“Who goes there?” The voice drove the blood from Shirtliffe’s heart. After all this time, there in the lonely Jersey woods, he was to meet again the boy who had shot at him, and killed old Mason in New England.
“’Tis I,” he faltered, as the oncomer bore down upon him.
“You!” Morley dropped the gun he had leveled at the foe and gazed in amazement at the face so wondrously like his own; “you! here! My God! are you a ghost to haunt me so? What do you want?”
“I want to get back to my people.”
“Back to your people, you rebel fool!” Morley laughed the old scornful laugh; “your people are behind you! You are running away from them my brave lad. But it little matters, we have them tight and safe, come along with me, your people will join you later!”
“If I go,” Robert’s voice rang clear, “you will have to carry me dead. When we met before I was unarmed; like a coward you shot at me, and killed an innocent man. I am prepared now, let us fight honestly.”
“Honestly?” Morley sneered, “much you know of honor. I trusted you once, and a nice trick you played me. I trusted the old fellow I shot, I put him on sentry duty, but he got drunk, the knave, while I turned my back. A fine lot you are, confound you!”
“Again I ask you. Will you fight?” Shirtliffe straightened himself. Time was passing. He would have given anything in his power to have solved the mystery of the identity of the boy before him. But what had he to give? His life. There was no time to ask or answer questions now. It was his life or the young Englishman’s. He must protect himself and report to Washington if it were possible. He was young, and with all the misery life was sweet.
“Fight with you?” again the maddening laugh, “fight a traitor? Surrender, or I promise you my aim will be truer this time.” Morley raised his gun, but Robert was as quick, and the two weapons pointed at the same instant.
A flash! a sharp report—and then, silence! When Shirtliffe came to himself he was lying on his side across a fallen log. A dull pain throbbed in his left shoulder. He put up his right hand and felt that his coat was soaked with blood. The dampness and the pain made him faint, and again he lost consciousness. After a moment, though, the chill air revived him and he sat up. He would not touch the damp coat or think any more than was possible, of the wound, and perhaps he might get on to Washington. That was his first connected thought.