“God knows how much or little she has had to say about it,” said he.  “But I mean to know, too, before I put my name on any company roll.”  We were among the trees by this, moving off for safety’s sake, since the day was coming; and he broke off short to wheel and face me as one who would throttle a growling cur before it has a chance to bite.  “We know the worst of each other now, Jack, and we must stand to our compact.  Let us see her safe beyond peradventure of a doubt; then I’m with you to fight the redcoats single-handed, if you like.  I know what you will say—­that the country calls us now more than ever; but there must needs be some little rallying interval after all this disaster, and—­”

“Have done, Richard,” said I.  “Set the pace and mayhap I can keep step with you.  What do you propose?”

“This; that we go to Witherby Hall and get speech with Mistress Madge, if so be—­”

“Stay a moment; who are these Witherbys?”

“A dyed-in-the-wool Tory family seated some ten miles across the line in York district.  True, ’tis a rank Tory hotbed over there, and we shall run some risk.”

“Never name risk to me if you love me, Richard Jennifer!” I broke in.  “What is your plan?”

His answer was prompt and to the point.  “To press on afoot through the forest till we come to the York settlement; then to borrow a pair of Tory horses and ride like gentlemen.  Are you game for it?”

I hesitated.  “I see no great risk in all this, and whatever the hazard, ’tis less for one than for two.  You’d best go alone, Richard.”

He saw my meaning; that I would stand aside and let him be her succor if she needed help.  But he would not have it so.

“No,” he said, doggedly.  “We’ll go together, and she shall choose between us for a champion, if she is in the humor to honor either of us.  That is what ’twill come to in the end; and I warn you fairly, John Ireton, I shall neither give nor take advantage in this strife.  I said last night that I would stand aside, but that I can not—­not till she herself says the killing word with her own lips.”

“And that word will be—?”

“That she loves another man.  Come; let us be at it; we should be well out of this before the plantation people are astir.”

XIX

HOW A STUMBLING HORSE BROUGHT TIDINGS

Having a definite thing to do, we set about it forthwith, taking to the fields and making a wide circuit around the manor house and the quarters where the blacks were already stirring, to come out to the river and so to cross in our canoe.

The morning, soft and warm enough, threatened now to break the fair weather promise of the starlit night.  Away in the east a heavy cloud bank curtained off the sunrise, and in the fields the few dry maize blades left by the partizan harriers were whispering to the gusts.

In the great forest all was yet dim and shadowy, and silent as the grave but for the whispering murmur of the rising wind in the higher tree-tops; a sound so like the babbling of brooks as most cunningly to deceive the ear and make it set the eye at work to look for water where there was none.