Pursuit of the traitor was unavailing. He had four hours the start. The Vulture was yet lying below Teller's Point, awaiting the return of Andrè, and to the security of her bulwarks Arnold escaped. She proceeded to New York that evening, and Sir Henry Clinton, informed of the failure of the scheme, was unwilling to hazard an attack upon the Highland fortresses, now that the patriots were thoroughly awake. The main body of the American army was lying at Tappan, on the west side of the Hudson, near the present terminus of the New York and Erie Railroad. Thither Andrè was conveyed, after being brought to West Point, and in a stone house, near the head-quarters of the commander-in-chief, he was strongly guarded. On the twenty-ninth of September a court martial was convened near by, for his trial, and, after a patient investigation, it being proven, and confessed by the prisoner himself, that he was in the American lines (though not voluntarily) without a flag, they gave it as their opinion that he ought to suffer death as a spy. All hearts were alive with sympathy for the condemned, and Washington would gladly have saved his life; but the stern demands of the cruel and uncompromising rules of war, denied the petitions of mercy, and the Commander-in-chief was obliged to sign his death-warrant. He was sentenced to be hung on the afternoon of the first of October. [Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HEAD-QUARTERS AT TAPPAN.] Andrè exhibited no fear of death, and to the last the workings of his genius were displayed. On the morning of the day appointed for his execution, he sketched a likeness of himself with a pen and ink, and conversed cheerfully with those around him upon the pleasures of painting and kindred arts. But the _manner_ of his death disturbed his spirit. He pleaded earnestly to be _shot_ as a soldier, not _hung_ as a spy. But even this poor boon could not be allowed, for the rules of war demanded death by a cord and not by a bullet. His execution was delayed one day in consequence of the intercession of Sir Henry Clinton, and a hope that Arnold might be obtained and righteously suffer in his stead. All was unavailing, and Major Andrè, in the bloom of manhood, was hung at Tappan on the second of October, 1780, at the age of twenty-nine years. [Illustration: ANDRÈ'S PEN-AND-INK SKETCH OF HIMSELF.] The youth, accomplishments, and gentleness of manners of the young soldier, endeared him to all, and his fate was deeply regretted on both sides of the Atlantic. His king caused a mural monument, of elegant device, to be erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey; and in 1831, the Duke of York had his remains removed from Tappan and taken to London, where they now repose beneath his marble memorial, among those of many heroes and poets of old England. A halo of melancholy sweetness surrounds the name and character of the unfortunate youth which increases in glory with the flight of time. [Illustration: ANDRÈ'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]