Upstairs the general had moved into the room sacred to her spinster slumbers. The servants had taken holiday, it seemed, and the officers appeared to have been indifferent, or absent all day; for this room was in a vile condition, with even the bed not yet made up, and the curtains torn. In this and the front chamber, used commonly as my aunt’s own sitting-room, was a strange litter of maps, papers, and equipments, two swords, a brace of inlaid pistols, brass-plated, two Hessian hats, the trappings of a Brunswick chasseur, and a long military cloak with a gold-braided regimental number under a large crown on each shoulder. A sense of amusement stole over me, although I was so tired I could have fallen with fatigue. I was feeling my weakness, and suffering from what even to a man in health would have been great exertion. A full flask of rum lay on the table; I put it in my pocket, leaving the silver cover. Next I put on the long cloak, a tall Anhalter helmet, and a straight, gold-mounted sword. The pistols I took also, loading and priming them, and leaving only the box where they had lain. It was now almost ten, and I could not hope to be long left in easy possession. Then I turned to the table. Much of the confused mass of papers was in German. I put in my pocket a beautifully drawn map of our own lines at Valley Forge. I gave it to Alexander Hamilton soon after the war. A small pipe--I think the Germans call meerschaum--I could not despise, nor a great bundle of tobacco, which I thrust into the inside pouch of the cloak. Last I saw a sealed letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm von Specht, also one to Colonel Montresor. These were much to my purpose. Finally, as I heard the great clock on the stairway strike ten, I scribbled on a sheet of paper under Von Knyphausen’s arms, “Captain Allan McLane presents his compliments to General von Knyphausen, and hopes he will do Captain McLane the honour to return his visit.--February 20, 1778, 10 P. M.” I laughed as I went downstairs, in that mood of merriment which was my one sign of excitement at the near approach of peril. A pause at the grateful fire, and a moment later I was saddling Lucy, looking well to girth and bit, and last buckling on the spurs of a Hessian officer. In a few minutes I was trotting up Fifth street. I knew only that the too extended lines had been drawn in close to the city, after the sharp lesson at Germantown; but I did not know how complete were the forts and abatis crossing from the Delaware to the Schuylkill, to the north of Callowhill street. I meant to pass the lines somewhere, trusting to the legs of Lucy, who well understood the change of riders, and seemed in excellent condition.