“No.  I have not been doing any fighting, except that, once or twice, I was out with the troop, when they had a skirmish with your horsemen, but I kept in the rear.  I hope, ere long, my father will let me enter, but he is waiting to see what comes of it.  No.  I have been idle enough.  Well, of course, I know all the officers in the cavalry now, and pretty nearly all the officers in the camp, and then, with these constant skirmishes and attacks by your people and ours, there is always plenty to interest one.  General Hamilton has been conducting the siege lately, but General Rosen returned yesterday and took the command; but there’s really not much to do.  We know you cannot hold out much longer.”

“I don’t know,” John said quietly.  “I think that, as long as a man has strength enough to hold his arms, Derry will not surrender.  When you march in, it will be to a city of dead people.  We had such hopes when the fleet came.  If the people could have caught Kirk, they would have torn him in pieces.  He had five thousand soldiers on board, and, if he had landed them, we could have sallied out and fought, instead of dying of hunger.”

“Yes,” Walter agreed, “we should have retired at once.  We have only seven or eight thousand men here now, and if five thousand English soldiers had landed, we must have raised the siege at once.  I can tell you that, though he is on the other side, I was almost as angry at Kirk’s cowardice as you must have been.  I shall be glad when this awful business is over.  I knew it was bad enough before, but after what you have told me about the women and children, I shall never think of anything else, and I will gladly help you in any way I can.  There can’t be any treason in trying to prevent children from starving to death.  What do you want me to do?”

“What would do the children more good than anything, the women say, would be milk.  If I could get a keg that would hold two or three gallons—­and a watertight box with about twenty pounds of bread, I could swim back with them just as I came.  I would show you the exact spot where I landed, and would come out again in four days.  If you could put a supply ready for me, every fourth night, among the bushes at the mouth of the river, with a little lantern to show me the exact spot, I could come down with the tide, get the things, and float back again when the tide turns.”

“I could do that, easily enough,” Walter said.  “The mouth of the river is quite beyond our lines.  But it is very risky for you, John.  You might get shot, if a sentry were to see you.”

“I do not think that there is much fear of that,” John said.  “Just floating along as I do, without swimming at all, there is only just my face above water, and it would be hardly possible for a sentry to see me; but if I were shot, I could not die in a better cause.”

“I think, John, if you don’t mind, I should like to tell my father.  I am quite sure he would not object, and, in case you should happen to get caught, you could refer at once to him to prove that you were not a spy.  They make very short work of spies.  But if you were to demand to be brought to Captain Davenant, and say you were acting in accordance with his knowledge, no doubt they would bring you.”