The Continental Dragoon Part 6

And he strode towards the door.

Elizabeth was now fully awake to the certainty that one of the horses would indeed be taken. At Peyton's movement she ran to the door, reaching it before he did, and looked out. What she saw, transformed her into a very fury.

"Oh, this outrage!" she cried, facing about and addressing those in the hall. "It is my Cato they are leading out! My Cato! Under my very eyes! I forbid it! He shall not go! Where are Cuff and the servants?

Why don't they prevent? And you, Jack?"

She turned to Colden for the first time since Peyton's arrival.

"My troop would make short work of any who interfered, madam," said Peyton, warningly, still looking at Elizabeth only.

"Oh, that I should have to endure this!" she said. "Oh, if I had but a company of soldiers at my back, you dog of a rebel!"

And she paced the hall in a great pa.s.sion. Pa.s.sing the newel post, she noticed the Continental bills. She took these up, violently tore them across, and threw the pieces about the hall, as one tosses corn about a chicken-yard.

Major Colden had been having a most uncomfortable five minutes. As a Tory officer, he was in close peril of being made prisoner by this Continental captain and the latter's troop outside, and this peril was none the less since he had so adversely criticised Peyton in the talk which had led to the duel in Bayard's woods. He had not put himself on friendly terms with Peyton after that affair. There was still no reason for any other feeling towards him, on Peyton's part, than resentment. Now Jack Colden had no relish for imprisonment at the hands of the despised rebels. Moreover, he had no wish that Elizabeth should learn of his former defeat by Peyton. He had kept the meeting in Bayard's woods a secret, thanks to Peyton's having quitted New York immediately after it, and to the relation of dependence in which the two only witnesses stood to him. Thus it was that he had remained well out of view during Elizabeth's sharp interview with Peyton, being unwilling alike to be known as a Tory officer, and to be recognized by Peyton. His civilian's cloak hid his uniform and weapons; the dimness of the candle-light screened his face.

But matters had reached a point where he could not, without appearing a coward, refrain longer from taking a hand. He stepped forward from the dark remoteness.

"Sir," said he to Peyton, politely, "I know the custom of war. But since a horse must be taken, you will find one of mine in the stable.

Will you not take it instead of this lady's?"

Peyton had been scrutinizing Colden's features.

"Mr. Colden, if I remember," he said, when the major had finished.

"You remember right," said Colden, with a bow, concealing behind a not too well a.s.sumed quietude what inward tremors the situation caused him.

"And you are doubtless now an officer in some Tory corps?" said Peyton, quickly.

"No, sir, I am neutral," replied Colden, rather huskily, with an instant's glance of warning at Elizabeth.

"Gad!" said Peyton, with a smile, still closely surveying the major.

"From your sentiments the time I met you in New York in '75, I should have thought you'd take up arms for the King."

"That was before the Declaration of Independence," said Colden, in a tone scarcely more than audible. "I have modified my opinions."

"They were strong enough then," Peyton went on. "You remember how you upheld them with a rapier in Bayard's woods?"

"I remember," said Colden, faintly, first reddening, then taking on a pale and sickly look, as if a prey to hidden chagrin and rage.

It seemed as if his tormentor intended to torture him interminably.

Peyton, who knew that one of his men would come for him as soon as the horse should be saddled and bridled, remained facing the unhappy major, wearing that frank half-smile which, from the triumphant to the crestfallen, seems so insolent and is so maddening.

"I've often thought," said Peyton, "I deserved small credit for getting the better of you that day. I had taken lessons from London fencing-masters." (Consider that the woman whom Colden loved was looking on, and that this was all news to her, and imagine how he raged beneath the outer calmness he had, for safety's sake, to wear.) "'Twas no hard thing to disarm you, and I'm not sorry you're neutral now. For if you wore British or Tory uniform, 'twould be my duty to put you again at disadvantage, by taking you prisoner."

The face of one of Peyton's men now appeared in the doorway. Peyton nodded to him, then continued to address the major.

"As for your request, my traps are now on the other horse, and there is not time to change. I must ride at once."

He stepped quickly to the door, and on the threshold turned to bow.

Then cried Elizabeth:

"May you ride to your destruction, for your impudence, you bandit!"

"Thank you, madam! I shall ride where I must! Farewell! My horse is waiting."

And in an instant he was gone, having closed the door after him with a bang.

"_His_ horse! The highwayman!" quoth Elizabeth.

"Give the gentleman his due," said Miss Sally, in a way both mollified and mollifying. "He paid for it with those." She indicated the strewn fragments of the Continental bills on the floor.

"Forward! Get up!"

It was the voice of Captain Peyton outside. The horses were heard riding away from the lawn.

Elizabeth opened the door and looked out. Her aunt accompanied her.

Old Valentine gazed with a sagely deploring expression at the torn-up bills on the floor. Colden stood where he had been, lest by some chance the enemy might return and discover his relief from straint.

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, at the door, as the light hors.e.m.e.n filed out the gate and up the branch road towards the highway, "to see the miserable rebel mounted on my Cato!"

"He looks well on him," said her aunt.

It was a brief flow of light from the fresh-risen moon, between wind-driven clouds, that enabled Miss Sally to make this observation.

"Looks well! The tatterdemalion!" And Elizabeth came from the door, as if loathing further sight of him.

But Miss Sally continued to look after the riders, as their dark forms were borne rapidly towards the post-road. "Nay, I think he is quite handsome."

"Pah! You think every man is handsome!" said the niece, curtly.

Miss Sally turned from the door, quite shocked.

"Why, Elizabeth, you know I'm the least susceptible of women!"

Old Mr. Valentine nodded sadly, as much as to say, "I know that, all too well!"

As the racing clouds now rushed over the moon, and the hors.e.m.e.n's figures, having become more and more blurred, were lost in the blackness, Miss Sally closed and bolted the door. The horses were faintly heard coming to a halt, at about the junction of the branch road with the highway, then moving on again rapidly, not further towards the south, as might have been expected, but back northward, and finally towards the east. Meanwhile Elizabeth stood in the hall, her rage none the less that its object was no longer present to have it wreaked on him. Such hate, such pa.s.sionate craving for revenge, had never theretofore been awakened in her. And when she realized the unlikelihood of any opportunity for satisfaction, she was exasperated to the limit of self-control.

"If you had only had some troops here!" she said to Colden.

"I know it! May the rascal perish for finding me at such a disadvantage!

'Twas my choice between denying my colors and becoming his prisoner."

This brought back to Elizabeth's mind the talk between Colden and Peyton, which her feelings had for the time driven from her thoughts.

But now a natural curiosity a.s.serted itself.

"So you knew the fellow before?"