him;" and she laughed so softly,
bewitchingly, that--

"Jean, Jean," I cried, now that hope and life had come back with a
rush, "Jean, do you know that I love you; that I love the very ground
on which you walk, the sunbeams in your hair, the very air you
breathe? Ah! Jean--" But at that moment came the voice of the Tory
calling her and the tramp of feet on the porch.

"Let me go," she cried, for I held her hands in mine; "and fly,--that
is the guard."

"Nay," said I, "not till you give me a kiss. I will stay here and be
captured first."

There was a moment's hesitation, and then a flash of white arms, and
the softest caress--ah, such a caress that the memory of it will go
with me to the grave. And then she was gone.

And I, not wishing to be captured now, slipped through the rear door
to my men, and a short time later, having satisfied ourselves of the
retreat of the enemy's forces, we made our way back over the hills to
report to the General.

We followed the enemy closely the next day, and did not draw off until
we saw them beyond our reach at Sandy Hook.

Then we took our way to the Jersey hills, and lay there for a time
watching the enemy in New York.

CHAPTER XXI

THE PASSING OF YEARS

Then came a long period when it seemed almost as if peace had settled
over the land, so seldom did the rattle of musket fire or the angry
flash of guns break the quiet repose of the Jersey plains and farms.

Far across the marshes lay New York, and behind its walls and the
broad sweep of the waters the British army rested safe, while the army
of the patriots, scattered among the forests, woods, and hills of
Jersey and New York, lived, like Robin Hood's followers of old, and
waited while the wheel of fortune turned.

A year went by, when at the taking of Paulus Hook I first heard news
of the welfare of the Tory and the maid, since the night of the
Monmouth retreat.

It was after an all-night march through the marshes of Jersey, often
breast-high in the water, that we made a silent, deadly charge with
the bayonet on the enemy's fort, and carried it before the sun had
risen.

We were retiring rapidly, after securing our prisoners, when one of my
men called to me: "Captain, here's one of those Highland chiefs
knocked on the head."

I went to him and found that it was Farquharson, who had received an
ugly blow on the head from a clubbed musket.

A little whiskey between his teeth and water on his face reviv