"No matter what I'm doing here. The thing is to get back to camp. Come! Is the wharf a safe place for me?"
"Yes, at this hour of a dark night. But I'd like to know—"
"Keep with me, then," whispered Philip, and made for the wharf, holding the old watchman's arm. "Show me where there's a small boat. I must row to the Jersey side at once, and then ride—by heaven, I wish I might get a horse, over there, without going as far as Dan Ellis's! I left mine with him."
"Mebbe I can get you a hoss, yonder," said Meadows. "An' I reckon I can row you round an' acrost, 'thout their plaguey ships a-spyin' us."
"Then, by the Lord," said Philip, while Meadows began letting himself down the side of the wharf to the skiff which he knew rode there upon the black water, "'tis enough to make one believe in miracles, my running into you! What were you doing out so late?"
"Mum, sir! I was jest back from the same camp you're bound fur. 'Tain't five minutes since I crawled up out o' this yer skift."
"What! And did you meet a party going the other way—toward our camp, I mean?"
"Ay," replied Meadows, standing up in the boat and guiding the legs of Philip as the latter descended from the wharf. "I watched 'em from the patch o' woods beyont Westervelt's. I took 'em to be Major Lee's men, or mebbe yours, from their caps and plumes; but I dunno: I couldn't see well. But if they was goin' to the Morristown camp, they was goin' by a roundabout way, fur they took the road to the right, at the fork t'other side o' them woods!"
"Good, if 'twas a British troop indeed! If I take the short road, I may beat 'em. Caps and plumes like ours, eh! Here, I'll pull an oar, too; and for God's sake keep clear of the British ships."
"Trust me, cap'n. I guess they ain't shifted none since I come acrost awhile ago. I'll land yuh nearest where we can get the hoss I spoke of. 'Tis the beast 'ut brung me from the camp—but mum about that." The two men moved at the oars, and the boat shot out from the sluggish dock-water to the live current, down which it headed. "Don't you consarn yerse'f about them ships—'tis the dark o' the moon an' a cloudy night, an' as fur our course, I could smell it out, if it come to that!"