I was clear of the lee shore and the breakers at last, but I was fain to believe that not Machiavelli himself could hope to weather the storm in the open.  How much or how little did Lord Cornwallis remember of Colonel Tarleton’s report?  How explicit had that report been?—­was there any mention in it of my eavesdropping at the conference between Captain John Stuart and the baronet; of my attempt to warn the over-mountain men against the Indian-arming?  Could I hope to tell his Lordship a tale so near the truth as to be unassailable by Tarleton and his officers, by Gilbert Stair and the spiteful little pettifogger, and yet so deftly garbled as to keep my neck out of the halter for the time being?

All these questions thronged upon me as a mob to pull cool reason from her seat, and I could only play the part of the trapped rat and snap back at them.  Yet my Lord Cornwallis was waiting for his answer, and a single moment’s hesitation might breed suspicion.

You must forgive me, my dears, if I confess it beyond me to set down here in measured words the tale I told his Lordship.  A lie is a lie, be it told in never so good a cause; a thing deplorable and not to be glozed over or boasted of after the fact.  So I beg you to let these quibblings to which I was driven rest in oblivion, figuring to yourselves that I used all the truth I dared, and that I strove through it all not wholly to sink the gentleman and the man of honor in the spy.

’Twas but a bridge of glass when all was said; a bridge that carried me safely over for the moment into my Lord’s confidence, yet one which a pebble flung by any one of a dozen hands might shiver in the dropping of an eyelid.

“Truly, you have had a most romantic experience,” said his Lordship, when I had made an end.  Then he lay back in his chair and laughed till the stout body of him shook again.  “And all about a little wench of the provincials.  Well, well; Sir Francis was always a sad dog with the women.  But all this was in the early summer, you say; where have you been since?”

Here was a chance for more romancing, this time of a sort less dangerous.  So I drew breath and plunged again, telling how I had been carried off by my captor-rescuers; how I had fallen into the hands of the Indians—­not all of whom, I would remind his Lordship, were friendly to the king; and lastly how I had but lately escaped from the mountain fastnesses back of Major Ferguson’s camp at Gilbert Town.  At this point my Lord interrupted the tale-telling.

“So you know of the major and his doings?  I would you had brought me late news of him.  ’Tis a week since his last courier reached us.”

This was the moment for the playing of my trump card—­the only one I held.  I rose, bowed, took from my pocket that other letter given me by Colonel Davie and handed it to his Lordship.  ’Twas Major Ferguson’s last report, intercepted by one of Davie’s vigilant scouting parties.