Whether the men would have come to blows is uncertain, for at that moment, the young lieutenant sprang out from the thicket and seized Master Daggett by the shoulders. At the same instant Late and Joe clutched Ira Le Geyt, while the remainder of the squad gave their attention to the other Tories. A brief struggle ensued, but when the second party of Continentals closed in upon the royalists, they yielded to the inevitable by surrendering.
Owing to the surprise and excitement incident to the moment, David Daggett did not at first recognize the leader of the skirmishers. When he did, however, he gave way to the harshest epithets and the bitterest invectives he could think of, ending by crying:
“You young devil, that is what I think of you!”
“Your opinion of me is so much better than mine of you, that it is unnecessary for me to say a single word,” the young officer replied calmly, ordering his men to fall in with their prisoners.
“What are you going to do with me?” Ira Le Geyt demanded. “Since you can no longer personate me at General Burgoyne’s headquarters, I should be allowed to go home, where my father, wounded by you or some of your men, lies dangerously ill.”
“We must prevent that long head of yours from devising some means of getting stores into the British camp,” Joe replied. “You ought to be grateful to us for saving you from so strenuous a task.”
The young Tory frowned, and relapsed into silence. But not so with the older one. His wrath had now given place to curiosity, and he asked:
“How did you escape from that building after I set it on fire?”
“Perhaps I got out before,” Philip answered with a smile. Then, to learn whether the soldier he and his comrades had bound and left in his bed was yet alive, he asked, “Didn’t the guard tell you how I got away?”
“He didn’t know anything,” the old man replied angrily. “Some men who went up there found him bound and gagged, so brought him down. But when it was possible for him to talk, he had nothing to tell. Never knew who tied him, or when it happened. He was certain, though, that the door was fastened on the outside, and it puzzled him to know how you got at him, unless some one lent a hand.”