y and with seeming honor.

Fortunate indeed was it, so far as my own good name was concerned, that
I did not stand there many seconds in the darkness reflecting upon what
might be before me, else had I become so timorous that I believe of a
verity I would have gone back to old Mary's cabin, admitting to my
comrades that I dare not go further on the venture.

Luckily, however, a sense of shame at my own cowardice urged me forward,
and when I heard the footsteps of the sentinel giving token that he had
gone toward the other end of his beat, I crept softly along in a
crouching posture, even though I might not have been seen in that dense
darkness had I walked erect, and, having covered a distance of fifty
yards or more, I was come to the road which led toward the Hamilton
plantation.

In front of me was the way which, if pursued, would have brought me to
those I loved, and to safety for the time being, instead of which I
must turn my back upon it, and go on the road where I might reasonably
expect to meet with the enemy, for it was not likely my Lord Cornwallis
would remain quietly in York Town without striving to learn what his
adversaries were doing, even as General Lafayette had striven to
ascertain when he sent Morgan to enlist as a British soldier.

It pleases me to be able to say now, that when the moment came to set my
face away from home and toward danger, I did not hesitate. Believing I
was so far from the enemy's lines that I could safely advance at a rapid
pace, I set off at a lope which I knew from past experience I could hold
until having traversed the distance from York Town to Williamsburg and
back again.

The old adage that he who crosses a bridge before he comes to it is a
fool, was proven in my case. From the moment of insisting that I should
be the one to act as messenger, there had been before my mind all kinds
of dangers to be encountered, and I had vexed myself with the belief
that there was hardly more than one chance out of twenty that I could go
through in safety, and yet I did, never seeing friend or foe until I was
come, as nearly as I could judge, to within a mile of where Morgan had
said the Americans were encamped.

Then suddenly, while I was half-running half-walking along the highway,
dreaming no evil, came a voice from the thicket on my right, shouting:

"Halt, or I'll fire! Halt, I say!"

[Illustration: "HALT, OR I'LL FIRE!"]

On the instant I obeyed the command, my heart standin