"A cutlass and pistols for me," said the publican, as he selected his weapons from several at hand. Arnold and Pamesack were each provided with a carbine, when Dauntrees, throwing his cloak across his shoulders, led the way to the horses, where the party having mounted, sallied through the gate of the fort at a gallop. Their road lay around the head of St. Inigoe's creek, and soon became entangled in dark, woody ravines and steep acclivities which presented, at this hour, no small interruption to their progress. Pamesack, on a slouching pony, his legs dangling within a foot of the ground, led the way with an almost instinctive knowledge of his intricate path, which might have defied a darker night. The stars shining through a crisp and cloudless atmosphere, enabled the party to discern the profile of the tree tops, and disclosed to them, at intervals, the track of this solitary road with sufficient distinctness to prevent their entirely losing it. They had journeyed for more than two hours in the depths of the forest before they approached the inlet of St. Jerome's. Dauntrees had beguiled the time by tales of former adventures, and now and then by sallies of humour provoked by the dubious valour of the innkeeper,--for Weasel, although addicted to the vanity of exhibiting himself in the light of a swashing, cut-and-thrust comrade in an emprise of peril, was nevertheless unable, this night, to suppress the involuntary confession of a lurking faint-heartedness at the result of the present venture. This inward misgiving showed itself in his increased garrulity and in the exaggerated tone of his vauntings of what he had done in sundry emergencies of hazard, as well as of what he had made up his mind to do on the present occasion if they should be so fortunate as to encounter any peculiarly severe stress of fortune. Upon such topics the party grew jovial and Dauntrees laughed at the top of his voice. "The vintner's old roystering courses would make us lose our road in downright blindness from laughing," he said, as checking himself in one of these out-breaks, he reined up his horse. "Where are we, Pamesack? I surely hear the stroke of the tide upon the beach;--are we so near St. Jerome's, or have we missed the track and struck the bay shore short of our aim?" "The she-fox does not run to her den where she has left her young, by a track more sure than mine to-night," replied the guide:--"it is the wave striking upon the sand at the head of the inlet: you may see the stars on the water through yonder wood." "Pamesack says true," added Arnold. "He has found his way better than a hound." A piece of cleared land, or old field, a few acres in width, lay between the travellers and the water which began now to glimmer on their sight through a fringe of wood that grew upon the margin of the creek or inlet, and the fresh breeze showed that the broad expanse of the Chesapeake was at no great distance.