His last word to me was one of generous caution.

“Remember, Jack; ‘haste, haste, post haste’ is your watchword.  There will be other couriers in from the battle-field at King’s Mountain; and you must hang and fire your news-petard and vanish before they come to betray you.”

“Trust me,” said I, evasively; and so we parted, he to gallop eastward, and I to charge down peaceably upon that British outpost we had set abuzz in the small hours of the night.

XLII

IN WHICH MY LORD HAS HIS MARCHING ORDERS

Though I had passed out of the British lines less than a week before in decent good odor, save for Colonel Tarleton’s ill word, I met with nothing like the welcome at the outpost camp that a king’s courier had a right to expect.

The captain in command was not the one who had passed me out.  He was a surly brute of the Yorkshire breed; and when he had heard that I was an express rider from Major Ferguson, he was pleased to demand my papers.

To this I must needs make answer that I carried no written despatches; that my news was for the commander-in-chief’s private ear.  This I told my Yorkshire pig, demanding to be sent, under guard if he chose, to the headquarters in Charlotte.

But Captain Nobbut would hear to no such reasonable proposal.  On the contrary, he would hold me in arrest till he could report me and have instructions from his colonel.

Knowing what a stake it was I rode for, you may imagine how this day in durance ate into me like a canker.  With ordinary diligence the trooper who carried the news of me should have gone to Charlotte by way of Queensborough and returned by noon.  But being of the same surly breed with his captain, ’twas full three of the clock before he came ambling back with an order to set me forthwith upon the road to headquarters.

Once free of the camp of detention you may be sure I put Blackstar to his best paces; but hasten as I would it was coming on to evening when I passed the inner safety line and galloped down the high street of the town.

As luck would have it, the first familiar face I saw was that of Charles Stedman, the commissary-general.  On my inquiry he directed me straight.

“My Lord is at supper at Mr. Stair’s.  Have you news, Captain?”

I drew breath of relief.  Happily the loss of the day had not made me the bearer of stale tidings.  So I made answer with proper reticence, saying that I had news, but it was for Lord Cornwallis’s ear first of all.  None the less, if the commissary-general were pleased to come with me—­

He took the hint at once; and he it was who procured me instant admittance to the house, and who took on himself the responsibility of breaking in upon the party in the supper-room.

I shall not soon forget the scene that fronted us when we came into my Lord’s presence.  The supper was in some sort a gala feast held in honor of my Lord’s accession to his earldom.  The table, lighted by great silver candelabra which I recognized as Ireton heirlooms, was well filled around by the members of the commander-in-chief’s military family, with the earl at the head, and Mistress Margery, bedight as befitted a lady of the quality, behind the tea-urn at the foot.