2 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.

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