss of blood, and helpless from his shattered leg, nothing could break his dauntless will. Expecting the enemy at any moment to attack the hospital, he had his pistols and his sword placed on his bed, that he might die fighting. From that bedside, he kept his army of seven hundred men sternly to its duty. In a month he was out of doors, hobbling about on crutches, and hopeful as ever of success.

Washington sent orders for Arnold to stand his ground, and as late as January 27 wrote him that "the glorious work must be accomplished this winter." With bulldog grip, Arnold obeyed orders, and kept up the hopeless siege. During the winter, more troops came to his help from across the lakes, but they only closed the gaps made by hardships and smallpox.

On the 14th of March, a flag of truce was again sent to the city, demanding its surrender.

"No flag will be received," said the officer of the day, "unless it comes to implore the mercy of the king."

A wooden horse was mounted on the walls near the famous old St. John's gate, with a bundle of hay before it. Upon the horse was tacked a placard, on which was written, "When this horse has eaten this bunch of hay, we will surrender."

Although they were short of food, and were forced to tear down the houses for firewood, the garrison was safe and quite comfortable behind the snow-covered ramparts.

The end of the coldest winter ever known in Canada save one came at last. The river was full of ice during the first week of May. A few days later, three men-of-war forced their way up the St. Lawrence through the floating ice, and relieved the besieged city. The salute of twenty-one guns fired by the fleet was joyful music to the people of Quebec. Amid the thundering of the guns from the citadel, the great bell of the Cathedral clanged the death knell to Arnold's hopes.

The "Gibraltar of America" still remained in the possession of England.

CHAPTER III

In 1775, in Virginia, the patriots forced the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, to take refuge on board a British man-of-war in Norfolk Harbor. In revenge, the town of Norfolk, the largest and the most important in the Old Dominion, was, on New Year's Day, 1776, shelled and destroyed. This bombardment, and scores of other less wanton acts of the men-of-war, alarmed every coastwise town from Maine to Georgia.

Early in the fall of 1775, the British government planned to strike a hard blow against the Southern colonies. North Carolina was to be the first to receive punishment. It was the first colony, as perhaps you know, to take decided action in declaring its independence from the mother country. To carry out the intent of the British, Sir Henry Clinton, with two thousand troops, sailed from Boston for the Cape Fear River.

This long-expected fleet was under the command of Sir Peter Parker. Baffled by head winds, and tossed about by storms, the ships were nearly three months on the voyage, and did not arrive at Cape Fear until the first of May. There they found Clinton.

Sir Peter and Sir Henry could not agree as to what action was best. Clinton, with a wholesome respect for the minutemen of the Old North State, wished to sail to the Chesapeake; while Lord Campbell, the royal governor of South Carolina, who was now an officer of the fleet, begged that the first hard blow should fall upon Charleston. He declared that, as soon as the city was captured, the loyalists would be strong enough to restore the king's power. Campbell, it seems, had his way at last, and it was decided to sail south, to capture Charleston.

Meanwhile, the people of South Carolina had received ample warning. So they were not surprised when, on the last day of May, a British fleet under a cloud of canvas was seen bearing up for Charleston. On the next day, Sir Peter Parker cast anchor off the bar, with upwards of fifty war ships and transports. Affairs looked serious for the people of this fair city; but they were of fighting stock, and, with the war thus brought to their doors, were not slow to show their mettle.

For weeks the patriots had been pushing the works of defense. Stores and warehouses were leveled to the ground, to give room for the fire of cannon and muskets from various lines of earthworks; seven hundred wagons belonging to loyalists were pressed into service, to help build redoubts; owners of houses gave the lead from their windows, to be cast into bullets; fire boats were made ready to burn the enemy's vessels, if they passed the forts. The militia came pouring in from the neighboring colonies until there were sixty-five hundred ready to defend the city.

It was believed that a fort built on the southern end of Sullivan's Island, within point-blank shot of the channel leading into Charleston Harbor, might help prevent the British fleet from sailing up to the city. At all events it would be worth trying. So, in the early spring of 1776, Colonel William Moultrie, a veteran of the Indian wars, was ordered to build a square fort large enough to hold a thousand men.

The use of palmetto logs was a happy thought. Hundreds of negroes were set at work cutting down the trees and hauling them to the southern end of the island. The long straight logs were laid one upon another in two parallel rows sixteen feet apart, and were bound together with cross timbers dovetailed and bolted into the logs. The space between the two rows of logs was filled with sand. This made the walls of the fort.

The cannon were mounted upon platforms six feet high, which rested upon brick pillars. Upon these platforms the men could stand and fire through the openings. The rear of the fort and the eastern side were left unfinished, being merely built up seven feet with logs. Thirty-one cannon were mounted, but only twenty-five could at any one time be brought to bear upon the enemy.

On the day of the battle, there were about four hundred and fifty men in the fort, only thirty of whom knew anything about handling cannon. But most of the garrison were expert riflemen, and it was soon found that their skill in small arms helped them in sighting the artillery.

One day early in June, General Charles Lee, who had been sent down to take the chief command, went over to the island to visit the fort. As the old-time soldier, who had seen long service in the British army, looked over the rudely built affair, and saw that it was not even finished, he gravely shook his head.

"The ships will anchor off there," said he to Moultrie, pointing to the channel, "and will make your fort a mere slaughter pen."

The weak-kneed general, who afterwards sold himself to the British, went back and told Governor Rutledge that the only thing to do was to abandon the fort. The governor, however, was made of better stuff, and, besides, had the greatest faith in Colonel Moultrie. But he did ask his old friend if he thought he really could defend the cob-house fort, which Lee had laughed to scorn.

Moultrie was a man of few words, and replied simply, "I think I can."

"General Lee wishes you to give up the fort," added Rutledge, "but you are not to do it without an order from me, and I will sooner cut off my right hand than write one."

The idea of retreating seems never to have occurred to the brave commander.

"I was never uneasy," wrote Moultrie in after years, "because I never thought the enemy could force me to retire."

It was indeed fortunate that Colonel Moultrie was a stout-hearted man, for otherwise he might well have been discouraged. A few days before the battle, the master of a privateer, whose vessel was laid up in Charleston harbor, paid him a visit. As the two friends stood on the palmetto walls, looking at the fleet in the distance, the naval officer said, "Well, Colonel Moultrie, what do you think of it now?"

Moultrie replied, "We shall beat them."

"Sir," exclaimed his visitor, pointing to the distant men-of-war, "when those ships come to lay alongside of your fort, they will knock it down in less than thirty minutes."

"We will then fight behind the ruins," said the stubborn patriot, "and prevent their men from landing."

The British plan of attack, to judge from all military rules, should have been successful. First, the redcoat regulars were to land upon Long Island, lying to the north, and wade across the inlet which separates it from Sullivan's Island. Then, after the war ships had silenced the guns in the fort, the land troops were to storm the position, and thus leave the channel clear for the combined forces to sail up and capture the city.

If a great naval captain like Nelson or Farragut had been in command, probably the ships would not have waited a month, but would at once have made a bold dash past the fort, and straightway captured Charleston. Sir Peter, however, was slow, and felt sure of success. For over three weeks he delayed the attack, thus giving the patriots more time for completing their defenses.

Friday morning, June 28, was hot, but bright and beautiful. Early in the day, Colonel Moultrie rode to the northern end of the island to see Colonel Thompson. The latter had charge of a little fort manned by sharpshooters, and it was his duty to prevent Clinton's troops from getting across the inlet.

"Beat the long roll!" he shouts to his officers, Colonel Motte and Captain Marion.

The drums beat, and each man hurries to his chosen place beside the cannon. The supreme test for the little cob-house fort has come. The men shout, as a blue flag with a crescent, the colors of South Carolina, is flung to the breeze.

Just as a year before, the people of Boston crowded the roofs and the belfries, to watch the outcome of Bunker Hill; so now, the old men and the women and children of Charleston cluster on the wharves, the church towers, and the roofs, all that hot day, to watch the duel between the palmetto fort and the British fleet.

Sir Peter Parker has a powerful fleet. He is ready to do his work. Two of his ships carry fifty guns each, and four carry twenty-eight guns each. With a strong flood tide and a favorable southwest wind, the stately men-of-war sweep gracefully to their positions. Moultrie's fighting blood is up, and his dark eyes flash with delight. The men of South Carolina, eager to fight for their homes, train their cannon upon the war ships.

"Fire! fire!" shouts Moultrie, as the men-of-war come within point-blank shot. The low palmetto cob house begins to thunder with its heavy guns.

A bomb vessel casts anchor about a mile from the fort. Puff! bang! a thirteen-inch shell rises in the air with a fine curve and falls into the fort. It bursts and hurls up cart loads of sand, but hurts nobody. Four of the largest war ships are now within easy range. Down go the anchors, with spring ropes fastened to the cables, to keep the vessels broadside to the fort. The smaller men-of-war take their positions in a second line, in the rear. Fast and furious, more than one hundred and fifty cannon bang away at the little inclosure.

But, even from the first, things did not turn out as the British expected. After firing some fifty shells, which buried themselves in the loose sand and did not explode, the bomb vessel broke down.

About noon, the flagship signaled to three of the men-of-war, "Move down and take position southwest of the fort."

Once there, the platforms inside the fort could be raked from end to end. As good fortune would have it, two of these vessels, in attempting to carry out their orders, ran afoul of each other, and all three stuck fast on the shoal on which is now the famed Fort Sumter.

Meanwhile, where was Sir Henry Clinton? For nearly three weeks he had been encamped with some two thousand men on the sand bar known as Long Island. The men had suffered fearfully from the heat, from lack of water, and from the mosquitoes.

During the bombardment of Fort Sullivan, Sir Henry marched his men down to the end of the sand island, but could not cross; for the water in the inlet proved to be seven feet deep even at low tide. Somebody had blundered about the ford. The redcoats, however, were paraded on the sandy shore while some armed boats made ready to cross the inlet. The grapeshot from two cannon, and the bullets of Colonel Thompson's riflemen, so raked the decks that the men could not stay at their posts. Memories of Bunker Hill, perhaps, made the British officers a trifle timid about crossing the inlet, and marching over the sandy shore, to attack intrenched sharpshooters. Thus it happened that Clinton and his men, through stupidity, were kept prisoners on the sand island, mere spectators of the thrilling scene. They had to content themselves with fighting mosquitoes, under the sweltering rays of a Southern sun.

All this time, Sir Peter was doing his best to pound the fort down. The fort trembled and shook, but it stood. Moultrie and his men, with perfect coolness and with steady aim, made havoc of the war ships. Colonel Moultrie prepared grog by the pailful, which, with a negro as helper, he dipped out to the tired men at the guns.

"Take good aim, boys," he said, as he passed from gun to gun, "mind the big ships, and don't waste the powder."

The mainmast of the flagship Bristol was hit nine times, and the mizzenmast was struck by seven thirty-two-pound balls, and had to be cut away. In short, the flagship was pierced so many times that she would have sunk had not the wind been light and the water smooth. While the battle raged in all its fury, the carpenters worked like beavers to keep the vessel afloat.

At one time a cannon ball shot off one of the cables, and the ship swung round with the tide.

"Give it to her, boys!" shouts Moultrie, "now is your time!" and the cannon balls rake the decks from stem to stern.

The captain of the flagship was struck twice, Lord Campbell was hurt, and one hundred men were either killed or wounded. Once Sir Peter was the only man left on the quarter-deck, and he himself was twice wounded.

The other big ship, the Experiment, fared fully as hard as did the flagship. The captain lost his right arm, and nearly a hundred of his men were killed or wounded.

In fact, these two vessels were about to be left to their fate, when suddenly the fire of the fort slackened.

"Fire once in ten minutes," orders Colonel Moultrie, for the supply of powder is becoming dangerously small.

An aid from General Lee came running over to the fort. "When your powder is gone, spike your guns and retreat," wrote the general.

Moultrie was not that kind of man.

How those men shouted when the powder came! Bang! bang! the cannon in the fort thunder again. The British admiral tries to batter down the fort by firing several broadsides at the same moment. At times it seemed as if it would tumble in a heap. Once the broadsides of four vessels struck the fort at one time; but the palmetto logs stood unharmed. A gunner by the name of McDaniel was mortally wounded by a cannon ball. As the dying soldier was being carried away, he cried out to his comrades in words that will never be forgotten, "Fight on, brave boys, and don't let liberty die with this day!"

In the hottest of the fight, the flagstaff is shot away. Down falls the blue banner upon the beach, outside the fort.

"The flag is down!" "The fort has surrendered!" cry the people of Charleston, with pale faces and tearful eyes.

Out from one of the cannon openings leaps Sergeant William Jasper. Walking the whole length of the fort, he tears away the flag from the staff. Returning with it, he fastens it to the rammer of a cannon, and plants it on the ramparts, amidst the rain of shot and shell.

With the setting of the sun, the roar of battle slackens. The victory is Moultrie's. Twilight and silence fall upon the smoking fort. Here and there lights glimmer in the city, as the joyful people of Charleston return to their homes. The stars look down upon the lapping waters of the bay, where ride at anchor the shadowy vessels of the British fleet. Towards midnight, when the tide begins to ebb, the battered war ships slip their cables and sail out into the darkness with their dead.

The next day, hundreds came from the city to rejoice with Moultrie and his sturdy fighters. Governor Rutledge came down with a party of ladies, and presented a silk banner to the fort. Calling for Sergeant Jasper, he took his own short sword from his side, buckled it on him, and thanked him in the name of his country. He also offered him a lieutenant's commission, but the young hero modestly refused the honor, saying, "I am not fitted for an officer; I am only a sergeant."

In the ten hours of active fighting, the British fleet fired seventeen tons of powder and nearly ten thousand shot and shell, but, in that little inclosure of green logs and sand, only one gun was silenced.

The defense of Fort Sullivan ranks as one of the few complete American victories of the Revolution. The moral effect of the victory was perhaps more far-reaching than the battle of Bunker Hill. Many of the Southern people who had been lukewarm now openly united their fortunes with the patriot cause.

Honors were showered upon the brave Colonel Moultrie. His services to his state and to his country continued through life. He died at a good old age, beloved by his fellow citizens.

CHAPTER IV

It was plain that Washington was troubled. As he paced the piazza of the stately Murray mansion one fine autumn afternoon, he was saying half aloud to himself, "Shall we defend or shall we quit New York?"

At this time Washington's headquarters were on Manhattan Island, at the home of the Quaker merchant, Robert Murray; and here, in the first week of September, 1776, he had asked his officers to meet him in council.

Was it strange that Washington's heart was heavy? During the last week of August, the Continental army had been defeated in the battle of Long Island. A fourth of the army were on the sick list; a third were without tents. Winter was close at hand, and the men, mostly new recruits, were short of clothing, shoes, and blankets. Only fourteen thousand men were fit for duty, and they were scattered all the way from the Battery to Kingsbridge, a distance of a dozen miles or more.

To give up the city to the British without battle seemed a great pity. The effect upon the patriot cause in all the colonies would be bad. Still, there was no help for it. What was the use of fighting against such odds? Why run the risk of almost certain defeat? Washington always looked beyond the present, and he did not intend now to be shut up on Manhattan Island, perhaps to lose his entire army; so, with the main body, he moved north to Harlem Heights. Here he was soon informed by scouts that the British were getting ready to move at once. Whither, nobody could tell. Such was the state of affairs that led Washington to call his chief officers to the Murray mansion, on that September afternoon.

Of course they talked over the situation long and calmly. After all, the main question was, What shall be done? Among other things, it was thought best to find the right sort of man, and send him in disguise into the British camp on Long Island, to find out just where the enemy were planning to attack.

"Upon this, gentlemen," said Washington, "depends at this time the fate of our army."

The commander in chief sent for Colonel Knowlton, the hero of the rail fence at Bunker Hill.

"I want you to find for me in your regiment or in some other," he said, "some young officer to go at once into the British camp, to discover what is going on. The man must have a quick eye, a cool head, and nerves of steel. I wish him to make notes of the position of the enemy, draw plans of the forts, and listen to the talk of the officers. Can you find such a man for me this very afternoon?"

"I will do my best, General Washington," said the colonel, as he took leave to go to his regiment.

On arriving at his quarters that afternoon, Knowlton called together a number of officers. He briefly told them what Washington wanted, and asked for volunteers. There was a long pause, amid deep surprise. These soldiers were willing to serve their country; but to play the spy, the hated spy, was too much even for Washington to ask.

One after another of the officers, as Knowlton called them by name, declined. His task seemed hopeless. At last, he asked a grizzled Frenchman, who had fought in many battles and was noted for his rash bravery.

"No, no! Colonel Knowlton," he said, "I am ready to fight the redcoats at any place and at any time; but, sir, I am not willing to play the spy, and be hanged like a dog if I am caught."

"I wish to be useful," he said, "and every kind of service necessary for the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If my country needs a peculiar service, its claims upon me are imperious."

These patriotic words of a man willing to give up his life, if necessary, for the good of his country silenced his brother officers.

"Good-by, Nathan!" "Don't you let the redcoats catch you!" "Good luck to you!" "We never expect to see you again!" cried his nearest friends in camp, as, in company with Colonel Knowlton, the young captain rode out that same afternoon to receive his orders from Washington himself.

Nathan Hale was born, as were his eight brothers and his three sisters, in an old-fashioned, two-storied house, in a little country village of Connecticut. His father, a man of integrity, was a stanch patriot. Instead of allowing his family to use the wool raised on his farm, he saved it to make blankets for the Continental army. The mother of this large family was a woman of high moral and domestic worth, devoted to her children, for whom she sought the highest good. It was a quiet, strict household, Puritan in its faith and its manners, where the Bible ruled, where family prayers never failed, nor was grace ever omitted at meals. On a Saturday night, no work was done after sundown.

Young Nathan was a bright, active American boy. He liked his gun and his fishing pole. He was fond of running, leaping, wrestling, and playing ball. One of his pupils said that Hale would put his hand upon a fence as high as his head, and clear it easily at a bound. He liked books, and read much out of school. Like two of his brothers, he was to be educated for the ministry. When only sixteen, he entered Yale College, and was graduated two years before the battle of Bunker Hill. Early in the fall of 1773, the young graduate began to teach school, and was soon afterwards made master of a select school in New London, in his native state.

Such was Nathan Hale when the news of the bloodshed at Lexington reached New London. A rousing meeting was held that evening. The young schoolmaster was one of the speakers.

"Let us march at once," he said, "and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence."

The next morning, Hale called his pupils together, "gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them, and shaking each by the hand," took his leave, and during the same forenoon marched with his company for Cambridge.

The young officer from Connecticut took an active part in the siege of Boston, and soon became captain of his company. Hale's diary is still preserved, and after all these years it is full of interest. It seems that he took charge of his men's clothing, rations, and money. Much of his time he was on picket duty, and took part in many lively skirmishes with the redcoats. Besides studying military tactics, he found time to make up wrestling matches, to play football and checkers, and, on Sundays, to hold religious meetings in barns.

Stripping off his uniform, the young captain put on a plain brown suit of citizen's clothes, and a broad-brimmed hat. Thus attired in the dress of a schoolmaster, he was landed across the Sound, and shortly afterwards reached the nearest British camp.

The redcoats received the pretended schoolmaster cordially. A captain of the dragoons spoke of him long afterwards as a "jolly good fellow." Hale pretended that he was tired of the "rebel cause," and that he was in search of a place to teach school.

It would be interesting to know just what the "schoolmaster" did in the next two weeks. Think of the poor fellow's eagerness to make the most of his time, drawing plans of the forts, and going rapidly from one point to another to watch the marching of troops, patrols, and guards. Think of his sleepless nights, his fearful risk, the ever-present dread of being recognized by some Tory. All this we know nothing about, but his brave and tender heart must sometimes have been sorely tried.

Many a patriotic American boy has thought what he should have done if he could have exchanged places with Nathan Hale on this evening. Near by, at a place then called and still called "The Cedars," a woman by the name of Chichester, and nicknamed "Mother Chick," kept a tavern, which was the favorite resort of all the Tories in that region. Hale was sure that nobody would know him in his strange dress, and so he ventured into the tavern. A number of people were in the barroom. A few minutes afterwards, a man whose face seemed familiar to Hale suddenly left the room, and was not seen again.

The pretended schoolmaster spent the night at the tavern.

Early the next morning, the landlady rushed into the barroom, crying out to her guests, "Look out, boys! there is a strange boat close in shore!"

The Tories scampered as if the house were on fire.

"That surely is the very boat I'm looking for," thought Hale on leaving the tavern, and hastened towards the beach, where the boat had already landed.

Some have declared that the man who so suddenly left the tavern was a Tory cousin to Hale, and saw at once through the patriot's disguise; that, being quite a rascal, he hurried away to get word to the British camp. There seems to be no good reason, however, to believe that the fellow was a kinsman.

However this may be, the British captured Captain Hale in disguise. They stripped him and searched him, and found his drawings and his notes. These were written in Latin, and had been tucked away between the soles of his shoes.

"I am sorry that so fine a fellow has fallen into my hands," said the captain of the guard ship, "but you are my prisoner, and I think a spy. So to New York you must go!"

That night, which was Saturday, September 21, the condemned man was kept under a strong guard, in the greenhouse near the Beekman mansion. He had been given over to the care of the brutal Cunningham, the infamous British provost marshal, with orders to carry out the sentence before sunrise the next morning.

"To-morrow morning at daybreak."

How cruelly brief! Nathan Hale, the patriot spy, was left to himself for the night.

It was just before sunrise on a lovely Sabbath morning that Nathan Hale was led out to death. The gallows was the limb of an apple tree. Early as it was, a number of men and women had come to witness the execution.

"Give us your dying speech, you young rebel!" shouted the brutal Cunningham.

The young patriot, standing upon the fatal ladder, lifted his eyes toward heaven, and said, in a calm, clear voice, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

These were his last words. The women sobbed, and some of the men began to show signs of sympathy.

"Swing the rebel off!" cried Cunningham, in a voice hoarse with anger. The order was obeyed.

Thus died in the bloom of life, Captain Nathan Hale, the early martyr in the cause of our freedom. Gifted, educated, ambitious, he laid aside every thought of himself, and entered upon a service of the greatest risk to life and to honor, because Washington deemed it important to the sacred cause to which they had both given their best efforts.

"What was to have been your reward in case you succeeded?" asked Major Tallmadge, Hale's classmate, of the British spy, Major André, as his prisoner was being rowed across the Hudson River to be tried by court-martial.

"Military glory was all I sought for," replied André; "the thanks of my general and the approbation of my king would have been a rich reward."

Hale did not expect, nor did he care, to be a hero. He had no thought of reward or of promotion. He sacrificed his life from a pure sense of what he thought to be his duty.