“There is no need,” spoke Abdallah, and his voice was as smooth as ever. “We have learned all that they can tell.”
“It was luck that made you want to follow them here when you saw them on the way,” said Collyer to the old man. “I confess, sir, I thought it but a waste of time, myself.”
The door of “The Honest Farmer” was now closed; but from a window a broad beam of light streamed out upon the stones. The men stood upon the margin of this and could be plainly seen as they faced away from Ezra, their eyes trying to follow Colonel Knox and the boys.
“Fortune,” said Abdallah, “is a queer thing. Sometimes it smiles upon us; and at others, it frowns. And all for no reason that we can see. Take that last night at my house for example. Everything had gone well, when suddenly that boy”—and he pointed down the dark street, “rode up and changed everything by his shrewdness.”
Here the old man gestured angrily and was about to speak. But Abdallah stopped him.
“It is no time for faultfinding or resentment,” said he, gently. “Rather it is one for self-congratulation. He beat us then, but we will beat him now. When they ride to Ticonderoga for the guns, they will have their labor for their pains. We,” and he laughed softly, “will have been there ahead of them.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Ezra Prentiss, quietly.
He took a step forward as he spoke. The men whirled about with exclamations and stood staring at him as the light from the window fell upon his face. At the same time a steady tramp of feet was heard; the flash of lanthorns came up and down the street. Patrols of continentals were coming from both directions.
“It is always best to make sure of what you say before you say it,” resumed the boy. “When we reach Ticonderoga, the guns will still be there; but you will be here, awaiting the judgment of a drumhead court, as spies.”
A gasp of dismay went up from the ferret-like Collyer; but Abdallah held up a hand for silence. He addressed Ezra.