By this time the moon had gone down, and while the sky was not clouded there was a dim haze that rendered the light of the stars ineffectual in dispelling the darkness. On they rode. The time seemed interminable to Peggy; the blackness of the night unbearable. The sudden snapping of a dried twig under Star’s feet caused her to start violently.
“Harriet,” she cried, “naught is to be gained by keeping to the woods. The lines are passed. Let us get to the highway. We must make better progress if I am to get back before the reveille.”
“That you will never do, Peggy,” replied Harriet pointing to the sky. “’Tis almost time for it now.”
Peggy looked up in dismay. The gray twilight that precedes the dawn was stealing over the darkness. The soldier’s day began when the sentry could see a thousand yards about him. Another hour would bring about just that condition. It was clearly impossible for her to return before the sounding of the reveille.
“Does thee know where we are?” she asked. “And where is the road?”
“There is just a narrow strip of the woods betwixt us and the turnpike, Peggy,” Harriet assured her. “It hath been so since we left the guard. We will get to it at once if it please you. As for where we are, we should be getting to Perth Amboy soon.”
“But why hath it taken so long?” queried Peggy.
“Because the brigades of Baron Steuben and General Wayne lay south of the Raritan, and we had to go around them. I did not tell you, Peggy, that ’twould take so long because I feared that you would not come. It doth not matter, doth it, what way I took to safety?”
“No,” answered Peggy, touched by this allusion to her cousin’s peril. “It would have been fearful for thee to have come through the darkness alone, but oh, Harriet! I do wish thee had told me. Then I would have left a letter for mother, anyway. She will be so uneasy.”
“Never mind!” consoled Harriet. “And then you may never see me again. Shall you care, Peggy?”