CHAPTER VI

I

"Father! Father! Where are you? Arnold has betrayed! He has betrayed his country!"

Breathless, Marjorie rushed into the hallway, leaving the door ajar behind her. It was late in the afternoon of a September day. The air was soft and hazy, tempered with just the chill of evening that comes at this time of the year before sundown.

More than two months had pa.s.sed, months crowded with happiness which had filled her life with fancy. Her engagement to Captain Meagher had been announced, quietly and simply; their marriage was to take place in the fall. Day after day sped by and hid themselves in the records of time until the event, anxiously awaited, yet equally dreaded, was but a bare month distant. It would be a quiet affair after all, with no ostentation or display; but that would in no wise prevent her from looking her prettiest.

And so on this September afternoon while she was visiting the shops for the purpose of discovering whatever tempting and choice bits of ware they might have to offer, she thought she heard the blast of a trumpet from the direction of the balcony of the old Governor's Mansion.

Attracted by the sound, which recalled to her mind a former occasion when the news of the battle of Monmouth was brought to the city by courier and announced to the public, she quickened her steps in the direction of the venerable building. True, a man was addressing the people who had congregated beneath the balcony. Straining every faculty she caught the awful news.

Straightway she sped homewards, running as often as her panting breath would allow. She did not wait to open the door, but seemed to burst through it.

"What was that, child?" her father asked quickly as he met her in the dining-room.

"Arnold ... Arnold ..." she repeated, waiting to catch her breath.

"Has betrayed, you say?"

"West Point."

"My G.o.d! We are lost."

He threw his hands heavenwards and started across the floor.

"What is it, Marjorie?" asked the mother, who now stood in the pa.s.sageway, a corner of her ap.r.o.n held in both hands, a look of wonder and suspicion full upon her.

"No, Father!" the girl replied, apparently heedless of her mother's presence, "West Point is saved. Arnold has gone."

"Let him go. But West Point is still ours? Thank G.o.d! He is with the British, I suppose?"

"So they say. The plot was discovered in the nick of time. His accomplice was captured and the papers found upon him."

"When did this happen?"

"Only a few days ago. The courier was dispatched at once to the members of Congress. The message was delivered today."

"And General Arnold tried to sell West Point to the British?" commented Mrs. Allison, who had listened as long as possible to the disconnected story. "A scoundrel of a man."

"Three Americans arrested a suspicious man in the neighborhood of Tarrytown. Upon searching him they discovered some papers in the handwriting of Arnold containing descriptions of the fortress. They took him for a spy."

"I thought as much," said Mrs. Allison. "Didn't I tell you that Arnold would do something like that? I knew it. I knew it."

"Thank G.o.d he is not one of us," was Mr. Allison's grave reply. "His act would only serve to fan into fury the dormant flames of Pope Day."

"This is an act of vengeance," Marjorie reflected. "He never forgot his court-martial, and evidently sought his country's ruin in revenge.

Adversities he could contend with; humiliation he could not endure."

The little group presented a varied scene. The girl, young, tender, was plainly animated with a strong undercurrent of excitement which thrilled her entire frame, flushing her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes. Her tender years, her inexperience with the world, her guileless mind and frank open manner had not yet prepared her for the enormity of the crime which had of a sudden been flashed full upon her. For the moment realization had given way to wonder. She sensed only the magnitude of the tragedy without its atrocious and more insidious details. On the other hand there was the father, composed and imperturbable, to whom the disclosure of this scheme of the blackest treason was but another chapter added to the year of disasters which was just coming to a close.

His more astute mind, schooled by long experience with the world and its artifices, had taught him to view the transit of events with a certain philosophy, a sort of pragmatic philosophy, with reference to the causes and the results of events and how they bore on the practical utility of all concerned; and finally the mother, who in her devout and pious way, saw only the Holy Will of G.o.d working in all things for His own praise and glory.

"And they found the dispatches in his own writing?" the father asked deliberately.

"In his stockings, beneath the soles of his feet."

Again there was silence.

"He is a prisoner?"

"Of course. He was arrested for a spy. They say he is an Adjutant in the British army. He was in full disguise."

"Hm!"

Mr. Allison set his lips.

"I think," continued Marjorie, "that it was the effect of a stroke of good fortune. He was taken by three men who were lying in wait for robbers. Otherwise he might have continued his journey in safety and the plot would have succeeded."

"Thank G.o.d and His Blessed Mother!" breathed Mrs. Allison as she clasped her hands together before her in an att.i.tude of prayer.

"And Arnold?" methodically asked Mr. Allison.

"He escaped to the British lines. I do not know how, but it seems that he has departed. The one important item, which pleased and interested the people, was the capture of the spy and the frustration of the plot."

The father left the chair and began to pace the room, his hands behind him.

"It is a bad blow. Too bad! Too bad!" he repeated. "I do not like it, for it will destroy the courage and confidence of our people. Arnold was the idol of the army, and I fear that his defection will create a great change of heart."

"The army will be better off without him," said Mrs. Allison.

"I agree with you," was the reply. "But the people may decide in a different manner. There is reason for worry."

"What was the effect of Lee's attempted treason?" spoke up Marjorie.

"The people loathe him, and he will die an outcast."

"There is no punishment too severe for Lee. He has been from the start nothing but a selfish adventurer. But the cases are not parallel. Lee was never popular with the army. Arnold, you must remember, was the most successful leader in the field and the officer most prized by the Commander-in-chief."

"Nevertheless he will sink as fast as he climbed, I think. The country must not tolerate a traitor."

"Must not! But will not the circ.u.mstance alter the case? I say that unless the proofs of Arnold's treason are irrefutable, the people will be slow to believe. I don't like it. I don't."

There was some logic in his argument which began to impress Marjorie.

Arnold could exercise a tremendous amount of influence over the army.

Whether the strings of loyalty which had united their hearts with his would be now snapped by his act of perfidy was the mooted question. As a matter of fact a spirit of mutiny already was beginning to make itself manifest. The soldiers of Pennsylvania who were encamped on the heights of Morristown marched out of camp the following January and set out for Philadelphia. They were rebuked by Washington, who sent a letter by General Wayne, whereupon they returned to their posts. Later in the same month another mutiny occurred among the New Jersey troops, but this, too, was quickly suppressed. Just how much responsibility for these uprisings might be traced to the treason of Arnold can not be estimated.