“There is no use in doing that,” said Henry. “I left no message at home. We shall be back, in all probability, by the time they are up. Have you not a pair of pistols? I remember that we each bought, in Baltimore, a pair precisely alike, during my last visit home. We should go well armed, and in that condition, I think, as we are both good shots, and not at all nervous, that we shall be very nearly, if not quite, a match for the other six.”
“My pistols,” answered young Coe, “are here on the table, and ready for use. I loaded them immediately on my return from a drum-fishing excursion last night, on account of an adventure which befell me on my way home. This card may have something to do with that adventure.”
“Ah! What is that adventure to which you refer!” asked Captain Marston, with much expression of interest.
While young Coe was relating to his friend the incidents of the night, he was also engaged in dressing. During the process of dressing, while young Coe’s eyes were turned for a moment or two away from Marston, the latter took up the pistols which had been lying upon the table, and placed them in his pockets, and immediately afterwards put upon the table in their place another pair of pistols which were precisely similar in appearance to the former, and which he had withdrawn from another pair of pockets in his dress.
“What befell you last night,” remarked the captain, when John had concluded his narrative, “can have nothing to do with the present affair, because they could not have recognised you under the circumstances; and, besides, I should not have received a card as well as you, since I had nothing to do with that adventure.”
“True,” replied John. “Yet I may have been recognised; who knows but that one or more persons of this neighbourhood who knows me are engaged in this smuggling business, and were there disguised? Moreover, the card sent to you also may be intended to put me off my guard.”
“If you feel any uneasiness about the matter,” said Captain Marston, “you had better, perhaps, not go. I shall go, however, at all risks.”
“Oh!” exclaimed John, in an easy tone; “my thinking the affair a plot will not prevent me from trying to discover its meaning. If it be a trap to catch me, that trap is well set; for what is more apt to draw one on to adventure than mystery, especially when that mystery is awaited on by apparent peril? I am determined to solve the riddle, let it be attended by what danger it may be.”
“Come, then,” said the captain, “are you ready? If so, let us go at once. Time is pressing.”
The two men then left the house, and proceeded to the stable, where John soon saddled two horses for the ride. Mounting, they rode slowly, for fear of disturbing the sleep of the household, down a land bordered with old cherry-trees, which led from the dwelling at Millmont to the public road at the distance of a few hundred yards; but on gaining this road their horses were urged to a fast gallop.