The feast to which I had been invited was, considering the state of
affairs I have described, a very grand one. Everyone was in good
spirits, and laughed and talked with the greatest freedom. I could
scarcely believe that these were the men who had lately been engaged in
a deadly strife, and might any moment be called out to give battle to a
well-disciplined and fierce enemy. The provisions were somewhat coarse,
and probably not cooked by the most experienced of artists; but I had
been accustomed to meet with much worse at sea, so that I did not think
much about the matter. Toasts were drunk, healths were pledged, and I
was frequently invited to take wine by the officers present, although
some looked at me, I thought with eyes rather askance, as if they did
not quite approve of an officer of the opposite cause being at large in
the camp.

The party, however, did not sit long after dinner, and when it broke up,
Douglas took me with him to his tent. "Come, we will have a cup of
coffee together before you turn in," said he, as we sat down; "I have a
French servant who understands cooking it better than any man I ever
met. You shall have at the same time a pipe of the true Virginia weed.
No one produces better than does our general on his estate; and this he
gave to me as being some of the very best he ever saw."

I found my friend's encomiums were fully justified by the excellence of
the tobacco; nor was his coffee to be despised. Several officers looked
in occasionally, and we had a very pleasant evening. They were,
however, at last hurriedly summoned off, and I threw myself down on the
camp bedstead my host had prepared for my use.

Weary as I was I could not sleep. Something I was certain was going
forward. More than once my ear caught the not very distant rattle of
musketry and the roar of cannon, and I could not help fearing that the
camp itself might be the object of attack, and that Mrs Tarleton and
Madeline might be involved in the confusion which must ensue, and
perhaps exposed to greater danger than any they had yet escaped. I
considered how I could find means of being of service to them.
Unhappily I did not know my way to Colonel Hallet's quarters, and should
the necessity I apprehended arrive, I was not likely to find anybody to
guide me to them.

Douglas had gone out; I felt that I ought not to leave the tent till his
return as I might very naturally, by wandering about, have thereby
exposed m