He repeated the instructions to Foxcroft and Shemuel as we filed along the dim shore past a throng of boatmen, grooms, officers' servants, and teamsters, and made straight towards the scow that lay a few yards off shore in the little, shadowy cove.
It was a desperate attempt; had I given myself one minute's reflection, I should rather have risked a dash across the Neck and a chain-shot on the causeway. Yet its very audacity was in our favour; the boatmen, when they saw us leading our horses down to their cove, hastily lowered a plank bridge from their heavy scow, and Mount coolly waded out into the water, guiding his horse aboard as calmly as though it were his own stable, and these Tory boatmen his paid grooms.
I followed with Warlock, who snorted and pawed when the salt water rose to his fetlocks, but he danced up the plank incline and entered the boat without coaxing. Shemuel's horse, a sleek, weasel-bellied animal, with a wicked eye and a bunch o' hackle for a tail, swung round in the water, slinging the little Jew on his face in the mud, and then, with a vicious squeal, flung up his heels and cantered off, scattering a company of marines drawn up a hundred yards down the shore.
Draggled and dripping, Shemuel, standing knee-deep in salt water, watched the flight of his horse, but I bade him come aboard at once, and he did so, casting sidelong glances at the boatmen, who regarded him with astonishment.
Mr. Foxcroft, meanwhile, had dragged his horse aboard, and Mount ordered the boatmen to push off at once.
As the men took up their heavy sea-poles, I heard them whispering to each other that Mount and I must be scouts sent ahead to spy for the soldiers, and I caught them eying our buckskins curiously as they lay on their poles, pushing out towards the broad belt of moonlight which glistened beyond.
The wind whipped our cheeks as we swung clear of the land; the boatmen presently took to their oars, which I noticed were muffled midway between blade and handle. The row-locks, also, had been padded with bunches of wheat-straw and rags.
Now that we were safely afloat, misgivings seized me. I had never before been on salt water; the black waves which came slapping on our craft disturbed me; the shadowy hulk of the war-ship which lay athwart our course loomed up like doom, seeming to watch us with its wicked little green and red eyes, marking us for destruction.
The wind freshened furiously in my face; the waves came rolling in out of the darkness, rap! rap! slap! rap! crushing into stinging gusts of spray, soaking us to the skin.
Far to our left the line of boats floated, undulating across the bay; the beacon in Boston flared out red as we rounded Fox Hill; the light on Mount Wh-d-m twinkled.