The horse was a nobly formed creature, but Schuyler could not help noticing its strange appearance and trappings. The animal was coal-black, without a white hair, and its housings were of the same somber color, with a shabracque of black velvet, worked with a skull and cross-bones on the covers. The same ghastly emblem was repeated on the frontlet of the bridle in white, and the curb was shaped like a human finger-bone.
The hussar was too much rejoiced, however, to find any fault with his equivocal mount. It was evidently a fine horse; and a moment later, he was galloping through the woods to Derryfield.
CHAPTER VIII.
BURGOYNE’S IMP.
The night brooded over the white tents, and glimmering fires of a great army, which lay on the open ground near Saratoga. Street after street of tents and marquees, in martial array, stretched its long lines, now silent and dark, perpendicular to the color line. Outside the camp glimmered embers of the few fires that were left burning, and some distance off, on the plain, and amid the little patches of wood, were the brighter fires that told of the outlying pickets.
Occasionally, the distant challenge of a sentry would be heard, to be followed by the same routine of “Who goes there?” “Rounds.” “Halt, rounds, advance one with the countersign. Countersign correct. Pass, Rounds, and a-all’s well!” The last words drawn out into a long, musical call, caught up and repeated along the line of outposts.
Inside the camp there were no lights, save in one spot, around the headquarter tents, which were clustered, in apparent confusion, in the vicinity of a large, half-ruined house, in which the commander kept his private quarters.
In these tents lights were burning, fires were kindled in front, and a number of officers were writing at different desks, while orderlies, at short intervals, entered and emerged from the quartermaster-general’s tent.
In the large, old-fashioned parlor of the farm-house, which was still comfortably furnished, and lighted with two wax-candles in silver candlesticks, a stout officer, in the scarlet uniform of a lieutenant-general, was walking up and down, with his hands behind his back, occasionally stopping to speak to a second officer in the dark green uniform of the Hessians, who stood in an attitude of attention, to listen and answer the questions of his commander.
General Sir John Burgoyne was a handsome and intellectual man, a little past the prime of life, and by no means the tyrannical blockhead he has been represented. On the contrary, his literary abilities were quite considerable, his powers of mind great; and, up to this time, his campaign had been conducted on sound military principles, his army having carried all before it.