A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW.
Two of my men were stationed near the house, but I had so placed them
that they could not be seen by any one inside. I had also concealed our
return from possible watchers there. I had an idea, which I confided to
Whitestone, and in which, with his usual sound sense, he agreed with
me. He and I remained together in the valley and watched the night come.
The sun seemed to me to linger long at the edge of the far hills, but
at last his red rim went out of sight, and the heavy darkness which
precedes the moonlight fell upon the earth.
“If anything happens, it will happen soon,” said Whitestone.
That was obvious, because if Martyn meditated treachery, it would be
important for him to carry it out before the unguarded point in the
line was discovered. Officially it was unguarded, because we were
supposed to have gone away and stayed away.
My suspicions were confirmed by the non-arrival of our relief.
Whitestone still took his ease, stretched out on the ground in the
valley. I knew he missed his pipe, but to light it would serve as a
warning in the dark to any one. I visited the two men near the house
and cautioned them to relax their watch in no particular.
The night was now well begun and I could see no great distance. As I
turned away from the last man I chanced to look up at the house, whose
shape was but a darker shadow in the darkness. At a narrow window high
up, where the sloping eaves converged, I saw a light. Perhaps I would
not have thought much of it, but the light was moved from side to side
with what seemed to me to be regular and deliberate motion. It faced
the north, where our army lay.
I walked twenty steps or so, still keeping the light in view. Its
regular swinging motion from side to side did not cease, and I could
not persuade myself that it was not intended as a signal to some one.
The discovery caused in me a certain faintness at the heart, for until
this night I had thought Kate Van Auken, despite mother, brother, and
all else, was a true friend to our cause through all.
I own I was in great perplexity. At first I was tempted to enter the
house, smash the light, and denounce her in my most eloquent language.
But I quickly saw the idea was but folly, and would stand in the way
of our own plans. I leaned against an oak tree and kept my eyes fixed
on the light. Though the windows in the house were many, no other
light was visible, which seemed strange to me, for it was very early.
Back and forth it swung, and then it was gone with a suddenness which
made me rub my eyes to see if it were not still there; nothing ailed
them. The building was a huge black shadow, but no light shone from it
anywhere.
I went in a mighty hurry to Whitestone and told him what I had seen. He
loosened the pistol in his belt and said he thought the time for us to
make discoveries had come. Once more I agreed with him.
I drew my own pistol, that it might be ready to my hand, if need be,
and we walked a bit up the valley. It was very dark and we trusted
more to our ears than to our eyes, in which trust we were not deceived,
for speedily we heard a faint but regular thump, thump, upon the earth.
“A horse coming,” I said.
“And probably a horseman, too,” said Whitestone.
How glad was I that we had stayed! It was not at all likely that the
man coming had any honest business there. We stepped a trifle to one
side and stood silent, while the tread of the horse’s hoofs grew
louder. In a few moments the horseman was near enough for us to see his
face even in the night, and I felt no surprise, though much anger, when
I recognized Captain Martyn. He was riding slowly, in order that he
might not make much noise, I supposed.
I stepped forward and put my hand upon his bridle rein. He saw who
it was and uttered an exclamation; but after that he recovered his
self-control with a quickness most astonishing.
“How dare you stop me in such a sudden and alarming manner?” he said
with an appearance of great wrath.
But, very sure now that I was right, I intended neither to be deceived
nor overborne. I ordered him to dismount and surrender himself.
“You are very impertinent, sir,” he said, “and need chastisement.”
I told him it mattered not, and ordered him again to dismount. For
reply he drew a pistol with such suddenness that I could not guard
against it and fired point-blank at my face. It was the kindly darkness
making his aim bad that saved me. The bullet passed me, but the smoke
and flash blinded me.
The traitor lashed his horse in an attempt to gallop by us, but
Whitestone also fired, his bullet striking the horse and not the man.
The animal, in pain, reared and struck out with his feet. Martyn
attempted to urge him forward but failed. Then he slipped from his back
and ran into the bushes. My eyes were clear now, and Whitestone and I
rushed after him.
I noted from the very first that the man ran toward the house, and
again, even in that moment of excitement, I congratulated myself that I
had expected treason and collusion and had come back to my post.
I saw the captain’s head appearing just above some of the short bushes
and raised my pistol to fire at him, but before I could get the proper
aim he was out of sight. We increased our efforts in fear lest we
should lose him, and a few steps further heard a shot which I knew came
from one of my men on guard. We met the man running toward us, his
empty rifle in his hand. He told us the fugitive had turned the corner
of the house, and I felt that we had trapped him then, for the second
man on guard there would be sure to stop him.
We pressed forward and met the man from behind the house, attracted
by the sound of shots. He said nobody had appeared there. I turned to
a side door, convinced that Martyn had found refuge in the house. It
was no time to stand upon courtesy, or to wait for an invitation to
enter. The door was locked, but Whitestone and I threw our full weight
against it at the same time, and it flew open under the impact of some
twenty-five stone.
We fell into a dark hall and scrambled in pressing haste to our feet. I
paused a moment that I might direct the soldiers to surround the house
and seize any one who came forth. Then we turned to face Madame Van
Auken, who was coming toward us, a candle in her hand, a long white
robe around her person, and a most icy look on her face.
She began at once a very fierce attack upon us for disturbing quiet
folks abed. I have ever stood in dread of woman’s tongue, to which
there is but seldom answer, but I explained in great hurry that a
traitor had taken refuge in her house, and search it again we must, if
not with her consent, then without it. She repelled me with extreme
haughtiness, saying such conduct was unworthy of men who pretended to
breeding; but, after all, it was no more than she ought to expect from
ungrateful rebels.
Her attack, most unwarranted, considering the fact that a traitor had
just hid in her house, stirred some spleen in me, and I bade her very
stiffly to stand out of the way. Another light appeared just then at
the head of the stairway, and Mistress Kate came down, fully dressed,
looking very fine and handsome too, with a red flame in either cheek.
She demanded the reason of our entry with a degree of haughtiness
inferior in no wise to her mother’s. Again I explained, angered at
these delays made by women who, handsome or not, may appear sometimes
when they are not wanted.
“Take the men, all except one to watch at the door, and search the
house at once, sergeant,” said I.
Whitestone, with an indifference to their bitter words most
astonishing, led his men upstairs and left me to endure it all. I
pretended not to hear, and taking the candle suddenly from Kate’s hands
turned into a side room and began to poke about the furniture. But they
followed me there.
“I suppose you think this is very shrewd and very noble,” said Kate
with a fine irony.
I did not reply, but poked behind a sideboard with my pistol muzzle.
Both Kate and her mother seemed to me, despite their efforts to repress
it, to manifest a very great uneasiness. I did not wonder at it, for I
knew they must fear to be detected in their collusion with the traitor.
Kate continued to gibe at me.
“Oh, well, it’s not Captain Chudleigh I’m looking for,” said I at last.
“And in truth if it were, you’d be afraid to find him,” replied she, a
sprightly flash appearing in her eye.
I said no more, content with my hit. I found no one below stairs, and
joined Whitestone on the second floor, the women still following me
and upbraiding me. I looked more than once at Kate, and I could see
that she was all in a tremor. I doubted not it arose from a belief that
I had discovered her treachery, as well as from a fear that we would
capture the chief traitor.
Whitestone had not yet found our man, though he had been in every room
on the second floor and even into the low-roofed garret. At this the
two women became more contumelious, crying out that we were now shamed
by our own acts. But we were confident that the man was yet in the
house. I pushed into a large room which seemed to serve as a spare
chamber. We had entered it once before, but I thought a more thorough
search might be made. In one corner, some dresses hanging against the
wall reached to the floor. I prodded one of them with my fist and
encountered something soft.
The dress was dashed aside and our man sprang out. There was a low
window at the end of the room, and with one bound he was through it.
Whitestone fired at his disappearing body, but missed. We heard a
second shot from the man on guard below, and then we rushed pell-mell
down the stairs to pursue him.
I bethought me at the door to bid one of the men stay and watch the
house, for I knew not what further treachery the women might meditate.
This stopped me only a moment, and then I ran after Whitestone, who was
some steps in the lead. We overtook the man who had fired at Martyn,
and he said he had hit him, so he thought.
“When he sprang from the window he rose very light from the ground,” he
said, “and I don’t think the fall hurt him much.”
We saw Martyn some twenty yards or more in advance of us, running
toward the south. It was of double importance now that we should
overtake him, for if we did not he would be beyond our lines, and,
barring some improbable chance, would escape to Clinton with a report
of Burgoyne’s condition.
The fugitive curved here and there among the shadows but could not
shake us off. I held my loaded pistol in my hand and twice or thrice
had a chance for a fair shot at him, but I never raised the weapon.
I could shoot at a man in the heat of battle or the flurry of a
sudden moment of excitement, but not when he was like a fleeing hare.
Moreover, I preferred to take him alive.
The moon was coming out, driving away part of the darkness, and on the
bushes I noticed some spots of blood. Then the fugitive had been hit,
and I was glad I had not fired upon him, for we would be certain to
take him wounded.
The course led over pretty rough ground. Whitestone was panting at my
elbow, and two of the men lumbered behind us. The fugitive began to
waver, and presently I noticed that we were gaining. Suddenly Martyn
began to cast his hands as if he were throwing something from him, and
we saw little bits of white paper fluttering in the air. I divined
on the instant that, seeing his certain capture, he was tearing up
traitorous papers. We wanted those papers as well as their bearer.
I shouted to him to halt lest I fire. He flung a whole handful of
scraps from him. Just then he came to a stump; he stopped abruptly,
sat down upon it with his face to us, and drawing a pistol from his
pocket, put it to his own head and fired.
I was never more shocked in my life, the thing was so sudden. He slid
off the stump to the ground, and when we reached him he was quite dead.
We found no letters upon him, as in the course of his flight he had
succeeded in destroying them all. But I had not the slightest doubt
the order he had given to me would soon prove to be a forgery. His own
actions had been sufficient evidence of that.
I directed Whitestone to take the body to some safe place and we would
give it quiet burial on the morrow. I did not wish the women to know of
the man’s terrible fate, though I owed them scant courtesy for the way
they had treated me.
Leaving Whitestone and one of the soldiers to the task, I went back to
the house alone.
Mistress Kate and her mother were at the door, both in a state of high
excitement.
“Did he escape?” asked Madame Van Auken.
“No,” I replied, telling the truth in part and a lie in part. “We
captured him, and the men are now taking him back to the army.”
She sighed deeply. Mistress Kate said nothing, though her face was of a
great paleness.
“I will not upbraid you with what I call treachery,” I said, speaking
to them both, “and I will not disturb you again to-night. It is not
necessary.”
I said the last rather grimly, but I observed some of the paleness
depart from Mistress Kate’s countenance and a look strangely like that
of relief come into her eyes. I was sorry, for it seemed to me to
indicate more thought of her own and her mother’s peace than of the
fate of the man whom we had taken. But there was naught to say, and I
left them without the courtesy of a good night on either side.
Whitestone and the men returned presently from their task, and I posted
the guards as before, confident that no traitor could pass while I was
on watch there.