"What is your lordship's pleasure regarding this Adam Cusack?" inquired M'Arthur.
"Oh, aye! I had well nigh forgotten that man. He was taken, I think, in the act of firing on a ferry-boat at Cheraw?"
"The ball passed through the hat of my Lord Dunglas," said M'Arthur.
"The lurking hound! A liege subject turning truant to his duty; e'en let him bide the fate of his brethren."
M'Arthur merely nodded his head, and Cornwallis, rising from his chair, strode a few paces backwards and forwards through the room. "I would tune my bosom to mercy," he said, at length, "and win these dog-headed rebels back to their duty to their king by kindness; but good-will and charity towards them fall upon their breasts like water on a heated stone, which is thrown back in hisses. No, no, that day is past, and they shall feel the rod. We walk in danger whilst we leave these serpents in the grass. Order the gentlemen to horse, Major M'Arthur; we must be stirring. Let this fellow, Cusack, be dealt with like the rest. Gentlemen," added the chief, as he appeared at the door amidst the group who awaited his coming, "to your several commands!"
Captain Brodrick, the principal aide, at this moment arrested the preparations to depart, by placing in Cornwallis's hand a letter which had just been brought by a dragoon to head-quarters.
The general broke the seal, and, running his eye over the contents, said, as he handed the letter to the aide, "This is something out of the course of the campaign; a letter from a lady, now at the picquet-guard, and it seems she desires to speak with me. Who brought the billet, captain?"
"This dragoon, one of a special escort from the legion. They have in charge a party of travellers, who have journeyed hither under Tarleton's own pledge of passport."
"Captain," replied Cornwallis, "mount and seek the party. Conduct them to me without delay. What toy is this that brings a lady to my camp?"
The aide-de-camp mounted his horse, and galloped off with the dragoon. He was conducted far beyond the utmost limit of the line of soldiers, and at length arrived at a small outpost, where some fifty men were drawn up, under the command of an officer of the picquet-guard, which was about returning to join the main body of the army. Here he found Mildred and Henry Lindsay, and their two companions, Horse Shoe and old Isaac, attended by the small escort furnished by Tarleton. This party had been two days on the road from Mrs. Markham's, and had arrived the preceding night at a cottage in the neighborhood, where they had found tolerable quarters. They had advanced this morning, at an early hour, to the corps de garde of the picquet, where Mildred preferred remaining until Henry could despatch a note to Lord Cornwallis apprising him of their visit.