angrily toward Derryfield, scowling and muttering to himself.

“Curse the popinjay hussar! why did I let him stop me, when a bullet would have kept his brute from giving the alarm? It is too late now. Another goodly scheme thwarted by one of those cursed accidents that none can foresee! We must retire. One comfort, I have him, and I’ll take satisfaction out of his pretty face, when I see the flames distorting it. Ay, ay, there you go, in the toll-gate. I thought the brute would rouse ye.”

As he spoke, several moving lights appeared in the distance, on the way to Derryfield, and the sound of distant shouts, mingled with the hoof-beats of the flying charger. The new moon shed a faint light over the landscape, and the spy turned away into the woods on the track of the Indians, who had already vanished.

Adrian Schuyler, manacled and guarded, stumbled on through the darkness, not knowing whither he was going. He judged that his escort was numerous, from the constant rustle of leaves, and the sound of low signals that echoed through the woods.

He did not know that those signals were the recall of a numerous band of Indians, who, but for his accidental presence and the escape of his horse would, ere this, have been[Pg 28] closing around Derryfield, for a midnight massacre, as well planned as it was atrocious.

[Pg 28]

Like the tiger, the Indian attacks only by surprise, and, that foiled, is apt to slink away. Adrian Schuyler knew that a body of troops was already gathered at Derryfield, militia, perhaps, but none the less the victors of Lexington and Breed’s Hill. In a midnight surprise these men would have fallen an easy prey to the waiting Indians, but their leader knew too well that the flying horse with its bloody saddle would tell a tale to the commander at Derryfield that the latter was not likely to pass unheeded.

For several hours the weary march through the woods was continued, the Indians in sullen silence urging on their weary captive, till the latter was ready to drop. He had been riding rapidly for at least ten hours before, and was tired when he dismounted, and his high-heeled boots were not the style of foot-gear to wind a way among rocks and roots.

At last, when the moon had been down for several hours, and the poor hussar was nearly exhausted, the whistle of a whippowil, echoing through the arches of the wood, brought the party guarding Schuyler to a halt, and the sound 

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