"I cannot reply at length to what you say. All I can do is to save your lives. Maybe fortune has granted me that power. I am not a traitor by intent."
The company moved out across the fields, taking up their wounded, and leaving the dead Hessians where they were.
Captain Markham marched silently along, paying no attention to the looks that were thrown at him by the angry victors. He admired William's bearing, despite the standpoint from which he looked upon him. "I understand now," he said, "why it was you never took the oath of allegiance to the King."
It was William's turn to start. It was a fact. The ceremony, owing to the haste in the purchasing of his command and of the departure of Colonel Forsyth from England, had been omitted.
"What are you going to do with us?" asked the Captain. "How did you come to be in command?"
"Through fate, perhaps," responded William; "it has decided many things. I am going to take you to Morristown, if I can; and as for myself, I shall turn myself in as a prisoner of war with the rest of you. I cannot explain. Some day you will understand."
It was necessary to hasten the march now, for a messenger had arrived, stating that re-enforcements of the British were approaching from Elizabethtown. They marched ahead at a faster pace.
It was a strange tale that William Frothingham related when he brought his command to the American lines. The idea of an English officer leading an American attack, and after victory convoying his prisoners to his enemy's lines, and there insisting upon giving himself up also as a prisoner of war—this was something new in the annals of history. He found himself in the most remarkable position that probably a man had ever been placed in before.
After hearing his tale and recovering from the astonishment of finding that it was not the Lieutenant Frothingham they knew, the Americans would not accept him as a prisoner. The Commander-in-Chief expressed the sentiment of the meeting in these words: