As it chanced, this was my first sight near at hand Of that British commander whose name in after years the patriot mothers spoke to fright their children.  He did not look a monster.  As I recall him now, he was a short, square-bodied man, younger by some years than myself, and yet with an old campaigner’s head well set upon aggressive shoulders.  His eyes were black and ferrety; and his face, well seasoned by the Carolina sun, was swart as any Arab’s.  A man, I thought, who could be gentle-harsh or harsh-revengeful, as the mood should prompt; who could make well-turned courtier compliments to a lady and damn a trooper in the self-same breath.

This was that Colonel Banastre Tarleton who gave no quarter to surrendered men; and when I looked into the sloe-black eyes I saw in them for me a waiting gibbet.

“So!” he rapped out, when I was haled before him.  “You’re the spying rebel captain, eh?  Are you alive enough to hang?”

His lack of courtesy rasped so sorely that I must needs give place to wrath and answer sharply that there was small doubt of it, since I could stand and curse him.

He scowled at that and cursed me back again as heartily as any fishwife.  Then suddenly he changed his tune.

“They tell me you were in the service once and left it honorably.  I am loath to hang a man who has worn the colors.  Would it please you best to die a soldier’s death, Captain Ireton?”

I said it would, most surely.

He said I should have the boon if I would tell him what an officer on the Baron de Kalb’s staff should know:  the strength of the Continentals, the general’s designs and dispositions, and I know not what besides.  I think it was my laugh that made him stop short and damn me roundly in the midst.

“By God, I’ll make you laugh another tune!” he swore.  “You rebels are all of a piece, and clemency is wasted on you!”

“Your mercy comes too dear; you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton.  If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would be too good for me.”

“If that is your last word—­But stay; I’ll give you an hour to think it over.”

“It needs not an hour nor a minute,” I replied.  “If I knew aught about the Continental army—­which I do not—­I’d see you hanged in your own stirrup-leather before I’d tell you, Colonel Tarleton.  Moreover, I marvel greatly—­”

“At what?” he cut in rudely.

“At your informant’s lack of invention.  He might have brought me straight from General Washington’s headquarters while he was about it.  ’Twould be no greater lie than that he told you.”

He heard me through, then fell to cursing me afresh, and would be sending an aide-de-camp hot-foot for Falconnet.

While the messenger was going and coming there was a chance for me to look around like a poor trapped animal in a pitfall, loath to die without a struggle, yet seeing not how any less inglorious end should offer.  The eye-search went for little of encouragement; there was no chance either to fight or fly.  But apart from this, the probing of the shadows revealed a thing that set me suddenly in a fever, first of rage, and then of apprehension.