I watched him as long as I could. You may not be able sometimes to look in the darkness and find a figure, but when that figure departs from your side and you never take your eyes off it, you can follow it for a long way through the night. Thus I could watch Albert a hundred yards or more, and I saw that he veered in no wise from the course I had assigned to him, and kept his face turned to the army of Burgoyne. But I had not doubted that he would keep his word and would not seek to escape southward; nor did I doubt that he would reach his comrades in safety. I turned away, very glad that he was gone. Friends cause much trouble sometimes, but girls’ brothers cause more. I took my thoughts away from him and turned them to the business of going back into the house with the wad of uniform under my arm, which was very simple if things turned out all right. I believed that Whitestone would be on guard at the same place, which was what I wanted. I knew Whitestone would be the most vigilant of all the sentinels, but I was accustomed to him. One prefers to do business with a man one knows. I sauntered back slowly, now and then turning about on my heels as if I would spy out the landscape, which in truth was pretty well hid by the thickness of the night. As I approached the yard my heart gave a thump like a hammer on the anvil; but there was Whitestone on the same beat, and my heart thumped again, but with more consideration than before. I entered the yard, and Whitestone saluted with dignity. “Sergeant,” said I, “Lieutenant Belt is looking about on the other side of the house. He fears that his fever is coming on him again, and he will re-enter the house, but by the back door. I am to meet him there.” Sergeant Whitestone saluted again. I said naught of the bundle in the crook of my arm, which he could plainly see. “Sergeant,” said I, “what do you think of a man who tells all he knows?” “Very little, sir,” he replied. “So do I,” I said; “but be that as it may, you know that you and I are devoted to the patriot cause.” “Aye, truly, sir!” he said. We saluted each other again with great respect, and I passed into the house. Belt was still asleep upon the sofa and his fever was going down, though he talked now and then of the things that were on his brain when awake. The candle was dying, the tallow sputtering as the blaze reached the last of it, and without another the thickness of the night would be upon us. I ascended the stairway into the upper hall again, but this time with no attempt to rival a ghost in smoothness of motion. Instead, I stumbled about like a man in whose head hot punch has set everything to dancing. Presently Mistress Kate, bearing a candle in her hand and dressed as if for the day--at which I was not surprised--appeared from the side door.