CHAPTER V.
FROM BROADWAY TO BUNKER HILL.
Despite the circumstances, Dick had a brief feeling of mirth at the ludicrous appearance of his comrade, who led the chase with such well-simulated zeal and a face still circumscribed by the white cloth used to keep in place the bandage on his cheek. Determined to resist capture to the last, now that he had adopted the course of flight, Dick plunged forward and on past Trinity Church. Broadway was not then a business street, and the few people whom Dick passed or who emerged from the residences or cross streets did not know what was the matter until it was too late to head him off, so great a start he had of his pursuers. Before he had reached St. Paul's Church, he looked back again, whereupon Tom, with his hand before his body so that the pursuers behind him could not see it, motioned to turn off into the next cross street. Dick obeyed, and was thus for a time lost to the sight of the party in chase. Presently the loud voice of Tom showed that he, too, had deviated into the cross street. Dick turned his head and saw that Tom was the only one who had yet done so. MacAlister now violently gesticulated to the effect that Dick should turn into some yard or other hiding-place. Dick immediately ran through the open gateway of what proved to be a yard used as a repository for tan. He took refuge behind a high pile of this article, and sank to the ground, breathless and half-exhausted. There was no one else in the tan-yard. As he lay panting, he heard Tom stride by, still hoarsely bawling, "Stop that man!" The direction taken by the voice indicated that its owner had turned from this street into another, and soon the sound of the crowd running by was evidence that they had seen Tom make this last turn and had supposed he was still on the trail of the hunted man. Their voices and footsteps died out presently, and Dick was left to ponder on the situation.
He dared not venture out of the yard, lest he be seen by one of those who had engaged in the chase. He knew that Tom, having led the hue and cry on a false track, would at the proper time come back for him. Therefore he could only wait. Meanwhile, as he was led to consider by the approaching voices of some boys at play, what if he should be discovered in the tan-yard? Swiftly choosing the remotest and highest pile of tan, he crouched behind it, hastily scooped out a hole with both hands, backed into this extemporized burrow, laid Blagdon's sword beside him, and then, with his hollowed palms, drew in after him sufficient of the previously removed tan to conceal himself from any but the most minute observer. Thus buried in the tan, with barely enough space open about his head to admit a little dim light and a small quantity of dusty air, he made himself as comfortable as might be. By and by his ears told him that the small boys had entered the tan-yard; then that they were having a sham battle, playing that the tan-pile next his own was Ticonderoga. History was soon reversed, and the English drove the French from Ticonderoga, whereupon the French properly fell back to Quebec, which was no other place than the tan-pile in which Dick lay entombed. He felt the tan shift above him, and saw it slide down before him and cut off more of his meagre supply of light and air, while the shouts of Quebec's defenders came to him from overhead. Finally the English charged Quebec and tumbled the French back from the heights, an operation that resulted in Dick's having a series of heavy weights alight on his head, a foot thrust into his eye, his opening entirely closed up, and himself almost choked. Regardless of consequences, he thrust his head out through the tan, and saw, to his unexpected joy, that the last small warrior was scurrying away from behind Quebec. After awhile the boys left the tan-yard, and Dick found some relief in a change of position, though he did not emerge from his cave. Now and then, as the day advanced, he could hear steps and voices of people passing the tan-yard, and would lie close in fear that some of them would turn in. He amused himself by imagining what would follow should the tan in which he lay be loaded on some cart or wagon. So passed an interminable day, beautiful outside with New York's incomparable sunshine, but to Dick an age of numbness and pain, due to his long retention of each cramped position he assumed; of hunger and thirst, of alarms and conjectures, and of frequent thoughts of the man he had felled, thoughts which he invariably put from him in his horror of regarding himself as a slayer. At nightfall he came out of his hole, but remained behind the tan-pile, listening for a familiar step. At last it came, cautious but unmistakable. Dick rose, saw a gaunt form in the gateway, and bounded towards him.
"Whist, lad!" said Tom, grasping Dick's offered hand. "Sure ye sprung up like a ghaist. The coast is clear now, though eyes will be kept open for ye in the city and about, for mony a day to come. Let us sit down and wait a minute or two, till it do be just a wee bit darker. 'Twas a grand chase I led them, mon, was it not, now?"
"'Twas the best trick I ever saw played. But where did you pass the day?"
"Why," said Tom, as he sat on a tan-pile, "that's just it. If ony of them had caught up wi' me, 'twould have come out sure what joke I'd played them, for, ye see, they'd 'a' found out I was crying 'Stop' at naething at all. So, for your ain skin's sake, I had to keep well ahead until I had got out of the town, and then lose myself frae the ither shouting devils, which I did by turning into the woods at a bend of the road."
"You had the devil's own endurance to outrun them all," put in Dick.
"Why, ye see, when I got near blowed, I found ither legs than my ain to help me out. In front of a tavern, ayont yonder, a horse was whinneying as I came up. All I had to do was to jerk the knot of his halter and jump on, and who could say me nay when it was chasing a law-breaker I was, in the interests of justice? And that's how I got away frae the chasing mob. What was there to do but spend the day in the woods, safe out of sight and ken of man? For, d'ye mind, if I had come back into the town, and gone to the tavern for my clothes, why, seeing that news and descriptions must have been all about by then, as word of mouth goes nowadays, I'd have been held for complicity in your escape, and then who'd have come to let you out of your ain hole,—for I ken you maun hae lodged in one of them tan-piles the day. Nay, nay, lad, never thrust yourself in the way of forcible detention; that's a rule of mine! We'll let our shirts and blankets and guns rot in the tavern, and gang on our way rejoicing."
"But Blagdon,—do you think he is dead?"
"Devil a bit! He'll have come to before they were done chasing his murderer, and the time he'll spend nursing a bloody head will enable him to reflect on his sins. But, for a' that, we'll be ganging our way, for murderous assault is nane sic a pleasant charge to face, however innocent ye be, when the other side has money and great friends and ye're a penniless stranger. Besides that, this Blagdon will have the backing of the soldiery and the lieutenant-governor, and the tavern people will naturally swear to onything on his side, even to attempted robbery or the like. Come, Dickie boy, that sword ye retain, as your proper spoils of war, is worth in money all we leave behind at the tavern."