“Ay, my Lord,” replied Major Hennion, his hand already on the door-latch.

Left alone, Cornwallis stood for a moment, his lips pressed together, then summoning an aide, he gave him certain directions, after which, going to his writing-desk, he pulled out a drawer and from it took quite a batch of Continental and State currency.  Seating himself at his desk, he laid one of the notes upon it, and taking his penknife he very neatly and dexterously split the bill through half its length.  Taking from his pocket a wallet, he drew from it a sheet of paper covered with numbers and syllables, which was indorsed, “Cipher No.  I.”  Writing on a scrap of paper a few words, he then alternately looked at what he had penned and at the cipher, taking down on one of the inner surfaces of the bill a series of numbers.  Scarcely had he done his task when a knock came at the door, and in response to his summons a negress entered.

“’Scuse me, your Lordship,” she said with a bob.  “De captain, he say youse done want a leetle flour gum.”

“Yes.  Give it to me and leave the room,” answered the earl.

Touching his finger in the saucer she had brought, Cornwallis rubbed it inside the split along the three edges, and then laying the bill on his desk, he patted the edges where they had been split, together, wiping them clean with his handkerchief.  Running over the pile of currency, he sorted out some fifty notes, then taking a sheet of paper, he began a letter.

Before the earl had finished what he was writing, he was again interrupted, and the new-comer proved to be Major Hennion, clothed in an old suit of butternut-coloured linen.  And as if in laying aside his red coat, shorts, and boots he had as well laid aside military rank, he seemed to have already reverted to his old slouch.

“Good,” exclaimed Cornwallis, as he rose.  “Are your other preparations all made?”

“Every one, general; and my horse and pack are already at the river-side.”

The earl took the pile of sorted bills from his desk and handed them to Hennion.  “There is the money to pay your way,” he said, “all Continental Loan office or Virginia currency, save one of North Carolina for forty shillings, which on no account are you to part with, even if any one in the States to the northward will accept it, for I have split it open and written within it to Sir Henry Clinton the news I have to tell.  Say to him that a few moments in water will serve to part the edges where they have been gummed together.  I give you the note, that if you are caught, you may still find some means to send it on.  But lest by mischance it should be lost or taken from you, and you should yet be able to reach New York, I have here the words I have written in cipher within the bill.  Have you a good memory?”

“For facts, if not for words, my Lord.”

The general took up from his desk the little memorandum he had written before using his cipher and read out:  “An enemy’s fleet within the Capes.  Between thirty and forty ships of war, mostly large.”  “Spare not your speed, sir, yet take no unnecessary risk,” ended the earl, as he held out his hand.