“Surely; didn’t you know it?”
“I did not. I left Salem at daybreak, with two days’ leave from Colonel Baylor.”
“In that case,” he said reflectively, “you should have met Halkett on the road, riding with letters to you and to Colonel Baylor.”
“I did not come by the main road to King’s Ferry. I had agreed to meet Lieutenant Pettus at Nyack, and——”
“Ah,” he said, smiling again; “a drinking bout at Van Ditteraick’s in honor of your birthday, I take it. You are sad roisterers—you Virginia gentlemen”—a thing he could say and carry off, since he was himself West-Indian born.
“It was but a single bottle, I do assure you, Mr. Hamilton,” I protested; “and such wine as would make one vow never to be caught under the shadow of a grape-vine again.”
“Still, you are sad roisterers,” he persisted quietly. “And it was precisely because you are the saddest of them all, and, besides, the greatest daredevil in your own or any other troop, that you were sent for at this particular time, Captain Page.”
I hope I was not past blushing at the left-handed compliment, well-meant as it seemed to be. Some few passages there had been in my captaincy where foolhardy daring had taken the reins after wise caution had dropped them hopelessly upon the horse’s neck, and the event on each occasion had had the good luck to prove the wisdom of the foolishness. But as for being a daredevil—why, well, that is as it may be, too. The veriest sheep of a man will often fight like the devil if you can corner him and get him well past caring too much for the precious bauble called life.
But I was killing time, and Mr. Hamilton was waiting.
“Don’t count too greatly upon a roisterer’s courage,” I laughed. “But what desperate venture does his excellency wish to send me on, Mr. Hamilton?”