I arrived at the rendezvous triumphant and serene in mind, a good five minutes before the time appointed, but found Gabriel Marion already awaiting me. He looked dejected, as if matters had gone awry, and I asked laughingly, for at the moment my spirits were high: “Have you failed to find anything that can be eaten, lad?” and he replied with a mournful shake of the head: “I am too much of a stranger in the city to be able to burst into a house uninvited and demand provisions. It was useless for me to go to your home, which I have called mine since coming to Charleston, for I knew you would bring away from there everything which might be of benefit to us, and where could I have gone in the hope of getting that which we need? Therefore have I come empty-handed, save for so much of powder and lead as you see in this bag.” He held toward me a small sack which might have contained a quart at the most, and was now more than one-third filled. “That is a richer find than you believed, Gabriel,” I said cheerily, at the same time producing the pistol old Simon had given me, “for we should be able to cut the bullets to fit these barrels, and although only a toy like this may not count for much against the king’s weapons, it is better than being empty-handed.” Then I showed him my store of provisions, which, small though it was, might suffice not very hungry boys for two meals, and he seemed to think we were fairly well supplied. “I cannot but believe, Rufus, that it is unwise thus to start off so suddenly and so unprepared,” he said, pulling aside the bushes which grew near a small creek making up from the river, disclosing to view the skiff of which Archie had spoken. “It would have been different if we knew that some important movement was near at hand, but thus to set off as if our friends needed us most urgently, giving no heed to what we might carry which would advantage them as well as ourselves, appears to me much like folly.” Then it was I explained why I had argued for a hurried departure, repeating that the desire to get away was great owing to the distrust in my mind regarding Seth Hastings, and when I was come to an end, he, opening his eyes full upon me, exclaimed: “And with all that in your heart you have given him an opportunity to play the traitor, if so be he is inclined that way!” Again I repeat that not until this moment did I realize the fact, and then like a flood came upon me all the suspicions which had been mine a short hour previous. Like the simple that I was, I would have given way to words of self-reproach and anger, but that he hushed me by laying his hand on my arm as he said: