“Dear Colonel: A body of troops left this place yesterday, and others are following to raise the siege of Fort Schuyler. Everybody here believes you will defend it to the last, and I strictly enjoin you so to do. General Burgoyne is at Fort Edward—our army at Stillwater—great reinforcements coming from the eastward, and we trust all will be well and the enemy repulsed.
“Yours faithfully,
“Ph. Schuyler.
“Colonel Gansevoort,
“Com’d’g Post at Fort Schuyler,
“By Capt. Erastus Benedict, A. D. C.”
For a moment Gansevoort’s feelings overcome him. The revulsion from anxiety to hope was so great that he nearly choked, in his efforts to suppress emotion. Then he turned to the tall stranger, seized his hand and shook it earnestly.
“God in heaven bless you, captain,” he said, with trembling voice. “You have saved a soldier from disgrace, and America from destruction. We were nearly spent. Defend it to the last? Ay Captain Benedict, I will do it now with tenfold the vigor I did. God bless the General for his confidence in me, and all the brave fellows with him.”
The stranger’s hand, long, cold, and bony, lay passively in the grasp of the colonel, till the latter had finished. Then he said, quietly:
“You mistake. I am not Captain Benedict. He is dead.”