Chapter XXIV.

  “March—­march—­march! 
  Making sounds as they tread,
  Ho-ho! how they step,
  Going down to the dead.”

  Coxe.

The time Maud consumed in her meditations over the box and its contents, had been employed by the captain in preparations for his enterprise.  Joyce, young Blodget, Jamie and Mike, led by their commander in person, were to compose the whole force on the occasion; and every man had been busy in getting his arms, ammunition and provisions ready, for the last half-hour.  When captain Willoughby, therefore, had taken leave of his family, he found the party in a condition to move.

The first great desideratum was to quit the Hut unseen.  Joel and his followers were still at work, in distant fields; but they all carefully avoided that side of the Knoll which would have brought them within reach of the musket, and this left all behind the cliff unobserved, unless Indians were in the woods in that direction.  As Mike had so recently passed in by that route, however, the probability was the whole party still remained in the neighbourhood of the mills, where all accounts agreed in saying they mainly kept.  It was the intention of the captain, therefore, to sally by the rivulet and the rear of the house, and to gain the woods under cover of the bushes on the banks of the former, as had already been done by so many since the inroad.

The great difficulty was to quit the house, and reach the bed of the stream, unseen.  This step, however, was a good deal facilitated by means of Joel’s sally-port, the overseer having taken, himself, all the precautions against detection of which the case well admitted.  Nevertheless, there was the distance between the palisades and the base of the rocks, some forty or fifty yards, which was entirely uncovered, and had to be passed under the notice of any wandering eyes that might happen to be turned in that quarter.  After much reflection, the captain and serjeant came to the conclusion to adopt the following mode of proceeding.

Blodget passed the hole, by himself, unarmed, rolling down the declivity until he reached the stream.  Here a thicket concealed him sufficiently, the bushes extending along the base of the rocks, following the curvature of the rivulet.  Once within these bushes, there was little danger of detection.  As soon as it was ascertained that the young man was beneath the most eastern of the outer windows of the northern wing, the only one of the entire range that had bushes directly under it, all the rifles were lowered down to him, two at a time, care being had that no one should appear at the window during the operation.  This was easily effected, jerks of the rope sufficing for the necessary signals to haul in the line.  The ammunition succeeded; and in this manner, all the materials of offence and defence were soon collected on the margin of the stream.