"I'll send word to Colonel Ledyard," said Captain Havens. "Hadden, you and four men come with me. I must go out and meet 'em with a boat. Lieutenant Brandagee, you may tell the colonel I will anchor the ships in the harbor mouth, so that their guns may support our batteries, if the British try to run in to-morrow."
Every gun would count in such a case, it was true, but half an hour later, on the deck of the Noank, he was told by Captain Morgan:—
"No, sir! Their boats would be too much for us, so far out as that. We'll run farther in and lie still till morning. After daylight our guns'll be good for something, I can tell you. Ledyard'll say I'm right."
"Take your own course," said the captain, "only be ready if they come. Now, that's settled.—Morgan! This is bad news about Lyme Avery. I don't want to be the man to tell his wife."
"No more do I," said Morgan. "Taber says he'd a'most as soon be shot. Don't I wish, though, that Lyme was alive, to hear of the surrender of Burgoyne's army. It makes me feel better'n I did. We hardly felt safe 'bout comin' in at all. For all we knew, we might be sailin' into a British port and under the king's guns."
"It hasn't quite come to that yet," said Captain Havens. "I can tell you, though, the country's wider awake than it ever was before. Have you heard about Sam Prentice and Vine Avery? They got in long ago. So did your other prizes. What did you say this one with you is?"
"It's a long story," said Morgan. "Joe Taber's captain of her. He knows more 'bout her than I do. She was a British privateer. Lyme Avery was killed when we took her. Now!—My head's in a kind of whirl. Havens, I'm thinkin' of Lyme one minute, and the next I'm thinkin' of Burgoyne and the way he was defeated. Jest you hold on with any more questions till some time to-morrow. The first thing for Taber and me is to get farther in."
There might be little time to spare, indeed, if a British line-of-battle ship and three frigates were in the offing, drawing on toward cannon range of them. Therefore the Noank and the Lynx stood slowly in, feeling their way, and as yet their presence was known only to a few boatmen and the garrison of Fort Griswold. Colonel Ledyard himself had settled one question.
"No," he said, "we will wait. The good news and the bad news will keep till morning. Let Mrs. Avery sleep—don't wake her. It'll be hard enough for her.—I thought a great deal of Lyme Avery!"
So the little that was left of the night waned away, and all New London remained in ignorance of any important arrival. As the sun arose, however, a gun rang out from Fort Griswold, and all who were awake sprang up to listen.