With a stealthy, gliding step Billy was across the road and behind the rock as Richard dropped to the ground and the guard turned round. Evidently the man’s trained ear had detected some sound, for he paused and brought his gun to his shoulder. Richard’s eyes were on the rock over the road; if Billy moved now, they were both lost; but all was still, and the guard once more took up his march. When he was gone a few paces Richard saw a dark object crawl from the shadow of the rock, and a moment later the tall grass shook as if a gentle zephyr had smitten it in just one favoured spot; then all was silent and moveless save the crickets and the night birds flapping past in the gloom.
Billy had left the way clear, and when the next sentinel should be at the right place Richard meant to follow, and so he drew a deep breath and waited. But fortune was against him, for before the man was quite opposite to him another guard came out into the road from the camp behind and accosted him. As they approached, Richard heard in part what they said:—
“—couriers just arrived—enemy moving on the Brunswick road, supposed intention to out-flank us. All outside pickets are being doubled to prevent desertion, and I am sent to mount guard here at the end of your beat. Two Hessians were caught in the act of deserting just now.”
“I heard some kind of commotion.”
“Yes; ’twill go pretty hard with them to-morrow. When we first took them we thought they were a couple of those prisoners who were trying to escape, and the air fairly smelt of the brimstone we were ready to give them. The light came just in time to save them. Those Hessians are a d—d set of hirelings.”
He stooped to adjust his shoe-latchet, and when the regular guard passed on to the end of his beat Richard dropped down quickly, but with an inward groan, for with that man stationed there at the end of the track escape was impossible. There had been but one chance, just one, and he had given that away. He would not regret it, but—he should never see Joscelyn again. It was all he could do to keep back the fierce cry that gathered in his throat. For a long time he crouched there, hoping in the face of despair; but the dawn was coming—if he was found thus, his punishment would be made the greater. There was no use in courting torture. And so, when a passing cloud obscured the stars, he crawled back across the clearing, and crept at last under the edge of the tent.
“Here, Peter,” he whispered in the ear of the next man, “Billy has escaped. I failed; but ’tis no use to tempt the devil to double my stripes. Wake up and tie this cord about my left arm that it may seem as if he gnawed it himself until it was loose.”
And in the morning the guard found him asleep with a bit of ravelled rope about his arm. Search and inquiry failed to reveal anything of Billy’s escape or his whereabouts, and the incident, so far as the prisoners were concerned, ended in the volley of oaths and threats delivered to them second-hand by the guards from the officer of the day. They were not pleasant words to hear; but Richard only drew a deep breath, for he had feared Billy would linger waiting for him and so be taken.