The trooper turned from gazing at the edifice, to the speaker, and to his astonishment, instead of one of his own men, he beheld the peddler.
“Ha! the spy,” he exclaimed; “by heavens, you cross me like a specter.”
“Captain Lawton,” said Birch, leaning in momentary exhaustion against the fence, to which they had retired from the heat, “I am again in your power, for I can neither flee, nor resist.”
“The cause of America is dear to me as life,” said the trooper, “but she cannot require her children to forget gratitude and honor. Fly, unhappy man, while yet you are unseen, or it will exceed my power to save you.”
“May God prosper you, and make you victorious over your enemies,” said Birch, grasping the hand of the dragoon with an iron strength that his meager figure did not indicate.
“Hold!” said Lawton. “But a word—are you what you seem?—can you—are you—”
“A royal spy,” interrupted Birch, averting his face, and endeavoring to release his hand.
“Then go, miserable wretch,” said the trooper, relinquishing his grasp.
“Either avarice or delusion has led a noble heart astray!”
The bright light from the flames reached a great distance around the ruins, but the words were hardly past the lips of Lawton, before the gaunt form of the peddler had glided over the visible space, and plunged into the darkness beyond.
The eye of Lawton rested for a moment on the spot where he had last seen this inexplicable man, and then turning to the yet insensible Sarah, he lifted her in his arms, and bore her, like a sleeping infant, to the care of her friends.