“You may say that, Nat, but I think it would be a great deal more pleasant for us both to live than both to die. Is it not so?”
“Of course.”
“Then only one of us will go, and that one, of course, will be me.”
“And why?”
“Because; if I am captured you will still be at liberty, and through your exertions I will be enabled to effect my escape.”
“I see now;” said the patriot captain; “and I feel free to acknowledge that you are right. Of course you, as Catherine’s brother, must be the one to go. What steps are taken, must be immediate. I would advise you to prepare for the undertaking in an hour, and Heaven grant that you prosper!”
Was it an echo that repeated the words: “Heaven will grant that you prosper?” As Vale turned away, Nat heard them as plainly as he had heard his own.
CHAPTER X.
AN UNWELCOME RECOGNITION.
Young Vale was a man of strong will. Sorrow and rage at his sister’s disappearance did not blind his reason. Knowing that he must take care of his own safety, if he would do aught for her’s, all his actions were governed with the utmost prudence.
As there were numerous tories, well acquainted with him, residing in the city, he did not deem it prudent to venture in without a disguise sufficiently impenetrable to deceive all prying eyes. The disguise was effected in a satisfactory manner: his own mother would have looked twice before she recognized in the clodhopper, wending his way along the road, her own good-looking son.