ing beyond but Albany; and, beyond Albany, the
frontier; and beyond the frontier a hellish war of murder and the
torch, a ceaseless conflict of dreadful reprisals, sterile triumphs,
terrible vengeance, a saturnalia of private feuds, which spared neither
the infirm nor the infant--nay, the very watch-dog at the door received
no quarter in the holocaust.

Elsin had begged and begged that she should not be left there at West
Point, saying that Albany was safer, though I doubted the question of
safety weighed in her choice; but she pleaded so reasonably, so
sweetly, arms around my neck, and her lips whispering so that my cheek
felt their soft flutter, that I consented. There I was foolish, for no
sooner were we in sight of the Albany hills than arms and lips were
persuading again, guilelessly explaining how simple it would be for her
to live at Johnstown, while I, at Butlersbury, busied myself with my
own affairs.

And so we stood in earnest conference, while nearer and nearer loomed
the hills, with the Dutch town atop, brick houses, tiled roofs, steep
streets, becoming plainer and plainer to the eye.

There seemed to be an unusual amount of shipping at the Albany wharves
as we glided in, and a great number of wagons and people scurrying
about. In fact, I had never before observed such a bustle in Albany
streets, but thought nothing of it at the moment, for I had not seen
the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf
we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and
our sea-chests which the men bore shoreward and up the steep hill to
the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued,
she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and
argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common
threshold to continue a discussion in which tears, lips, and arms soon
supplanted logic and reason.

Had she remained at West Point, although that fortress could not have
been taken except by a regular siege, still she might have been
subjected to all the horrors of blockade and bombardment, for since his
Excellency had abandoned the Hudson with his army and was already
half-way to Virginia, nothing now stood between West Point and the
heavy British garrison of New York.

It was my knowledge of that more than her pleading that reconciled me
to leave her in Albany.

But I was soon to learn that she was by no means secure in the choice I
had made