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"That I will not," said I; adding that I would blithely share the breakfast with him. Whereat he laughed and clipt my hand, and swore I was a true soldier and a brave gentleman to boot. So we sat and hobnobbed at the table; and Tybee lighted all the remnant candle-ends, and broached the wine and pledged me in a bumper before we fell to upon the cold haunch of venison.
"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, "is it thus you pass an old friend without a word, Captain Ireton?" 'Twas my good death-watch; that Lieutenant Tybee of the light-horse who had sunk the British officer in the man in that trying night at Appleby Hundred. I returned his hearty greeting as well as I might, and would have explained my present state and standing but that I was loath to lie to him.
Having my dismissal and reprieve I was remanded to the custody of that young Lieutenant Tybee whom you have met and known as Falconnet's second in the duel. Interpreting his orders liberally, he suffered me to keep my own room for the night. I had expected manacles and a roommate guard at the least, but my gentlemanly jailer spared me both.
Hyde Parker reached the Isle of Tybee, near the Savannah, on the 23d of December, and in a few days the fleet and the transports passed the bar and anchored in the river. The command of the Southern army, composed of the troops of South Carolina and Georgia, had been committed to Major-General Robert Howe, who in the course of the preceding summer had invaded East Florida.
After a passage in which storms were frequent, between two and three in the afternoon, God brought us all safe into the Savannah river. We cast anchor near Tybee Island, where the groves of pines along the shore made an agreeable prospect, showing, as it were, the bloom of spring in the depth of winter. Sunday, March 7. I entered upon my ministry at Savannah.
At any rate, I knew not what it was I said till Tybee said it over for me." "But the next morning you took a cur's advantage of me on this very spot and ran me through," I countered. "Name it what you will and let it go at that. There was murder in your eye, and you are the better swordsman. You put me upon it for my life, and when you gave me leave, I did not kill you, as I might."
"Ha! ye're carpet soldiers, both of ye!" he snorted, and then he began to swear piteously at the rain. "'Twill be worse for the enemy than for us," said Tybee. "We can at least keep our powder dry." "Damn the enemy!" quoth the major, cheerfully.
So, when Tybee barred the door and left me with a single candle to my lighting, I was fain to fall upon the bed in utter weariness, thinking that the respite bought by my sweet lady's humbling was more dearly bought than ever, and that the truest mercy would have been the rope and tree without this interval of waiting. To me in this grim Doubting Castle of despair the priest came.
In the breast pocket of my hussar jacket they found that accursed duplicate despatch; the one I had taken from Tybee and which had so nearly proved my undoing in the interview with Major Ferguson. Isaac Shelby opened and read the accusing letter and passed it around among his colleagues. "I shall not ask you why this was undelivered, sir," he said to me, sternly.
And it was Father Matthieu who led her, still crying softly, out of the throng and up the low stair; and now I marked that all the rough soldiery stood aside and made way for her with never a man among them to scoff or sneer or point a gibe. At her going, Tybee drew his sword and cut the cord that bound me. "These youngling cubs are over-cautious, Captain Ireton.
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