"Miss de St. Valier and her brother left New York yesterday. As I sail after them on the next Albany sloop, you can give me the portrait. I'll carry it to them."
Dick looked the other in the face for a moment in surprise, then said, with a contempt as genuine as the lieutenant's was affected:
"You lie, you know they are still here."
"What!" gasped Blagdon, and turned to an Irish officer in whose company he was,—for there were still a few British troops in New York, the last of them not leaving the barracks in Chambers Street for Boston until June 6th. "By God, did you hear that?" And with great fury, Blagdon, who was himself unarmed, grasped the other officer's sword, drew it from the sheath, and would have thrust it into Dick's breast, had not the Pennsylvanian quickly leaped aside. Furious in turn, at so sudden and violent an onslaught, Dick caught the sword with both hands near the guard, wrenched it from Blagdon, and struck the latter heavily on the head with the hilt. The lieutenant fell, leaving a curse unfinished, and lay quite motionless on the floor.
After a moment, during which every one in the room stood startled, the Irish officer stooped over Blagdon, felt his head and chest, and said, looking up:
"He's done for! The blow has killed him!"
Dick heard a whisper in his ear, "Run for your life, lad!" and felt himself pushed aside by old Tom, who gave no sign of knowing him, and the seeming purpose of whose violent movement was to get a look at the prostrate man.
Mechanically, as in a dream, Dick took the hint and sped out of the tavern. As he issued forth, a picture of the Bowling Green with its statue and locust-trees, the green and gray fort and the one linden and two apple-trees that stood on the city side thereof, was imprinted lastingly on his memory, heedless as he was of it at the time. Still holding the officer's sword, and with no course determined on, he ran up the Broadway. He had not gone far, when he heard a shout behind him, doubtless from some witness of the blow, "Murder! Murder! Stop that man!" On he went, while the hue and cry gathered behind him. Up the roughly paved Broadway, steering wide alike of the house-stoops at the side and the gutter in the middle, he ran. Once, as he neared Trinity Church, he glanced back. The pursuing crowd behind him now looked a multitude, and at its head, crying "Stop that man!" louder than any other, but giving him a quick gesture to hasten on, was Tom MacAlister.