“No; I’ve had orders to hold the schooner ready to take on twenty men of Major Simcoe’s troop.” “You have no idea when they’ll come aboard?” “No more’n a cat with six blind kittens.” “You are a good sailor and a daring one. Captain Elijah Sprigg, and the _Nancy Jane_ is not afraid of any weather that blows; so much I know of you and your ship. Could you get to sea in spite of the gale, the guard ships, and the fleet, if it were needful?” “Not in daylight, with women-folks aboard. And you wouldn’t want me to try it, neither, Captain Page.” “No,” I agreed thoughtfully. “A chance shot might make me poorer than any beggar that lives, Captain Sprigg. We must not take that risk.” “I thought ye wouldn’t want to. But if them soldiers ever get aboard of me, Miss Leigh’s charter goes glimmering, and so does her daddy’s tobacco, I guess.” Again I studied the awkward situation and a possible solution of it began to take some shape in my mind. “You could get under way after dark and crawl out of the harbor, do you think, Captain Sprigg?” I asked; “even if the weather does chance to be pretty bad?” “The weather will be no worse to-night than it is now,” he asserted. “But the frigate has come back, and the fleet will most likely get sailing orders. That means that my redcoat passengers will be atop of me sometime to-day.” At this I gave him some notion of what was in my mind. Champe had told me that the greater part of Major Simcoe’s command, the mounted Rangers, was still in the barracks, Sir Henry being reluctant to part with his best cavalry force until the last moment. Twice within the last two days the Rangers had been ordered out on the Tarrytown road to meet and repel incursions from our camps on the Hudson. Possibly a false alarm might be raised that would send them out again; and when I got this far, Sprigg interrupted me. “You’re a man of ideas. Captain Page, I’ll say that for ye, and a dum’ sight loyaler to your little girl than ye be to the coat you’re wearin’. I’ve got a man in my crew who lives up Tarrytown way; a good sharp fellow without any wool in his brains. He’s just back from home this morning, and I shouldn’t be at all s’prised if he c’d tell some sort of a yarn about Baylor’s Horse ’r Major Lee’s Legion a-swoopin’ down this way. If we only had a dollar ’r so to kind o’ stimulate his mem’ry--” I gave the captain two guineas. “Will that be enough?” “More’n enough; you make me recollect that old sayin’ about a fool and his money, Captain Page.” “Never mind: this is no time for half-measures. Get your man into action swiftly, and let him do what he has to without reference to me. A word to some under officer at the fort will be sufficient; it will reach Sir Henry Clinton as fast as an orderly can run with it.” “All right; so far, so good. What next?” I thought for a moment, and then asked how many men he mustered in his crew, and if they were dependable.