Then it was that little Frenchie suddenly stood upright, and, pointing to a skiff hauled up on the shore not more than thirty feet from where he lay, asked sharply:
"Have you the courage, Fitz Hamilton, to embark with me in yonder craft, and go down to the Gloucester shore where we may remain hidden amid the foliage until it is sufficiently light for us to make out whether any one comes looking for a messenger from the Jerseyman?"
"Meaning to brave the Britishers?" I cried in something very like alarm.
"Meaning to carry the message which it is necessary should be delivered, and without heed whatsoever to these gentry who wear red coats."
"I have the courage, Pierre," I said, after a time of hesitation; "but have we the right to desert Uncle 'Rasmus while he must for his own sake hold Horry Sims a prisoner, and when he has nothing whatsoever to eat or drink in the cabin? Surely it would be deserting him for us to take boat now and leave the village, if peradventure we can do so, for there are an hundred chances against our being able to return, and only one in our favor. It is the same as abandoning Uncle 'Rasmus."
"And if it were abandoning him, and Saul, and every one whom we know, yet would I say it was our duty to go because the Jerseyman, expecting his message to be delivered, will give no further heed to sending it into the American lines."
Although Pierre's words had fired me, and it was possible at any time for the lad to arouse all my enthusiasm and all my bravery when he spoke as he had a moment previous, I understood that it was a most dangerous venture which he proposed, such as might be tried twenty times over without success.
Mark you, in order to gain the Gloucester shore at the point near where the Jerseyman claimed we would find someone awaiting us, we must sail in our skiff, without a pass from my Lord Cornwallis, within hailing distance of the Charon, or of the Guadaloupe, both of which vessels lay where their guns could be brought to bear either on York or Gloucester, and it did not seem to me within the range of possibilities that we could pass either craft without being discovered by the sentries who would undoubtedly order us to come alongside.
Even though we were minded to be so reckless as to take the chances of disobeying an order, it could avail us nothing, for pursuit would be given immediately, and how might we hope to escape from a vessel of war's boat, manned most like by a dozen men, we being only two lads not overly well skilled in rowing.
I was turning all this over in my mind, and becoming more and more convinced each instant that it was the wildest scheme Pierre had ever proposed, when he turned upon me sharply and asked with a note of anger in his tone: