overhead.

From the attempt which he was bent upon turning into a ridiculous
abortion, if it lay in the power of man and horse to do so, Philip's
thoughts went to the object of that attempt, Washington himself. He
was thrilled at once with a greater love and admiration for that firm
soul maintaining always its serenity against the onslaughts of men and
circumstance, that soul so unshakable as to seem in the care of Fate
itself. Capture Washington! Philip laughed at the thought.

And yet a British troop had seized General Charles Lee when he was the
rebels' second in command, and, in turn, a party of Yankees had taken
the British General Prescott from his quarters in Rhode Island. True,
neither of these officers was at the time of his seizure as safely
quartered and well guarded as Washington was now; but, on the other
hand, Margaret had spoken of treachery in the American camp. Who were
the traitors? Philip hoped he might find out their chief, at least.

It was a long and hard ride, and more and more an up-hill one as it
neared its end. But Philip's thoughts made him so often unconscious of
his progress, and of the passage of the hours, that he finally
realised with a momentary surprise that he had reached a fork of the
road, near which he should come upon the rebel pickets, and that the
night was far spent. He might now take one road, and enter the camp at
its nearest point, but at a point far from Washington's headquarters;
or he might take the other road and travel around part of the camp, so
as to enter it at a place near the general's house. 'Twas at or near
the latter place that the enemy would try to enter, as they would
surely be so directed by the traitors within the camp.

Heedless of the apparent advantage of alarming the camp at the
earliest possible moment, at whatever part of it he could then reach,
he felt himself impelled to choose the second road. He ever afterward
held that his choice of this seemingly less preferable road was the
result of a swift process of unconscious reasoning--for he maintained
that what we call intuition is but an instantaneous perception of
facts and of their inevitable inferences, too rapid for the reflective
part of the mind to record.

He felt the pressure of time relaxed, for a troop of horse going by
the circuitous route Meadows had indicated could not have reached the
camp in the hours since they had passed the place where Meadows had
seen them. So he let his horse br