He had sunk down at the foot of a tree, quite tired out, when a ranger stirred him up with the butt end of his rifle, and ordered him, in a surly tone, to “get up, the captain wanted to see him.”
Schuyler obeyed the ungracious order with patience, for he knew the hands he had fallen into, and did not wish to provoke further indignities. He followed the soldier to where his late enemy lay under a tree, with his feet to the fire, gloomily meditating.
The partisan looked up, and a grim smile lighted his face.
“So, my young hussar, the tables are turned, it seems. It takes an old warrior to keep Tony Butler in irons. Now, hand out your dispatches, unless you prefer to be searched. Which shall it be?”
The young officer smiled disdainfully.
“My dispatches are in my brain,” he said. “All I carry in writing is this.”
And he drew a paper from his bosom and handed it to the captain of rangers.
CHAPTER VI.
A DEMONIACAL VISIT.
Captain Butler, for such was the name by which the partisan seemed to be known, took the parchment extended by the prisoner, and examined it closely.