Sunlight invaded the room—the vagrant sunlight of a wintry, overcast
day. Some time ago the fifes and drums had sounded reveille throughout
the town; but it was a summons that had not found Jeffry Peale lagging
in bed. Quite a long while before he had been stationed at the clothes
closet with his ear pressed against the wall. In the room adjoining, two
officers had spent their dressing period in a rather acrimonious
argument concerning military policy, during the course of which Peale
had picked up a few helpful fragments relating to conditions within the
city. And after their departure for breakfast he set thoughtfully to
work brushing his clothes and knocking the caked mud from his shoes.
It was while doing this that there sounded a tapping on his door.
Adjusting his coat and moving a little nearer to the pistols on the
lowboy, he said, “Come,” and then was sorry for his aloofness. The
portal opened quickly and the girl with the corn-colored hair slipped
through with one swift glance behind her.
“It was the very first moment I could get away,” said she. “The last of
the gentlemen just now left the table.”
“I had thought to come down earlier,” he answered, “but decided it
wisdom to wait until I saw you.” He smiled, becoming on the instant a
fine and engaging gentleman. “’Tis not my custom, I assure you—to let
others wait on me.”
There was no answering smile.
“You had not meant to mix with the English officers?” she asked. “I
thought you were to remain under cover, like the rest, until I had given
you information.”
“My orders are a little broader. I am to take what you have for me and
spend the day walking about.”
She seemed to be looking through and beyond him, her eyes troubled by
visions. Jeffry Peale thought he had never seen a woman so soberly
introspective and yet so plainly made for gaiety and high humor. Once,
the sun thrust a long beam across the room to become entangled in her
hair, and under that light it glowed like metal at white heat, sending
color to her face.
“Why,” she demanded, “are you all so gay and reckless—all you who come
on these dangerous missions? Is it because you love danger more than
others—or is it a mask?”
“All men love life,” said he, “and certainly none love it more than I. I
think we like to play a game. The game is to flirt as near death as
possible and yet come away with honor. In my imaginings I have done it
many times in many ways.”
“But when you flirt—and lose? When you see death as surely yours—then
what?”
“’Tis in the game not to consider losing. But if we do lose, then it’s
to be played out and the forfeit given. What else?”
“Like Captain Hale,” said she, nodding. “Sometimes I see them—all that
have passed through here—standing in a rank. They were brave and gallant
fellows. And in the ranks there’s sometimes a gap, and then my heart
aches terribly all night.”
“Look to yourself. Do you never think of your own danger?”
“Danger? There is none. Look: My boarding house is always full of
British officers. Some are very loyal—and—and complimentary. The first
one to whisper treason about me would have a duel on his hands
instantly. I am utterly safe. But come, is it not foolish to spend good
time this way? I brought with me a list kept for two weeks now. It is
yours. You had better memorize the figures and destroy it.”
A slip of paper came from some mysterious source. Peale took it, bowing
slightly.
“I should be flattered to know your name,” he said. “Mine is Jeffry
Peale, of Maxwell’s brigade.”
“Jane Welch. When will you have breakfast?”
“Give me a half-hour with this,” he replied, pointing to the paper. “I
should like to get it in mind before going abroad.”
She inclined her head and left the room. Peale took a chair by the
window and began a studious perusal of the finely shaded writing. For a
while he saw nothing of the figures or words. Jane Welch’s face was
indelibly outlined on the paper, somber-eyed, the sun shining in golden
yellow hair.
“’Tis like looking at the sun and seeing the reflection long after,” he
mused.
He found himself comparing the courage in her eyes with the same quality
he had seen in those officer ladies who followed the army from campaign
to campaign, creating makeshift homes in tents or huts, that the men
might have some moments of homely cheer. Women like Dame Washington,
Greene’s charming wife or the jolly Mrs. Knox.
He turned resolutely to the list of regiments in and around the city,
memorizing. Interspersed among the figures were items overheard, such
as:
“The Fourth Foot is well talked of by officers for discipline, but the
men are considered undersized and the regiment only half strength.”
“’Tis known that Admiral Howe wishes to see the Colonies conciliated and
that his brother, the general, has a great regard for American rifles.”
“Cornwallis is considered the strongest fighting general of all the
English.”
He went through the paper carefully, and then a second time, laying it
aside with a comment.
“This evening I shall commit it more carefully. ’Tis time now to take my
tour.”
Slipping the paper beneath the mattress, he finished dressing, took his
cloak and hat and went down. In the hall the girl met him and pointed
through an inner door to where a table still was set with breakfast
dishes.
“Take the head chair. Probably you will have company. There’s an officer
or two who usually sleep right up to parade and roll-call and have to
come back later to eat. What,” she asked, in a much lower tone, “shall I
name you?”
“My own,” said he. “The less of deception, the less of stumbling.”
“But a moment ago,” she remarked, “I remembered I had not yet eaten. So
if you do not mind—”
He was before her, pulling back a chair.
“Many strange things befall a man in the course of war, but I should not
have believed yesterday that in twenty hours I would be tipping coffee
cups with so pleasant a partner. ’Twill brighten the camp-fire many days
to come.”
She gave him a glance that for the moment was free from the usual
soberness. It left her face strangely soft and, in a measure, beautiful.
“I do believe war makes all men gallant.”
He took his seat, saying gravely:
“No doubt you hear many pretty speeches. I did not mean it to sound so.”
“I did not take it—so,” she replied and turned her eyes to the silver
pot. “Your cup, Jeffry Peale.”
The front door opened and slammed violently. A youth in a subaltern’s
uniform came bouncing in.
“By all that’s sublime, Miss Jane—” he began in a loud voice, then
stopped short and put on his professional dignity. “Oh, I do beg pardon
for the racket. Silly of me.”
“Lieutenant Consolven,” said the girl with a slow gesture of her white
hand, “we have a temporary guest at our table. This is Jeffry Peale.”
The Englishman bowed with his head and shoulders as Peale rose.
“Pleasure,” he grunted and without further ceremony made for a seat
across from the girl. He had a high color and a long, horsey jaw; there
was about him the external boisterousness and rudeness of the country
squire’s son. When he sat down it was with vigor and when he began to
eat it was with enthusiasm.
“Hungry—lud! Made that parade one leap ahead of the old martinet. No
more!” He swallowed a quantity of cakes and coffee and turned a frank,
unsuppressed curiosity on Peale. “Peale? A Surrey Peale?”
“Kent, a hundred years ago. At present a New York Peale, and an
infernally roused one. Why d’ye allow brigands to invest the roads
around this city? I was set upon last night and in the scuffle lost a
good horse and saddlebags. Seems a pity this army can’t suppress such
nonsense.”
The subaltern threw back his head and laughed noisily.
“Sounds to be the very same tale the ‘martinet’ tells, doesn’t it, Miss
Jane?”
The girl explained to Peale.
“That’s Lieutenant Consolven’s captain—a very strict gentleman.”
“A ripper! A fire-eatin’, gimlet-eyed monster with the heart of a
provost marshal,” broke in the subaltern, mouth full.
“—and he’s forever outraged by the lawlessness outside the lines,” she
finished.
“Must run,” said the subaltern, swallowing his coffee. “Infernal racket
abroad. Would appear there’s a certain rebel spy in the city. So the
report comes from headquarters. Now they’ve got details scourin’ every
low dive in town. Cursed life, this. Always some overturnin’ or uproar.”
“And do they know the gentleman by sight or substance?” asked Peale.
“Not that I’m aware. ’Tis just a smell they have. Troop across the river
flushed him from a suspect’s house. Found a uniform. Now we’re turnin’
out the low dives. If he’s about we’ll find him there. Always find spies
in such filthy dens,” he explained with finality, kicking back his
chair.
Peale rose at the same time.
“If you’ve no objection I’ll walk down the street with you.”
“Come along then.”
Peale followed the subaltern out, meeting the girl’s sober glance as he
closed the door. There was a deep concern in those eyes and, though he
wanted to believe that concern was for his safety, he was too humble to
suppose it so. Rather it was for the success of his mission and for the
cause he represented. So thinking, he passed into the windy street, with
the sun showing fitfully, half up in the heavens and toward the south
the black clouds of a coming storm.
He had to walk lively to keep up with the Englishman who muttered a fear
of the Martinet.
“A sly devil,” said he. “I’m supposed to be on tour now—worse luck. The
man’s eyes are in the back o’ his neck, I fully believe. By gad, ’tis a
sad state when the son of a Surrey gentleman must fetch and carry to a
Lunnon weaver rose from the ranks. This principle of equality of
classes—was there ever a more pernicious, damnable doctrine?”
“Many men hold with it,” observed Peale gravely.
“’Twill be the ruination of all such,” grumbled the subaltern. “Let each
bottle keep to its own shelf.”
His eyes darted down the street and suddenly, without apology, he bolted
into an alley, leaving his companion alone.
Peale continued his walk, keenly observant. It had been some years since
he last had trod these streets, and the change of the town was
shockingly visible. It had the air of being down at the heels, of sadly
needing paint and repairs. The streets were littered with débris and,
though by reputation it bore the name of a city very gay and voluptuous
under the British régime, Peale could not but notice the shabbiness of
the passers-by and the air of uncertainty in too many faces. Here were
concentrated thousands of troops and refugees, a great part of the
latter living only on the hope of a speedy success of the royal arms,
subsisting on the last of their incomes.
Fine ladies and gentlemen passed him in coaches, holding their heads
properly high; tradesmen peeped from their doors at this parade, none
too cheerful, and here and there lounged rough characters who viewed all
with insolence. British occupancy had brought untidiness to an orderly
provincial town. And always there was a passing and repassing of
soldiers led by stony-faced officers.
It was upon these that Peale bent the closest scrutiny, sometimes with
professional admiration, sometimes with ill-concealed scorn. The British
Empire could buy them fine uniforms and new accoutrements and drill them
until they stepped as one and carried their arms neatly; even so, the
home government could not conceal the poverty of the recent regiments.
The veterans Peale could tell at a glance by their carriage—men who had
been trained in the hard school of lifetime enlistments. Peale had met
them on the battlefield and could testify to their stubbornness under
fire; but at intervals he saw groups from the new, high-numbered
regiments—undersized, shoddy men from the docks and gutters of England.
The very sight of them gave him courage, and he turned toward the North
River slips, where the spars showed high above the houses, with a
lightened heart. The Elijahs and Elnathans and Samuels who stood parade
on the bleak Morristown hills need have nothing to fear from them.
He came to the lowlier part of town, where were lodging houses for
sailors and barracks for soldiers—a quarter smelling of salt air and
tar, and traditionally boisterous. Beside him was an apothecary shop and
on impulse he ducked through the small door and stood in a semi-lighted
cell, hearing some one growl at him from a dark corner.
“Well, what d’ye want here?”
“A shilling’s worth of horehound,” answered Peale, making out the shadow
of the fellow, “and a little civility, my friend.”
“If y’ve come from gin’rals headquarters to spy on an honest man’s
business, _gentleman_, ye can go back. Wirra, ’tis a poor excuse ye
offer—a shillin’s of horehound, eh? Bah!”
“You talk, friend, strangely like a rebel. Doesn’t his Majesty’s
gracious government suit you?”
The apothecary moved reluctantly to his shelves.
“I’ll have me rights,” he grumbled. “D’ye think it’s politic to be
sendin’ agents forever around to snoop? Y’d think th’ blessed army was
afeerd o’ its shadow. Day an’ night—day an’ night! Between rogues and
thieves an’ spies I’m fair sick o’ it!”
Here was a malcontent, certainly. Peale threw his shilling on the case
and waited for the apothecary.
“Some day, friend, you may be rid of the trouble,” said he, and took up
the horehound.
The cobblestones resounded with those incessant files marching by. He
bent beneath the door’s shortness and faced the daylight again. And
immediately every muscle and every nerve in his body sprang to that
defensive state which rises in great danger.
For, advancing upon him, not a rod distant, was that thin-lipped,
severe-eyed gentleman whom he had met in Priam Lafferty’s company at the
Black Frigate tavern—Trevoris. He was no longer the merchant in
civilian’s black but a captain wearing the bright red, blue and buff of
the King’s own regiment.
He stopped, even as Peale stopped, and his hand went up to halt the
dozen soldiers behind him. The severe eyes contracted and the rather
swart face screwed into an unlovely, predatory mask. Thus he stood for
an instant, studying the man before him with a terribly sharp gaze. Then
his sword came flashing out and he moved forward, saying coolly:
“So, my dear Mr. Peale, you have favored us with a brief visit? Stand
fast, sir, or I’ll run you through!”
It was such an instant as Jeffry Peale had often visioned over his
books. On those occasions past he was often troubled about his slowness
of mind, for he never rated himself highly as a quick thinker; but now,
as the grim, dour-faced captain advanced, blade foremost, and the
soldiers and bystanders began to crowd around, he saw every avenue of
escape in one swift glance; understanding, too, that if he were to live
at all he had to put himself to the gauntlet.
He whirled, threw a man aside with his arm and dashed down the street,
unhooking his cloak and letting it fall.
There was an alley hard by that angled toward the river and this he
took, with a motley pack pursuing in full cry and every house disgorging
men at his heels. Not a hundred yards off he saw the black hull of a
ship sidling in the water, and beside it a warehouse. It was for that he
made his break; once inside that shelter, piled high with London
merchandise, he might temporarily hide, and while the pursuers diffused
themselves, drop silently into the river and start for the Jersey shore.
He calculated he would have made some progress across before they
followed him in boats. After that, he depended on his strength to carry
him safely over. At any rate, it was the lone means of escape open to
him.
But, as the alley narrowed down, a slatternly woman stepped out of a
near-by hovel and stood, arms akimbo, gaping at him. She was rolling in
fat, frowsy-haired and seemingly dazed by the unexpected uproar. The
voice of the pack, however, was something that stirred her animal
shrewdness. A human being was being hunted down, the rarest of all
sports. So, when Peale was but a few yards away she stepped directly
into his path and spread out her immense arms, cackling.
“No ye don’t laddie! Come here.”
Peale, never expecting this turn of affairs, was unable to halt his
course. He swerved a little, plunged into an outstretched arm. It threw
him and he went down, with the slattern on top, clawing his cheeks with
her nails. Then those fat arms gripped him relentlessly, and before he
could fight away the mob was around, striking him with boot and cudgel,
shouting their curses. Dimly, he heard the curt voice of the captain
lashing at them as at a pack of dogs.
“Back, ye scurvy animals, before I send a volley into ye! Sergeant,
knock ’em aside! I want that man alive for the gallows!”
The crowd gave way and Peale, rising to a knee, felt the captain’s sword
at his breast. The man’s face was unmoved and he spoke with cold
courtesy.
“I could wish that courage expended for a more worthy cause,” said he.
“Stand, Mr. Peale.”
The game was played out. Peale rose and faced a file of redcoats.
“Your victory, Mr. Trevoris. Or was that a convenient title for your
recent expedition?”
“My name, Mr. Peale, is Captain Tremble,” said the officer. And he
added, with a certain grim satisfaction, “My men call me the Martinet
an’ ’tis certain I shall be on the court martial that sentences ye to
hang.”
The slattern elbowed her way through the circle, shouting:
“An’ here’s the one who got the laddie, Cap’n! Ye’ll not forget the
reward, wull ye?”
The captain favored her with a most contemptuous glance and spoke to the
soldiers; but there was yet another fellow to have his brief say. Some
one bellowed like a bull and Peale, turning his eyes, saw the apothecary
standing near, shaking his finger.
“So, ’twas a _rebel_ spy, eh? An’ ye guyed me about loyalty to the king?
Wirra, I’ll show’ee my measure!”
He ducked from sight and put a shoulder to the spectators in front.
Before Peale could dodge, the apothecary’s arms carried forward a bucket
of slops and all the filthy contents splashed in the prisoner’s face.
The crowd yelled gleefully; Captain Tremble swung and his sword struck
the apothecary on the head once, then again and again until the latter
swayed and fell within the circle, a bloody spectacle.
“I’ll teach ye respect of the king’s arms!” he growled, blowing through
his nose. “Y’re no better than a rebel.” Then, hearing the undertone of
hostility to the act, he flashed his weapon around at them. “No more of
it! Disperse! If any wish to taste Provost Cunningham’s hospitality I’ll
soon enough clap him in the first sugar house on the street. Disperse
now!”
The citizens fell back and made a lane, through which Peale marched,
flanked by the captain and followed by the file of soldiers. From behind
sounded the loud and sustained vilification of the slattern. It
accompanied them out of the alley and well up the street. Even as they
turned a corner they could hear her voice rising and falling, expending
all the well learned curses of a lurid life.
The captain was speaking, but to deaf ears. Peale had plunged himself
into a stern inquiry, that sort of self-distrusting examination which
had been his dower from earliest youth. There never was a time when he
had not belittled his mind and his courage, and never so much as now.
Another more resolutely forthright man would not have been taken. A more
subtle man never would have fallen into the snare, never would have left
a trail behind for British authorities to trace.
And yet, as he argued the other side of the case, he found himself
cheered. For, after all, the moves of the game had been against him. It
mattered not how shrewd his might have been—the sharp eyes of Trevoris,
or Captain Tremble, had fallen athwart his path. That was a contingency
he could not have foreseen, nor could any decently discreet mind have
foreseen it. A fortune of war.
For one brief instant he experienced a stealthy fear that Priam Lafferty
was involved; he immediately stamped this fear as a disloyalty on his
part and banished it from his mind. Had he not known Priam the best part
of his life? Priam had been duped, imposed upon by the pseudo-merchant
from Spanish New Orleans. Nothing more.
And so, by the time they had traversed the street, a spectacle for all
eyes, he had restored his self-respect and regained the philosophy that
seemed to him to represent all that was best in a soldier’s life—to
resign oneself in mind to any fate that might befall, but in action
never to give up so long as a single living impulse animated muscle and
mind.
The detail stopped; he was pushed into a door by Tremble. At the end of
a hall they turned into a room and confronted a seated general who wore
an order on his coat. Captain Tremble explained the affair in a dozen
words. Peale saw the general’s face turn stormy.
“I can not understand it,” said the general. “Blessed if I can! What
more could you provincials wish than the beneficent kindness of his
majesty? What real, just grievances have you that could not have been
settled peacefully? ’Tis upon your head—all this bloodletting and
misery. I have said a thousand times and I say it again, that to all
disaffected who accept his majesty’s gracious pardon should be shown
every courtesy—as if they had never erred. But to you, my fine young
man—to you who have broken every regard, violated the king’s peace and
gone so far as to engage in the abominable, insidious act of spying—to
you I shall not show an ounce of mercy! There will be a court for you
before night and by daybreak you shall die!”
“’Tis such a sermon as I might have expected,” replied Peale sedately.
“I do not expect you to see on both sides of the wall. But if you should
wish to find me cringing for pardon, I must disappoint you. I can die as
well as any man.”
“Captain, send him to the provost!”
Peale bowed himself out and, followed by Tremble, rejoined the file of
soldiers and set rapidly off down another street. The storm in the south
had moved closer; shutters were slapping on the house walls and a gust
of rain sprinkled the cobblestones. Peale drew a deep breath,
unconscious of all the eyes upon him, and began to feel a strange
exhilaration of spirit. The reason for it he could not determine, yet it
was there, a strong, buoyant current that flowed out of some remote
reservoir. And, prompted by it, he raised his head, to find himself
looking directly at the house of Jane Welch and to see Jane Welch
herself staring down from the stoop at him, her hair blowing heedlessly
across her white face and her eyes mirroring an emotion Jeffry Peale had
never before seen in a woman’s face.
It was all too brief; one moment he met that glance and the next had
passed on, seeing Captain Tremble bowing at the girl and hearing the
guard behind gruffly ordering him to move faster.
Somewhere beyond they stopped at a sugar house. Tremble advanced toward
the guard. There was a passage of words and another officer turned into
sight, beginning an immediate protest.
“No, no, Captain. I can not permit another man in this place. ’Tis
loaded so now there’s not room for all to sleep. Another few treacherous
dogs and they’ll burst the walls. Try the next.”
And so they went on, while the wind burst over the town with redoubled
force. Peale, entirely disinterested, took little note of his
surroundings. Presently they came to another sugar house, stopped and
waited. Tremble motioned Peale inward. He passed on to a hall and thence
into a semi-dark, dismally cold area, hearing a lock click behind him.
Footsteps clattered away and presently he was left alone.
He had no idea how long he waited in this cheerless, draughty place; it
seemed an endless length of time. He heard the guard changed and the
occasional rattling of a cart. The day waned swiftly and of a sudden the
storm roared in all fury about them. It was then that he heard the inner
door open and was dazzled by the rays of a lantern. A thick booming
voice challenged him:
“What the —— you doin’ here? ——, there’s rats like you scattered all
over the town. How in —— do they expect the provost to keep account?
Guard, who’s this rebel?”
“I be’nt told, sir. The last relief said nawthink about ’im.”
He was another officer, the lantern bearer, and slightly drunk. At a
peremptory order Peale moved into the hall, to find guards resting on
their arms. Propelled by a rough arm, he stepped into the rain-drenched
street and was put into a column of prisoners who huddled miserably
together. The lantern bearer coughed and said gruffly:
“Off to the prison ship, the whole pack o’ ye. There’s a new set o’
rascals comin’ to the city an’ we need room. Forward!”
Bending his head against the tempest, Peale followed obediently. They
trudged from street to street and at last came to the river’s edge,
where a barge waited. One by one they were herded in. The guards crowded
after and then, with a prisoner at each oar, they embarked across the
twisted currents of the East River.
It could not have been more than four o’clock, but it was so dark that
nothing could be seen twenty yards ahead of the pitching craft. The
slightly drunken officer cursed them in a dozen ribald ways and once
cuffed the ear of one of his own men who manipulated the sweep.
“Look, rebels!” he shouted. “There’s your future home! Many’ve rotted
there before you and many will rot after y’ve been sewed up and tossed
over!”
Peale raised his head and gazed eastward. A phantom ship rose out of the
fog and towered over the barge—a battered, stripped hulk that rode
uneasily in the swells. Not a glimmer of light came from it, not a sound
of cheer. It floated, a sinister, foul thing—the grave of all hope, a
living death for thousands of American soldiers.
As the barge passed around the stern, Peale made out the faded name,
_Whitby_. But on a thousand tongues it was already known as the
“hell-ship.”