Part 35 (2/2)

Close Quarters

The scenes s.h.i.+fted before us as if they had been painted on bubbles which were blown hither and thither by the wind.

Even as we gazed at the leaders of the army while they stood listening to the foolish man as if believing him to be inspired, a mob of Tories and Indians surged toward that portion of the encampment, and in an instant St. Leger, Thayendanega, and Sir John Johnson were blotted out from our view.

Nothing could have happened to give us who crouched amid the stunted bushes a more vivid idea of the change which had come over the besieging army than this one incident, when the commanders, at whose frowns savages as well as white men cringed, were treated with such utter lack of ceremony.

I fully expected to hear one or the other of these three burst into a towering rage, and order the immediate punishment of those who had offended, whereas the men extricated themselves from the tangle of half-drunken soldiers and savages as best they could, immediately resuming the apparently confidential conversation with the idiot.

I saw Sergeant Corney shrug his shoulders, as if to say that he had given over even trying to guess what might have happened, and then he beckoned for us to follow as he crept straight away from the, to us, perplexing scene.

There was little need for us to give much heed to our movements so far as concerned making a noise, for I dare venture to say that a full company of men might have marched boldly past without raising an alarm, so long as they remained hidden from view.

When we were twenty yards or more from where the commanders stood trying to hold their position against the drunken tide of reds and whites, the sergeant halted and looked at us lads inquiringly:

”Well?” I said, irritably, vexed because of my bewilderment. ”If you can't explain the situation there is no need to look at us. It beats anything I ever heard of or dreamed about. Have they all lost their senses?”

”Somethin' is goin' mightily wrong!” Sergeant Corney said, impressively, as if he was imparting valuable information.

”Goin' wrong!” Jacob repeated. ”I should say it had already gone wrong with a vengeance. Can't you make some kind of a guess, sergeant?”

”Not a bit of it, lad. This 'ere business lays way over anythin' I ever saw in all my experience as a soldier. There's one thing certain, howsomever, which is that jest now an hundred of our people could walk through the entire encampment without bein' called upon to spill a drop of blood.”

”Well?” I asked again, as the old man ceased speaking.

”Colonel Gansevoort must know how mixed up is this 'ere army.”

”We can go back an' tell him,” Jacob replied, promptly. ”I reckon we might walk straight out toward the fort, an' never a man here would give heed to us.”

”If we knew exactly what had happened it might be as well for all three to go back to the fort; but there's no knowin' when matters may take a turn, an' we must keep a sharp watch lest through us our people are brought into a trap.”

”Why don't you say what you mean, without talkin' all around the subject?”

I cried, nervously. ”What have you got in your mind?”

”That one of us must go back to the fort, while the others stay here on watch to give the alarm in case this 'ere army suddenly comes to its senses.”

It was not my desire to travel back alone to carry the tidings. There was no thought in my mind that any danger might threaten while the enemy was in such a state of confusion; and I was most eager to watch these apparently crazy people, in the hope of being able to come at a solution of the riddle, therefore I asked, sharply:

”Who do you think should go back?”

”Do either of you lads want to tackle the job?” the sergeant asked, and I understood by his tone that he was as loath to leave the place as was I.

Neither of us made reply, and he went on, as if already having had the plan fixed in his mind:

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