some tyrant king and his armies had come between them.  Then what a carnival of lust, rapine and bloody murder!  Man was broken on the wheel of power and thwarted Hope sat brooding in his little house.  History had been a long siege, like that of Troy, to deliver a fairer Helen from the established power of Kings.  Now, beyond three thousand miles of sea, supported by the strength of the hills and hearts informed and sworn to bitter duty, Man, at last, had found his chance.  Again Liberty, in robes white as snow and sweet as the morning, beckoned to her lover.  Another king was come with his armies to keep them apart.  The armies being baffled, Satan had come also and spread his hidden snares.  Could Satan prevail?  Was the story nearing another failure—­a tragedy dismal and complete as that of Thermopylae?

This day we shall know.  This day holds the moment which is to round out the fulness of time.  It is the twenty-third of September, 1780, and the sky is clear.  Now as the clock ticks its hours away, we may watch the phrases of the capable Author of the great story as they come from His pen.  His most useful characters are remote and unavailable.  It would seem that the villain was likely to have his way.  The Author must defeat him, if possible, with some stroke of ingenuity.  For this He was not unprepared.

Before the day begins it will be well to review, briefly, the hours that preceded it.

Andre would have reached New York that night if The Vulture had not changed her position on account of a shot from the battery below Stony Point.  For that, credit must be given to the good scout Solomon Binkus.  The ship was not in sight when the two men came out in their boat from the west shore of the river while the night was falling.  Arnold had heard the shot and now that the ship had left her anchorage a fear must have come to him that his treachery was suspected.

“I may want to get away in that boat myself,” he suggested to Andre.

“She will not return until she gets orders from you or me,” the Britisher assured him.

“I wonder what has become of her,” said Arnold.

“She has probably dropped down the river for some reason,” Andre answered.  “What am I to do?”

“I’ll take you to the house of a man I know who lives near the river and send you to New York by horse with passports in the morning.  You can reach the British lines to-morrow.”

“I would like that,” Andre exclaimed.  “It would afford me a welcome survey of the terrain.”

“Smith will give you a suit of clothes that will fit you well enough,” said the traitor.  “You and he are about of a size.  It will be better for you to be in citizen’s dress.”

So it happened that in the darkness of the September evening Smith and Andre, the latter riding the blazed-face mare, set out for King’s Ferry, where they were taken across the river.  They rode a few miles south of the landing to the shore of Crom Pond and spent the night with a friend of Smith.  In the morning the latter went on with Andre until they had passed Pine’s Bridge on the Croton River.  Then he turned back.