as when the awful treason at West Point became known to me; and for weeks as I lay abed I thought to hear in every footfall on Broadway the measured tread of a patrol come to take me. Yet the traitor continued in New York without sinister consequence to me; and, though my nights were none the pleasanter during that sad week which ended in the execution of the British adjutant-general, no harm came to me. Habit is the great sedative; at times, penning my spy's journal, I smiled to remember how it was with me when first I came to New York in 1777, four years since, a country lad of nineteen, fresh from the frontier, where all my life had been spent among the Oneidas and the few neighbors nearest Broadalbin Bush—a raw youth, frightened but resolved; and how I lived through those first months of mental terror, now appalled by the fate of our Captain Nathan Hale, now burning with a high purpose and buoyed up by pride that his Excellency should have found in me a fit instrument for his designs.
I have never known whether or not I am what men call brave, for I understand fear and I turn cold at thought of death. Often I have sat alone in the house watching the sober folk along Broadway and Wall Street, knowing all the while that these same good people might to-morrow all go flocking to Catiemuts Hill near the Fresh Water, or to that open space in the "Fields" between the jail and the Almshouse, to see me on the gallows. If such thoughts do not assail the brave—if restless nights, wakeful dawns, dull days are not their portion—I must own that all these were mine, not often, perhaps, but too frequent to flatter self-esteem. And, fight them as I might, it was useless; for such moments came without warning—often when I had been merry with friends, at times when, lulled by long-continued security, I had nigh forgotten through eventless months that there was a war and that I had become a New Yorker only because of war.
It was harder now, in one sense; four years as secretary to my kinsman, Sir Peter Coleville, had admitted me to those social intimacies so necessary to my secret office; and, alas! friendships had been made and ties formed not only in the line of duty, but from impulse and out of pure affection.
I had never found it was required of me to pose as a rabid loyalist, and so did not, being known as disinterested and indifferent, and perhaps for that reason not suspected. My friends were from necessity among the best among the loyalists—from choice, too, for I liked them for their own sakes, and it was against their cause I worked, not against them.
It went hard with me to use them as I did—I so loathing perfidy in others; yet if it be perfidy to continue in duty as I understood duty, then I practised it, and at times could scarce tolerate myself, which was a weakness, because in my own heart I knew that his Excellency could set no man a task unworthy of his manhood. Yet it were pleasanter had my duties thrown me with the army, or with Colonel Willett in my native north, whence, at his request, I had come to live a life of physical sloth and mental intrigue under the British cannon of New York—here in the household of Sir Peter Coleville, his secretary, his friend, his welcomed guest, the intimate of his family, his friends!—that was the hardest of all; and though for months at a time I managed to forget it, the recurring thought of what I was, and what they believed me to be, stabbed me at intervals so I could scarce endure it.
Nothing, not even the belief that God was with us, I fear, could have held me there when the stress of such emotion left me staring at the darkness in my restless bed—only blind faith in his Excellency that he would do no man this shame, if shame it was—that he knew as well as I that the land's salvation was not to be secured through the barter of men's honor and the death of souls.
The door being secured, as I say, and the heat of that July day abating nothing, though the sun hung low over Staten Island, I opened my windows, removed coat and waistcoat, and, drawing a table to the window, prepared to write up that portion of my daily journal neglected lately, and which, when convenient opportunity offered, was to find its way into the hands of Colonel Marinus Willett in Albany. Before I wrote I turned back a leaf or two so that I might correct my report in the light of later events; and I read rapidly:
July 12, 1781.—Nothing remarkable. Very warm weather, and a bad odor from the markets. There is some talk in the city of rebuilding the burned district. Two new cannon have been mounted in the southwest bastion of the fort (George). I shall report caliber and particulars later.
July 13th.—This day Sir Peter left to look over the lands in Westchester which he is, I believe, prepared to purchase from Mr. Rutgers. The soldiers are very idle; a dozen of 'em caught drawing a seine in the Collect, and sent to the guard-house—a dirty trick for anybody but Hessians, who are accustomed to fish in that manner. The cannon in the southwest bastion are twelve-pounders and old—trunnions rusted, carriages rotten. It seems they are trophies taken from the Carolina militia.
July 14th.—A ship arrived in the lower bay. Details later. In Nassau Street, about noon, a tall fellow, clothed like a drover, muttered a word or two as I passed, and I had gone on ere it struck me that he had meant his words for my ear. To find him I turned leisurely, retracing my steps as though I had forgotten something, and as I brushed him again, he muttered, "Thendara; tell me where it is."
At that moment Captain Enderley of the Fifty-fourth Foot greeted me, linking his arm in mine, and I had no excuse to avoid him. More of this to-night, when, if the message was truly for me, I shall doubtless be watched and followed when I leave the house for a stroll.
July 15th.—Last night there was no chance, Enderley and Captain O'Neil coming to take me to the theater, where the Thirty-eighth Regiment gave a frolic and a play—the latter most indifferent, save for Mrs. Barry's acting. I saw my drover in John Street, too, but could not speak to him.
This morning, however, I met the drover, and he was drunk, or made most marvelous pretense—a great six-foot, blue-eyed lout in smock and boots, reeking of Bull's Head gin, his drover's whip a-trail in the dust, and he a-swaggering down Nassau Street, gawking at the shop-windows and whistling Roslyn Castle with prodigious gusto.
I made it convenient to pause before Berry and Roger's show of jewels, and he stopped, too, swaying there gravely, balanced now on hobnail heel, now on toe. Presently he ceased his whistling of Roslyn Castle, and in a low but perfectly distinct voice he said, "Where is the town of Thendara, Mr. Renault?" Without looking at him or even turning my head, I answered, "Why do you ask me?"
He stared stupidly at the show-window. "Pro patria et gloria," he replied under his breath; "why do you serve the land?"
"Pro gloria," I muttered. "Give your message; hasten."
He scratched his curly head, staring at the gewgaws. "It is this," he said coolly; "find out if there be a lost town in the north called Thendara, or if the name be used to mask the name of Fort Niagara. When you have learned all that is possible, walk some evening up Broadway and out along Great George Street. We will follow."
"Who else besides yourself?"
"A brother drover—of men," he said slyly; "a little wrinkled fellow, withered to the bone, wide-eared, mild-eyed. He is my running mate, sir, and we run sometimes, now this way, now that, but always at your service, Mr. Renault."
"Are you drunk, or is it a pretense?" I demanded.
"Not too drunk," he replied, with elaborate emphasis. "But once this matter of Thendara is settled I hope to be so drunk that no friend of mine need be ashamed of me. Good day, sir. God save our country!"
"Have a care," I motioned, turning away. And so I left him to enter the shop and purchase a trinket, thinking it prudent in case any passer-by had observed how long I lingered.
July 16th.—Sir Peter not yet returned from Mr. Rutgers. The name "Thendara" ringing in my ears like a dull bell all night, and I awake, lying there a-thinking. Somewhere, in some long-forgotten year, I had heard
