He reached across the little gap that parted us and grasped my hand.

“By God!” he swore, most feelingly, “you are as true as the steel you carry, Jack Ireton!”

“Nay,” said I, in honest shame; “I do confess I was thinking less of my friend than of the importance of the errand he rides on.”

“But if there should be a fight, you will spoil your chance of coming peaceably to Charlotte and my Lord’s headquarters.”

“If I am recognized—­yes.  But the night is dark, and a brush with the outpost need not betray me.”

At this he consented grudgingly, and we pushed on to the crossing.  Now since this fording place of Master Macgowan’s has marched into our history, you will like to know what the historians do not tell you:  namely, how it was but a makeshift wading place, armpit deep over a muddy bottom from the western bank to the bar above an island in mid-stream, and deflecting thence through rocky shallows to a point on the eastern bank some distance below the island.  ’Twas here that Lord Cornwallis got entangled some months later—­but I must not anticipate.

We made the crossing of the main current in safety and were a-splash in the rocky shallows beyond the island when we sighted the camp-fires of the outpost.  To ride straight upon the patrol was to invite disaster, and though Jennifer was for a charging dash, a hurly-burly with the steel, and so on to freedom beyond, he listened when I pointed out that our beasts were too nearly outworn to charge, and that the noise we must make would rouse the camp and draw the fire of every piece in it long before we could reach the bank and come to blade work.

“What for it, then?” he asked, impatiently.  “My courage is freezing whilst we wait.”

“There is nothing for it but to hold straight on across,” I said.

“That we can not; ‘twill be over the horses’ ears.  The beasts will drown themselves and us as well.”

How we should have argued it out I do not know, for just then Jennifer’s horse, scenting the troop mounts on the farther shore, cocked tail and ears, let out a squealing neigh, and fell to curveting and plunging in a racket that might have stood for the splashings of an advancing army.

In a twinkling the outpost camp was astir and a bellowing hail came to us across the water.  Having no answer, the troopers began to let off their pieces haphazard in the darkness; and with the singing zip of the first musket ball, Richard went battle-mad, as he always did in the face of danger.

“At them!” he thundered, clapping spurs to his jaded beast and whipping out the great claymore; and so we charged, the forlornest hope that ever fell upon an enemy.

How we came ashore alive through the gun-fire is one of those mysteries to which every battle adds its quota; but the poor beasts we rode were not so lucky.  Jennifer’s horse went down while we were yet some yards from the bank; and mine fell a moment later.  To face a score of waiting enemies afoot was too much for even Richard’s rash courage; so when we were free of the struggling horses we promptly dove for shelter under the up-stream bank.