“Soon.”
“Soon, soon. Peter, set the beacon on the hill!”
The boy ran; a light streamed up. Dennis hurried with his prisoner to the alarm-post.
The prisoner knew not what to make of that night when windows moved and a shot that shattered a head did not kill, and the heavens flamed before the nimble feet of a boy.
Had he been drawn into a witch’s cave? What had led him to disclose the secret? He thought of André, and when he was led into the guard-house he sat down, wondered, and wept.
But he hoped Dennis, his captor, had a human heart. Was he a second André?
Dennis went to the guard-house the next day to visit a new prisoner. The suggestions that the latter made were most alarming.
If Benedict Arnold was to make attack along the coast his object was to divide the American army, which was now moving south for the great Virginia campaign against Cornwallis.
“It would be like the British to strike us now upon the coast,” said the Governor, “but he would be more than a traitor who would slaughter his own kin on the soil where he was born and bred.”
The man gave his name as Ayre; probably from the suggestion of the name of the British colonel who was under Arnold.