"I have released the Tories, Uncle 'Rasmus," I shouted, forced to speak close in his ear else he could not have heard me. "Why should we not push on even as Pierre has planned for us to do?"
"Was you gwine to tell our people dat de Britishers were takin' to dere heels for Gloucester Point?" Uncle 'Rasmus asked, as if having forgotten all that I had told him.
"Of course that is the story. Why else should it be necessary for us to make such haste?"
"Den stay whar you are, honey. Dere's gwine to be no retreatin' dis yere night."
"What do you mean?" I asked in bewilderment, almost fancying the old man had taken leave of his senses. "We saw a portion of the army go across."
"I'se 'lowin' all dat, honey; but yer Uncle 'Rasmus am tellin' yer dat dere won't any odder Britishers go ober dis yere night. I'se libed right erlong dis riber all my life, an' I knows dere ain' de bigges' skiff eber was built dat could make a landin' on de Gloucester shore sence dis yere storm got up. Gin'ral Cornwallis am boun' to put an end to dat ere fun ob his kase he can't get across, honey, I'se tellin' yer he can't get across, not till dis yere racket done died away, an' den dere's boun' fo' to be a ragin' torrent."
It was not until several moments had passed that I realized the truth of all Uncle 'Rasmus had said. Then was borne in upon me the memory of what I had seen in ordinary hurricanes, when the river had been lashed into a fury by the wind, and the ablest boatmen along the shore dare not put out, for I venture to say there is no other body of water in this country so quickly changed to a boiling flood, or so dangerous to cross, as that portion of the York river which turns around Gloucester Point.
While I stood there in painful indecision, tears of disappointment rolling down my cheeks because at the very moment our time of triumph was apparently come it was turned aside by the elements themselves, I saw as the electric flashes lighted up the sky even more brilliantly than before, two forms come out of old Mary's cabin and set off in the direction of Governor Nelson's house, where my Lord Cornwallis made his headquarters.
"There go Abel Hunt and Horry Sims!" I cried bitterly. "The tempest is as nothing to them so that they may lodge a charge against us as being spies, to the end that we may come to the gallows here in this village of York."
"Hab dey done gone out ob de cabin, honey?" Uncle 'Rasmus cried, and when I repeated again that which I had seen the old man said as he held my head down to his mouth that no word might be swept aside by the furious blast: