I bethought me at the door to bid one of the men stay and watch the house, for I knew not what further treachery the women might meditate. This stopped me only a moment, and then I ran after Whitestone, who was some steps in the lead. We overtook the man who had fired at Martyn, and he said he had hit him, so he thought. “When he sprang from the window he rose very light from the ground,” he said, “and I don’t think the fall hurt him much.” We saw Martyn some twenty yards or more in advance of us, running toward the south. It was of double importance now that we should overtake him, for if we did not he would be beyond our lines, and, barring some improbable chance, would escape to Clinton with a report of Burgoyne’s condition. The fugitive curved here and there among the shadows but could not shake us off. I held my loaded pistol in my hand and twice or thrice had a chance for a fair shot at him, but I never raised the weapon. I could shoot at a man in the heat of battle or the flurry of a sudden moment of excitement, but not when he was like a fleeing hare. Moreover, I preferred to take him alive. The moon was coming out, driving away part of the darkness, and on the bushes I noticed some spots of blood. Then the fugitive had been hit, and I was glad I had not fired upon him, for we would be certain to take him wounded. The course led over pretty rough ground. Whitestone was panting at my elbow, and two of the men lumbered behind us. The fugitive began to waver, and presently I noticed that we were gaining. Suddenly Martyn began to cast his hands as if he were throwing something from him, and we saw little bits of white paper fluttering in the air. I divined on the instant that, seeing his certain capture, he was tearing up traitorous papers. We wanted those papers as well as their bearer. I shouted to him to halt lest I fire. He flung a whole handful of scraps from him. Just then he came to a stump; he stopped abruptly, sat down upon it with his face to us, and drawing a pistol from his pocket, put it to his own head and fired. I was never more shocked in my life, the thing was so sudden. He slid off the stump to the ground, and when we reached him he was quite dead. We found no letters upon him, as in the course of his flight he had succeeded in destroying them all. But I had not the slightest doubt the order he had given to me would soon prove to be a forgery. His own actions had been sufficient evidence of that. I directed Whitestone to take the body to some safe place and we would give it quiet burial on the morrow. I did not wish the women to know of the man’s terrible fate, though I owed them scant courtesy for the way they had treated me. Leaving Whitestone and one of the soldiers to the task, I went back to the house alone. Mistress Kate and her mother were at the door, both in a state of high excitement. “Did he escape?” asked Madame Van Auken.