Many times during the day’s march did Richard turn his eyes wistfully toward the blue hills to the south, and wonder beyond which of them Billy was speeding to rejoin his command. The thought had in it such an element of bitterness that finally he thrust it from him lest it wax into selfish envy.

Finally they reached their goal, and the vast body of men and animals halted beside the bay whose waters sparkled under the blue and gold tones of the summer sky. In the offing lay the English fleet, which by the happiest chance for Clinton had arrived inside the Hook in time to convey his exhausted army to New York.

The quick, salt wind whipping Richard in the face, gave him a sense of vigour and reserve strength, which was speedily nipped by a chilling realization of his hopeless captivity. Mechanically he ate and drank when the guard bade him; for the prison bars were now inevitable, and he would lie rusting his heart and manhood out while the fight went by outside. In an agony of despair he cursed the impetuous daring that had led him so far in advance of his column as to deliver him into the hands of the enemy. And he cursed both the moonlight that had flooded the road the first night of their march, and the guard whose lynx eyes seemed ever upon him; and finally he cursed himself more sorely than aught else, because he had not followed Billy at all hazards and let a bullet end the problem forever.

But life is sweet to youth, and hope finds ever a place in the heart that is full of an unsatisfied love; and so by the time he had finished his spare meal he was ready to look at the future with more calmness. Outside in the free world Joscelyn would wait for him, and prison doors must sometimes yawn. The soldier who brought him his supper stayed for a few minutes to talk. He had a frank, friendly face that Richard liked.

“So we gave your sly general the slip after all, and held to our march as we at first intended.”

“Did Clinton originally and intentionally propose to make a night march at almost double-quick over such roads as we have traversed? D—d queer military tactics.”

The fellow grinned. “Oh, a little change of programme mattered not, so we lost not a single wagon of our train. See, they are yonder, as safe as a ship in port.”

“Mayhap; but you saved your skins whole by stealing away from Monmouth like a thief in the night, and, leaving the foe you pretended to despise, camped on the battle-ground.”

“Oh, we begrudge not you fellows a camping ground—we are not that greedy.”

“No; you wanted them, in fact, to have all the ground in the vicinity, even if you had to be so unselfish as to march all night to leave it to them.”

“Come, your tongue’s too sharp,” the fellow said irritably.

“Sharper than your general’s wits, if he took that march out of anything but necessity. He has saved his baggage train, but, mark you, he has lost his cause. Our victory at Monmouth will hearten up the doubtful and send them flocking to our camp.”

The man laughed satirically at the word “victory,” and then said:—

“Well, at all events, your part of the flocking is done for good. ’Tis not likely you’ll see the outside of a prison for more months than you are years old—if by any chance your general hangs on that long, which is not likely.”

Richard shivered at mention of a prison, but shrugged his shoulders with outward calm. “A man must bear the fortunes of war, if he be a true soldier. Prison life is harder than fighting, but some must carry the heavy end of the burden, and ’tis not for me to bemoan if it falls to me. Know you in which of your pest holes we are like to be confined?”

The soldier looked into the clear, steady eyes for a moment before replying: “You’re a rum chap to take your medicine without a whine. I like your sort, and I hope, when this cursed war is done, you’ll be found alive; but it isn’t likely, for methinks you are to go to the old Sugar House in New York. ’Tis as full as an ant-hill now, but they’ll shove the poor devils a bit closer together and squeeze you in. You’ll have plenty of time, but not much room, to meditate on your evil doings against King George. Still, I hope you’ll live through it.”

He picked up the empty can out of which the prisoner had been drinking, and moved on. Richard, who had been sitting upright during the conversation, sank back upon the ground and pulled his cap over his eyes. The old Sugar House! Too well he knew of the misery and degradation in store for those who crossed its threshold. No escapes were ever effected, and the hope of exchange, unless one were an officer, was too slim to dwell upon; Washington’s captures went for higher game than privates and raw recruits. But two things could open these relentless gates to him—death or the end of the struggle; and the latter seemed far enough away.

And Joscelyn! would she care that he suffered and died by inches? Would she think of him regretfully, tenderly, when all was done? It was hard to love a girl of whose very sympathy one was not sure; and yet he knew he had rather have her mockery than another woman’s caresses.

For an hour he lay upon the ground, his heart convulsed with grief, but his body so rigidly quiet that his companions thought he slept. They could not tell that under his cap his eyes were staring wide, seeing, not the cap above, but a girl’s face framed in soft meshes of hair and lit by eyes as gray-blue as the sea when the tides are quiescent and the winds are fast asleep. By and by the intense heat of the evening set the wound in his head to throbbing, and rousing up, he begged the corporal of the guard for a little water and a bandage. The man—the same with whom he had talked before—brought these to him after a little delay, and found for him in his own kit a bit of healing salve, which his English mother had given him at parting.

“She said ’twould cure bad blood, and methinks yours is bad enough to put it to the test,” he said, laughing, and yet with a certain rough kindliness.

“Well, since it hath not killed you, methinks I am safe,” Richard laughed back gratefully, while one of his comrades dressed the wound, which gave promise of speedy healing.

“What is your name?” he asked of the corporal.

“James Colborn, of the King’s Artillery.”

“Well, ’tis a pity you are in such bad employ, for you have an uncommon good heart and a face that matches it. When General Washington hath licked the boots off you fellows, come down south and pay me a visit. My mother’ll be so grateful for every kind word you have spoken to me, that she’ll feed you on good cookery until you are as fat as a Michaelmas goose.”

“I’ll come,” the other laughed, “but I’ll wear my boots; it will be you fellows who will go barefooted from a licking.”

“Don’t wager your birthright on that; you’d lose even the mess of pottage.”

Under the relief the dressing of his wound afforded, Richard fell asleep, and his dreams must have been comforting, for on his face was a smile of happiness, and the words he murmured made the corporal of the guard laugh to himself as he trod to and fro before the open tent.

“Have you a favourite dog named Joscelyn?” he asked teasingly, when he roused Richard for supper.

“No.”

“A horse, then?”

Richard looked at him questioningly, half-inclined to be angry.

“You have been talking in your sleep.”

“Joscelyn is not a dog nor a horse; she is my sweetheart.”

“Mine’s named Margie.”

There was a moment of silence during which the two young fellows felt almost akin with friendly sympathy. They longed to shake hands and tell each other their love tales.

“Margie’s eyes are black,” said Colborn softly.

“Joscelyn has sea-blue eyes.”

“I like black ones better.”

“I’d love Joscelyn’s eyes, were they as vari-coloured as Joseph’s coat.”

“Well said.” The speaker thrust his hand into his shirt and drew out a metal case which contained a picture of a buxom English girl. “It took a whole month’s pay to have that made, but I wasn’t coming to America without bringing a likeness of her to look at. When I am promoted to a captaincy I shall have it set in gold and brilliants. She is counting the months until I go back to her,” he continued with a burst of confidence, while his honest face flamed with a boyish blush. “For every week I am away, she drops a pebble into a china jar I gave her, that I may count the kisses she shall owe me when we meet. Never you doubt but I shall cheat in the count, though I have to carry back a pocketful of American pebbles to help me out!” Then, by way of prelude to that coming happiness, he kissed the picture with eager frankness before returning it to the case, saying there were already twelve pebbles in the jar.

Many times during the few days when the army lay encamped upon the sandy reaches of the Hook did Richard have occasion to be grateful to the young corporal for little acts of kindness, and in return he told him something of his own life, so that a curious friendship was formed between the two; and when the embarkation finally came, Richard was glad to find that the same guard and officers would have the prisoners in charge until the dreaded doors of the jail should close upon them.

As they marched clankily down the streets of New York, he believed that now he knew how condemned men felt as they approached the gallows, only the gallows seemed better than those frowning walls yonder, at whose narrow windows the miserable inmates stood in relays that each might draw a few good breaths during the long and suffocating day. The old Sugar House! He set his teeth hard when at last they stood before its doors, and the first squad of prisoners passed out of sight within its gloomy portals. He was telling the sunshine and the clouds good-by before his turn to enter should come, when, to his surprise, the doors swung to, and the squad in which he marched was wheeled down another street. After a few minutes he caught Colborn’s eye, and read therein tidings of some new disaster. Whither were they carrying him and his unfortunate companions! No faintest hint of their destination came to him, until, the city being crossed, they halted again, this time beside the water’s edge, far to the east. As some delay was evident, the corporal bade the prisoners sit down upon the shore; and while his men formed in the rear to watch, he himself passed slowly up and down the water’s edge, stopping at last beside Richard, who sat at the end of the line of captives as much to himself as possible, for his heart was heavy with a new forboding.

“In ten minutes,” said the corporal, speaking quickly and in an undertone, “I shall have parted with you, perhaps forever. I know you for a brave man and a generous one, and I am sorry for your fate. The plan has been changed. The Sugar House would not hold all of you; so, for lack of other accommodations, this squad of prisoners is ordered to—”

“Where?”

“—to the prison-ships lying across the bay.”

Richard staggered up. “The hells, the floating hells!”

“Yes, that is what they are sometimes called.”

“My God!” For a moment the fortitude that had sustained him during the last ten days gave way, and he sank down again, covering his face with his hands in a dry-eyed anguish.

“I wish from my soul that I might have helped you, but this is all I can do,” the corporal said. “Pick them up as a gift from a brother in arms.” He surreptitiously dropped some coins upon the sand, and Richard, more because of the friendliness of the gift than because he thought of their value, ran his fingers through the sand and picked them up, shoving them into a torn place in the lining of his boot.

“You have been good to me—” he began slowly, and with the look of a man who is talking unconsciously; but with an impatient shrug the other had moved away. When he had walked the length of the line and stood looking over the water a minute, he came again to Richard’s side, apparently with no special object in view. His voice was very low as he said:—

“True soldiers respect each other, no matter what the colour of their uniforms. I guessed—but I want to know for certain—did you let the little lad escape the other night rather than go by yourself and leave him?”

Richard nodded. Colborn took off his hat. Those who watched him from the sand and from the picket line thought he but bared his head to the cool sea breeze, but in truth it was to a brave man’s self-sacrifice. A Scripture verse was running in his head: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he give his life for his friend.” But he did not speak it, for a boat grating on the sand behind made him turn.

“The ship’s warden to receive you,” he said, with a quick-drawn breath. “God help you!” Then aloud: “Attention!”

The prisoners arose and lined up as the boat’s crew came ashore. The warden conferred a few minutes with the corporal, went over the list of prisoners, counted them carefully, eying each one sternly as he did so; then turned again to the corporal, who, after another short conference, stepped out before the line of prisoners.

“Attention! My care of you ends here. The warden of the prison-ships will henceforth have you in charge.” At a signal his men fell back, and the crew from the ship’s long-boat took their places; the two officers saluted, and the corporal stepped aside.

“Attention! Forward! March!” the warden shouted, pointing with his sword to the boat; and the handful of dazed and miserable captives, like so many automatons, caught step and sullenly moved to the water. As Richard, who brought up the rear, passed Colborn, the latter whispered:—

“Your Joscelyn shall know,” and Richard’s eyes spoke his thanks.

Then the boat drew away from shore, carrying its freight of helpless despair to the plague-infected hulk rocking in the tide, the plaything of the winds, the sport of every leaping wave that cast its crystal fringes to the sun.

CHAPTER XII.

“Yes, and looking for all the world like a comfortable pillow that has just been shaken up; but if there was a man under threescore in seeing distance, she’d be as trim as you please,” replied Mistress Strudwick. “Heigh-ho, what a slipshod world this would be if there were nobody but women in it!”

“And what a topsy-turvy place ’twould be with only men. Nobody’d ever know where anything was,” said quiet Mistress Cheshire, with poignant recollections of striving to keep up with the belongings of two husbands. “Depend upon it, Martha Strudwick, the world would be a deal worse off without women than without men, for men never can find anything.”

“I am quite of your mind, Mary. In sooth, I always had a sneaking notion that Columbus brought his wife along when he came to discover America, and that ’twas she who first saw the land,” said Sally Ruffin.

“I don’t seem to remember that there was a Mistress Columbus,” said Ann Clevering, biting off her thread with a snap.

“Well, goodness knows there had ought to have been, for Columbus had a son,” replied Martha Strudwick, greatly scandalized, although her own knowledge in the matter was somewhat hazy.

“How ’pon earth did we ever get to talking such wise things as history?” asked Mistress Cheshire, whose forte was housewifely recipes.

“We were saying as how men never could find things.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well,” said Martha Strudwick, thoughtfully, “that depends on what kind of things you mean. Now there’s my husband—and he’s a good man, good as common—he can find a fish-hook in the dark if it’s good biting season; but he can’t see the long-handled hoe in the broad daylight if it’s weeding time in the garden and the sun is hot. Finding things depends more on a man’s mind than his eyes.”

“Then there’s a heap of them who lose their minds mighty handy,” retorted Ann Clevering.

Mistress Cheshire pushed back her chair: “I shall run home and caution Dilsy about putting the bread to rise; she’s that unseeing that I think Providence must have first meant her to be a man.” Which was as near a joke as anything Mistress Cheshire ever said. As she trotted away the others looked after her affectionately.

“Mary is such a mild-mannered woman,” said Ann Clevering; “many’s the time I’ve heard her first husband—dead and gone these twenty-three years—say it was an accident little short of a miracle how Providence could make a woman with so little tongue.”

“Joscelyn, with her goings-on, must be a dreadful trial to her,” sighed Amanda Bryce.

“And not only to her mother, but to the whole town,” snapped another woman.

“Hoity-toity!” bristled Mistress Strudwick, “what’s the matter with Joscelyn? She is the very life of the place, now that the men are gone. If ’twere not for discussing her, and abusing her,”—with a withering glance at the last speaker,—“we should go tongue-tied for lack of somewhat to talk about. She’s a tonic for us all, and without her we’d be going to sleep.”

“Sleep is a good thing,” sniffed Amanda Bryce.

“Ay,” retorted Mistress Strudwick, “when you are tucked in bed and the lights are out, it is; but not when you are standing up flat-footed with baking and brewing and weaving and such things to look after. Joscelyn’s all right, Tory though she be. Look at her now, with all those red roses stuck around her belt; she’s the finest sight on the street.”

“Fine enough to look at, I’m not gainsaying you; what I object to is hearing her when she talks about our war.”

“Well, Amanda, if our swords were all as sharp as her tongue can be, the war would soon be over.”

“You always were partial to the lass, Martha.”

“Ay, I often told Richard Clevering I’d be his rival were I a man, old or young; and truly I believe Joscelyn would look with more favour upon me of the two,” laughed the corpulent dame, remembering the soft little touches with which the girl sometimes tidied up her gray hair and unruly neckerchief, and the caress upon her cheek that always closed the job.

“I wonder you can take up so for her, Martha, when all your menfolk are in the Continental army, and she a rank Tory.”

“Oh, I can forgive a woman her politics, because, like a man’s religion, it’s apt to be picked up second-hand and liable to change at any time.”

“Don’t you believe men have any true religion?”

“Well, ye-e-s; if the rain comes in season, and the crops are good, and the cattle don’t break into the corn, and their victuals are well cooked, they are apt to be middling religious.”

“Remember you have a husband of your own.”

“Yes, praise God, I have, and a good man he is, too; but when the dam in the levee breaks, or the cows get the hollow-horn, he’s that rearing, tearing put out that he couldn’t say offhand whether preordination or general salvation was the true doctrine; but the time never comes when he’s too mad or too worried to know he’s a Whig, every hair of him. That is what makes me say religion is a picked-up habit with men and politics is their nature. With a woman it’s the other way; so I laugh at Joscelyn’s politics, and kiss her bonny face and love her all the time.”

“That is more than I can do. If it were not for her mother, I should forbid my daughter to have aught to do with her,” said Amanda Bryce, sniffily, as Joscelyn passed the gate with Betty Clevering and Janet Cameron, and called up a pleasant “good afternoon” to the elder women.

“Well, your girl and not Joscelyn would be the loser thereby,” retorted Martha Strudwick, regardless of the fact that she was in her own house; and there would doubtless have been sharp words had not Mistress Clevering interposed with some gentle remonstrance.

A little later the whole party of young people began to move toward the tavern; for it was the day the post was due, if by good fortune it had escaped the marauders and highwaymen who, in the assumed name of war, infested the roads. Always there was a crowd about the tavern on Thursday afternoons, in hopes that news of the fighting and of friends would be forthcoming. This particular day they were not disappointed; for the women on the porch, looking up the street, presently saw that something unusual was to pay, and forgetful of bonnets or caps, they hastened to learn what it was. The postbag, with its slender store, lay neglected on the table, for the crowd had gathered eagerly about some one on the steps, and exclamations and questions filled the air.

“What is it?” demanded Mistress Strudwick, breathless from her haste, and the crowd divided and showed a lad, pale and worn, sitting on the steps.

“Billy, my Billy!” shrieked Amanda Bryce, and passing the other women, she caught him in her arms and hugged him frantically. For a few moments no one spoke or interfered, but after the dame had kissed every square inch of his face, and had felt his head, shoulders, and arms for fractures, Martha Strudwick interposed.

“Come, Billy, tell us where you come from and what news you bring from the front. Has there been a fight, boy?”

“Ay, and a victory for us.”

“A victory? Hurrah! When? Where? Talk quick!” cried a dozen voices shrill with their eagerness.

“At Monmouth town in Jersey. ’Twas there we overtook Clinton as he made for New York.”

“We have already had rumours of it. And you did fight him and put him to rout? Who fell, and who was wounded? Can’t you talk faster?”

“Truly we did fight when we got the chance, though Lee—the foul fiends take him!—tried hard not to let us. It was the hottest day I ever felt. The sand and dust—”

“Never mind about the sand and dust; tell us of the battle.”

And so by piecemeal, with many a question and interruption, he told them the story of that remarkable battle and his own capture.

“And who was taken with you?”

“Master Peter Ruffin, Amos Andrews, and Richard Clevering from our company, and some threescore more whom I knew not.”

But only a few heard the last clause of his sentence, for among the women were relatives and friends of each of the men mentioned, and there were sobs and moans for the fate of their loved ones. So great was the abhorrence in which British prisons were held, that death seemed almost preferable. Then presently Betty Clevering cried shrilly:—

“And if you were captured, how comes it you are here?”

“I escaped.”

“And how many escaped with you?”

“None—none; not even Richard.”

Mistress Ruffin took him sharply by the arm. “Do you mean to say that a strip of a lad like you had sense enough to get away, and grown men were held? That’s a pretty tale!”

And then with stifled sobs he told of Richard’s sacrifice and his own getting away.

“For an hour I waited there in the grass, hoping for him to come; and when I dared stay no longer I crept to the hillside and hid in a little cave, from which I watched the army in the distance take up its march next day. I started once to go back and die with Richard in prison, but—”

“Talk not so, my son; ’twould have killed me and done Richard no good,” cried his mother, caressing his curly head against her shoulder. “Richard did not want you back—God bless him for a generous lad!”

“No,” sobbed the lad, “he is so noble, so good; and I let him go back, let him sacrifice himself for me, for had I but slept on he would have gotten away.”

All this while Mistress Clevering had not spoken; now she lifted her head, and no mother of Sparta ever looked more proud or more resigned.

“Yes, you were right to come away; he gave you your freedom at the cost of his own, and it would have grieved him had you returned and made the sacrifice useless. ’Tis a beautiful thing to be the mother of a son like that. I am content.” And Martha Strudwick leaned over and kissed her softly.

“And how fared it with you when the British had marched away?” asked his mother of Billy.

“I reached the coast and followed it for two days, when I came to a village whence a trading vessel was leaving to smuggle its cargo to the south. The captain took me on, and after ten days I was put ashore near New Berne town, from which place I have made my way home, travelling with the post these two days.”

“You have not then been back to the army?”

“No, but I shall start to-morrow, now that I have seen you, mother, and when I have given Richard’s messages to Mistress Clevering and—”

He stopped; but his glance had travelled to Joscelyn standing at the edge of the crowd, and Janet Cameron laughed.

“What said my boy? Out with it!” cried Mistress Clevering, eagerly.

“He did send you his dear love, even as he was to bring mine to mother had I been the one left behind. I would I could tell you how reverent and tender his voice was when he spoke your name.”

The Spartan in the woman broke down, and the mother prevailed. “My son, my dear son, did God give you in answer to my prayers only to take you away like this? What may he not be suffering at this very moment, and I who have watched him from his cradle powerless to help him! Oh, but war is a cruel thing! My son, my son!”

Betty and Mistress Cheshire led her away weeping, and for a few minutes, silence held the women as they looked away to the north and thought of the strife enacting, and the pain being endured there for liberty. And besides those carried away into captivity, how many others—perhaps their own nearest and dearest—had been left on the battle-field?

“See,” cried Amanda Bryce, turning fiercely on Joscelyn, whose eyes, full of a misty tenderness, were following Aunt Clevering down the street—“see what you miserable Tories are doing to us, your neighbours! Shame upon you, I say; shame upon you!”

“Ay, shame upon you!” cried several voices; and faces scowled and a few fists were clenched. The girl cowered back, amazed, affrighted.

“Pull those red roses out of her belt; we want no Tory colours here!” cried Amanda Bryce; and two or three hands reached toward the knot of scarlet blossoms. But Joscelyn, her eyes beginning to kindle, stepped back and raised her own hand warningly.

“Do not touch me! Yes, I am a Tory, as you are pleased to call us, and I am not ashamed that the king’s army hath been preserved from destruction; but I am sorry, very sorry your friends and kindred are to suffer—though perhaps some punishment is necessary to rebels.”

Mistress Strudwick started to the girl’s side, but little Billy Bryce was before her.

“Who touches Joscelyn must first pass me!” he cried to the angry women. “Mother, be silent! What share could a girl like this have in our capture; and what matters a few men taken when the victory was ours?”

“Yes, praise God, we thrashed the miserable cowards of Redcoats as they deserved.”

“A great thrashing ’twas, when they lost not a wagon of their train, and took more prisoners than Washington,” Joscelyn answered tartly.

A dozen voices answered her angrily, and she opened her lips to reply, but Mistress Strudwick clapped her broad palm over the girl’s mouth.

“Hold your saucy tongue, Joscelyn; and you girls, there, be silent this minute. What, is the war to ruin the manners of our women that they can descend so low as to brawl in the public streets? Shame upon you, every one! What hath come of your senses that you thus demean yourselves and belittle the raising your elders gave you?”

The reproof had the desired effect; for the girl stood silent and abashed, and her angry assailants drew back. Taking advantage of the lull, Mistress Strudwick seized Joscelyn by the arm and almost forcibly drew her away.

“Begone to your home, and bide there till you learn some sense,” she cried sharply. “What’s the use in butting your brains out against a wall, when there’s room enough to go around it? There is no fool like a self-made fool! Go.” But when the girl had gone a few steps she made her return. “Promise me truly,” she whispered, “that you’ll go straight home and stay until the fire you kindled here burns down a bit—promise you will not stir from the house, or I shall not sleep to-night.”

“I promise, dear Mistress Strudwick,” Joscelyn said, kissing the big hand that patted her cheek. “You heard me say I was sorry our townsfolk were taken, and so I am.”

“Yes, yes. Harkee, tell your mother I say to be sure and send Amanda Bryce a loaf of hot bread for supper—Billy will be hungry with running so far from Monmouth,” she said, with a meaning wink. In truth, she intended the hot bread as a peace-offering to Mistress Bryce, for it was by such small acts of quiet diplomacy that she kept down the enmity against the Cheshires, or rather against Joscelyn, since she it was who aroused the resentment.

Slowly the girl went down the street thinking of the scene just passed. Mistress Strudwick was right; it was a disgrace for women to brawl thus upon the public thoroughfares; never again would she let her temper get the better of her in this way—only they should not touch her. And already half-forgetful of her resolution, she mounted her steps with flashing eyes and flaming cheeks.

Presently lights began to glimmer through the dusk, and when the dark really came every house in the town showed a candle in its window in token of the advantage won at Monmouth, for since Washington held the field they deemed him victorious. Even in those houses where grief had entered, the light shone; for true patriotism is never selfish. Only the Cheshire windows were dark, so that the house made a blot in the street. Mistress Cheshire had gone to the Cleverings to condole with them over Richard; but Joscelyn, because of her promise to Mistress Strudwick, had bided at home, though she would much have loved to comfort Betty. From porch to porch the women called to each other, and some of the girls sang snatches of song here and there, like mocking-birds hid in the shadows. But Joscelyn sat at her upper window, silent and musing, thinking what a beautiful thing Richard Clevering had done to let the little lad go free while he himself went back to captivity. Suddenly a voice below her whispered:—

“Hist! Joscelyn, Joscelyn!”

She leaned over the window-sill. “Who is it?”

“It is I—Billy Bryce. I have only a minute, for mother must not know I came, but I have a message for you.”

“From whom comes it, Billy?”

“From Richard. Come quickly.”

She ran lightly down to the veranda and leaned over the railing to the boy in the shadow. He took her hands eagerly in his.

“He loves you, Joscelyn!”

She did not answer. He was too earnest for a jest, so she only pressed his hand and waited.

“He is so noble, so generous, Joscelyn; even among us younger boys he never did a mean thing, and there’s not a man in the company who is not his friend.”

“Yes, I always knew Richard had a kind heart, and his letting you go in his stead was unselfish—beautiful; and I honour him for it.”

“And do you not love him for it also?” the lad begged wistfully. “Say that you love him just a little.”

“Nay, Billy; he is brave and kind, and he is my friend and Betty’s brother, therefore do I wish him naught but good fortune and happiness; but, laddie, I do not love him.”

“You are cruel—heartless!” he cried, flinging her hands away. “Richard’s little finger hath more feeling in it and is worth more than your whole body.”

“Your championship does you credit, Billy, and I shall not quarrel with you for appraising my value so low. Mayhap Richard thinks differently.”

“Ay, that he does—more’s the pity!” Then taking her hands again, he said vehemently: “An you come not to love him, I pray God to curse you with an ugliness so great that no other man may ever kiss or love you! For listen; as we lay in the dark that night waiting for the moment to escape, this is what he said: ‘If you get away and I do not, say to Joscelyn Cheshire that even behind prison bars I am her lover; and that if death comes, her face, or the blessed memory of it, will outshine those of the angels of Paradise.’ That was his message. I have faced many dangers to bring it to you. Now that you have it, I shall go back to my regiment, and if a ball finds me, well and good; Richard will know somehow and somewhere that I did not fail him.”

The girl dropped her head low in the starlight.

“Good-by, Billy; you have filled your mission bravely. Heaven keep you safe and send you back once more to your mother and us.”

He put up his hand and stroked her cheek softly.

“I do not wonder that he loves you, Joscelyn, you are so beautiful, and you can be so sweet—so sweet,” he exclaimed, and then ran away into the dark, leaving her alone with the words of the love-message ringing in her ears.

So still she stood that a big moth flying wearily by rested a moment on her shoulder; across the way her mother was bidding Aunt Clevering good night with admonitions to sleep well, and from down the street came the voices of the singers chanting of victory and the home-coming of loved ones. But above everything the girl on the dark balcony heard a deep, strong voice saying, “Even behind prison bars I am her lover.”

Prison bars!

And suddenly she threw up her arms in the flower-sweet dusk and whispered vehemently:—

“Set him free, dear God! set him free!”

CHAPTER XIII.

“Methinks he could most easily, especially with the tide in his favour; but if he eludes the watch here, the patrol yonder will shoot him like a rat when he crawls out of the water. No, Peter, I have gone over it all in my mind, calculated the method of reaching the water, the length of the swim, and the best place to land. I have even tried to get speech with Dame Grant when she comes with her wares, to see if she could not be bribed to aid me; but the warden never takes his eyes from her until her sales are over and her boat ready to start. She has a solemnly sour face, but mayhap a gold piece would soften her heart to mercy. It was for this that I have hoarded Colborn’s gold.”

“I, too, thought of the bumboat woman, but gave up hope of aid from her, seeing how she is watched. ’Twere as much as her life is worth to give us the smallest assistance,” answered Peter.

“Yes, we are cut off from every chance, condemned—doomed—and seeing this, I have given up hope.”

“I am some twenty years your senior, Richard, and I say to you that a sane man never ceases to hope.”

“Then mayhap I am insane—sometimes I think it may be so. Surely, it was the arch-fiend himself who put it into the hearts of the English to turn these disease-infected hulks into prisons; no mere mortal mind could have in itself conceived such a thought. The fever or the vermin—which were worse, ’twere hard to say. To rot here inch by inch, and the fight going on outside! God, but ’tis hard!”

“Hist! the guard is looking at you suspiciously. ’Tis no use getting his ill-will; let us talk of something else.” And when the sentinel passed slowly in front of them, the older man was talking of his boy who had died in childhood, and the younger one had dropped his head again upon his breast and sat in moody silence. Thus had life crept on for five weeks, each day of which was a slow-paced agony, each night a long-drawn horror.

Wallabout Bay, where the prison-ships were anchored, cut into the Long Island shore on the north, and was protected from the storms that rocked the outer deep. Most of the prisoners were seamen, but now and then a squad of land captives, for lack of some other place in which to confine them, were sent thither to starve and suffer and wait their turn to die. The wound in Richard’s head had healed, thanks to Colborn’s salve; but the confinement, together with the scant and rancid food and the foul air in the ship’s hold where the nights were passed, was slowly undermining his strength of body and of will. Each morning the inhuman order, “Rebels, turn out your dead!” which the guard called down through the opened hatches, sent a shiver of horror to his very soul; and the feeling was not lessened as he aided in selecting the poor fellows who had died in the night, and saw them sewed into their blankets and rowed away to shallow graves upon the shore. Two of the prisoners were made to act as grave-diggers on these occasions, the guard going merely to superintend.

Twice in the past weeks Richard and Peter had gone in the funeral-boat, and on each occasion thoughts of making a break for liberty had haunted them. But the futility of such an attempt was made apparent by the proximity of the shore patrol, within range of whose guns the graves were dug. The nearest cover was a line of sand-dunes and stunted brush-growth fifty yards up the level beach, before reaching which a man could be pierced by twenty bullets. Regretfully and angrily the two men noted this; and later on had it all doubly impressed upon them by the shooting of a prisoner who, one day, when the grave was half-filled, made the mad attempt to get away. Only one of the two impressed grave-diggers came back in the boat that day, for the other was buried where he fell; and the harshness of the ship-jailers increased toward those who remained.

“Look,” said Richard, shuddering, the second time he and Peter were detailed to take a corpse to the sandy burying-ground; “already the waves have opened some of the graves and left the poor fellows but the scantest covering. Before long their bones will whiten to the sun.”

“It is a sickening certainty! And all of this you and I might escape if so we would but go back yonder to the warden and take the oath of allegiance to the king, and change these tattered coats for gay uniforms of scarlet,” answered Peter.

“True; but like those who have gone before us, we will die in the ship yonder and fester here in the sand first. Between death and English slavery there is a quick choice, and we made it long ago. But promise me, Peter, that if I die first you will ask to come as my sexton, and dig me a grave deep enough to keep me from the sea for at least a little while.”

“I will; and you will do a like thing for me. But as I told you the other day, you will go before me, and soon at that, if so you keep up this dreary moping.”

But Richard could not bring himself to hope. The absolute helplessness of their position, the powerlessness of action of any sort took from him the ability to reason normally. Everything twisted itself backward to the wretched and relentless present, turn where he would for consolation. And so after the morning tasks of airing blankets and scrubbing decks were performed, he sat all day looking sullenly out over the water, studying the changing moods of the sea, watching the gulls as they flapped past or went soaring upward with the glancing sunlight on their wings. And all this while there was but one clear thought in his mind—Joscelyn. Plainer than the faces about him he saw her features, and above the ship noises and the restless wash of the waves, he heard the sweet accents of her voice. Incessantly he brooded over each memory of her, recalling the chestnut tints of her hair, the blue lights in her eyes, and the rose hues of cheeks and lips. Her beauty had never before appeared to him so great or so much to be desired as now.

“Even behind prison bars I am her lover;” often he said the words to himself, wondering morbidly if Billy carried her the message, and what she said in answer. He would never know, of course, for his career must end yonder in the sand with his unfortunate fellows; but liberty itself would not be sweeter than some token, it mattered not how small, of her sorrow and her favour. How he longed for her, body and soul! Always in fancy he kissed her good night, holding the sweet face between his palms and watching to see the eyes droop under his ardent gaze, and the delicate lips quiver with the passion of his caress. He told himself it was only such fleeting fancies as these that kept him sane. For in these moments she was tender and loving, and she was all his; and the unknown husband—he who would one day claim her in reality when he himself, with his idle dreams, should be dead and gone—he hated with a jealous rage as vital as though the man stood before him in the flesh; and he looked at his fingers with a dull sense of their strangling powers, and longed to feel them tighten over a purpling throat. Peter talked of heaven, of its rest and peace; but how could there be for him either joy or peace, even in Paradise, while another man held Joscelyn in his arms? Often in his cloying misery he tried to make out who this other lover would be; but no one, not even Eustace Singleton, seemed to fill the place. Once, and his heart had been hot with jealousy at the thought, he had imagined that under hers and Eustace’s frank friendship there lingered a warmer feeling; but this fancy stood no test of observation, for in no act of Joscelyn’s was there a trace of that air, indescribable yet unmistakable, that marks the beginnings of love; and of late months Eustace had a way of looking at Betty that put strange fancies into Richard’s head. No, Joscelyn and Eustace were not lovers; it would be some one else, some stranger who would claim all the sweetness of her love. And at the thought the murderous fingers writhed upon each other, and the sweat of agony was on his brow. Then his fancy would take another turn. There was no other lover, there never would be any other; by strength of his love she belonged to him here and would be his through all eternity. In heaven there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, so the Bible said; but surely God would be merciful to him, knowing how he had missed his happiness here.

This was the dream-palace in which he dwelt, while he gazed vacantly over the sunlit sea and waited to be sewed into his blanket and carried across to the white sands by those who, in their turn, one after another, should follow to the same end.

And then, one morning when August was well on the wane, something happened that broke the spell of deadening despair that held him in its grasp.

CHAPTER XIV.