But half a mile farther on, his pleasure was forgotten in a keen excitement, for from a slight eminence, he saw the plain stretching to the right and left white with the tents of soldiery; and not ten paces from him a sentinel, with his back this way, sat on a fallen tree and read a letter. A few more steps, and he would have been in the hornets' nest,--a helpless captive. Instantly he dropped upon his knees, and crawled into the brush as stealthily as a creature of the jungle. He had evidently come too far west in his flight, for this was a part of Clinton's army, quartered here within easy reach of New York. Far away to either side the tents reached, dotting the whole expanse of country. To turn either wing looked like an impossibility; it would take him days to skirt those picket posts to the east; and on the west, he knew from what the fisherman had said that they must reach even to the hamlet whence the boats went daily to New York. To take that route meant a sure and swift destruction, since he would be thrusting himself into the very toils he longed to avoid. His one chance seemed to be a retreat the way he came, and then to beat his way to the northeast along the coast of the Sound, and get over to the Connecticut side on some fishing-boat. He would be weeks--perhaps months--longer in reaching Washington or home, but better that a thousand times than certain capture. He reasoned it all out carefully, lying under the thicket, and then lingered a few minutes to envy the unconscious sentinel his letter, for of course it was from home. How long it had been since he had heard aught of his loved ones--three weary months! Downcast and disheartened, he returned along his own trail, and in the early twilight heard the boom of the surf ahead of him. But he had missed his way somewhat, and came out of the brush on the side of the inlet across from the fisherman's hut. He found he would have to walk an extra mile or two to get back to that shelter for the night. He sighed and turned, but just at that moment there flashed upon his sight a light from a window some fifty yards down the inlet, and on the same side with himself. Stay; this was Dame Grant's hut, and she went to-morrow to the Jersey shore to visit her kin. He did not go back around the head of the cove, but turned instead into the field before this other hut, whose friendly light was winking at him through the dusk. His resolution was taken, for good or ill.