“Excellent!” he said. “I felt sure,” to the other officers, “that Morris would not fail me, if it were at all possible to procure the money.”
“The nation is indeed fortunate to have the services of so able a man in the capacity in which he is serving,” said Cadwallader. “In the matter of finance, Morris is little short of a wizard.” After a few more questions, Ben was told that was all, and retired.
At once he sought out his friends, where they sat about a fire preparing their supper along with some others. And during their meal there was much gossip exchanged.
“Cornwallis will be upon us to-morrow,” said a young sergeant of horse, who was of the party. “We have all day been catching sight of light bodies thrown out in advance.”
“I have heard that Howe himself has landed a couple of regiments at Amboy and is on the march,” spoke another.
“Well, let him come,” said a youthful artilleryman; “the more of them, the greater chance we will have at them with the shells. To reach us they must cross the Assanpink Creek a little below there; the stone bridge is narrow, and the water is deep and our guns are so planted as to sweep it from end to end.”
Some few hours were spent in pleasant fashion, chatting and discussing the prospects of the coming fight. Later Nat and Ben found themselves without the lines of sparkling fires; a little distance away they could hear the sentries pacing up and down, and now and then the rattle of a piece of artillery wheeling into place would reach their ears. Somehow, as the thought of the approaching battle grew upon them, they had become graver, and so fell into a talk concerning family things and interests which had nothing in common with their friends; and so they had arisen and strolled away.
The night was a quiet one; the city of Trenton lay before them like some gloomy, crouching thing awaiting its fate on the morrow; had not their military experience told them that their pickets lay all about them with masked fires, they would have fancied the countryside deserted. Ben had just been speaking feelingly of his father, whom he had not had time to call upon while in Philadelphia, and they stood leaning against the tongue of an empty baggage wagon, deep in the softer reflections which home and home things bring uppermost. Then they were aroused by the sound of voices and footsteps, and the flash of a tinder box showed them two men standing at the door of a small house which the boys in the semi-darkness had not before noted.
“Ah, I can see it now,” said one of them. “The step is broken, and I have missed a nasty fall more than once.”
The flash died out almost instantly, and the two men stood in the shadows for a moment in silence. Then the second one spoke: