Arnold eyed the western hills dubiously. A wall of dirty gray cloud had pushed up above them, and the sun had gone down into that darkling shroud. The color of the lake had changed to that of the slates on which we wrote in school; and in the gathering gloom the puffs of smoke that jetted from our own guns and those of the British were shot with a pinkish orange glare. The spruces on the island no longer stood out clear and distinct, but were a black barrier behind us: a threatening, saw-toothed barrier.

“No,” Arnold said. “By the time you’ve rounded up your attackers, it’ll be night, and I’ll need you right here. We’ve all got work to do—unless we want our bones to rest permanently at Valcour.”

Hawley clasped his hands behind him. I marveled at the length of his arms. His stubby fingers, twisting together, seemed to reach nearly to his knees. “I wouldn’t choose to have the charge of—the charge of cowardice stand against me.”

“Nobody’s accusing you of cowardice!” Arnold said quickly. “If it’ll make you feel any better, take two boats and half a dozen active men and try to get through her cabin windows just at dark.”

XXXVIII

WHEN darkness came at last, we had fought for five everlasting hours. The Royal Savage was in flames, set by the British when they saw Hawley’s and Nathaniel’s boats approaching. The British gunboats, battered and leaking, had pulled slowly away to the shelter of the ship and the schooners, which lay at the entrance of the channel, watching our shot-torn crescent like three cats sniffing a basket of sardines.

The ship, her view of us at last unobstructed by her own gunboats, fired five broadsides before night shut down. The solid shot screamed above us; a few, almost spent, thudded against a hull with the sound of a gigantic horse kicking a cavernous barn. Such, however, was her distance that we made no answer, but lay there licking the wounds we could see and hunting for the others whose existence we suspected.