"Too far," he replied, with a shiver. "All is marsh beyond; the mud would smother us ere we landed. That shoal yonder is dry at low-water."
"Mr. Foxcroft," said I, "we must swim for it somewhere. Could we not make the Charles River at a pinch?"
"No, nor Stony Brook," he said. "A good swimmer might circle the floating battery and make his way outside the Neck, but he could not last, Mr. Cardigan."
We had been slowly approaching the shore while we spoke. For some time I had fancied I heard sounds in the darkness like the stirring and movement of a body of men assembling. At first I fancied the swelling murmur of the tide deceived me, yet at moments it seemed as though I could distinguish a trampling sound which could not have been the beat of the ocean's steady squadrons on the beach.
Then, as we came out through the fringe of trees from which the land fell away to the water's edge, a stirring sight lay spread before us: below, in the dazzling moonlight, the shore swarmed with soldiers, teamsters, and boatmen, moving hither and thither along the water's edge. Companies of grenadiers were marching towards the wooden wharf at the end of Hollis Street; companies of light infantry and marines were embarking in the boats which lay rocking along the shore; horses snorted, gathered in groups, while boatmen poled flat-boats towards a cove from which already a scow, freighted with horses, was being pushed out into the bay.
Although there was no talking, save the half-whispered commands of the officers, the movement of so many boats, the tread of a thousand men, the stamping and noises of horses, all swelled into a heavy, ceaseless sound, which mingled with and intensified the murmur of the mounting tide, stirred to its flood by the silver magic of the rising moon.
Hundreds of soldiers had already embarked; we could distinguish the dark line of their boats, all strung out as though fastened together, stem and stern, rising and falling on the glittering surface of the bay, ever lengthening, as new boats, loaded deep with soldiers, put out to fall into line and sail bobbing away into the darkness, only to reappear again under the flood of moonlight.
"Suppose," whispered Mount, "we lead our horses aboard that scow yonder!"
In another moment, scarcely aware of what I was actually about, I had dismounted, and was leading Warlock straight down to the shore towards a cove, where half a dozen boatmen were standing in a scow, resting on their long sea-poles.
"If they ask questions, knock them into the water!" said Mount, calmly.