He laughed again, that silent, open-mouthed laugh: then abruptly became grim.

“So we’ll get away! We’ve got to get away! We’ve delayed ’em one day: we’ve got to delay ’em some more! Their army can’t move while we’re at large on the lake, and the way to stay at large is to get away—give ’em the slip! And we’ll do it! We’ll do it, because they’ll never expect us to do it!”

He banged his fist on the table. “By God, gentlemen, I’d like to see the faces of those British captains when they wake up tomorrow and find their noses stuck in an empty fox-hole!”

The captains chuckled. In a few short sentences Arnold had banished all their doubts and filled them with confidence and eagerness to be gone.

He took a paper from the table. “Listen to this, now, and for God’s sake make no mistakes. I want every captain to take the helm of his own vessel, and I want each one of you to put his best officer in the bow with a lantern screened in a canvas sack. We’ve got to go through that British fleet without a sound: understand? Without a single damned sound! If any of you runs ashore, the whole British fleet will be down on us like hornets, and have half of us aground in ten minutes. If anyone shouts: if anyone talks: if anyone shows a light, it’s all the same! We’re gone! Our goose is cooked! Understand?”

Nobody said anything.

“All right, then,” Arnold said. “I want each of you to put six stout men on your starboard bow with six spare oars. That’s to fend you off if you start to run ashore. Tell ’em to keep their mouths shut in case they have to do any fending, unless they want their gizzards blown out. Put your wounded under cover, where their groans can’t be heard, if they’re inclined to groan. Put ’em in the cabins, if you’ve got cabins. Put your look-out on your larboard bow with his screened lantern, to give you your steering directions. If he moves his lantern up and down, go straight ahead: if he circles it to larboard, steer to larboard: if to starboard, go to starboard. That’s easy enough, isn’t it?”

The captains agreed that it was.

“You’ll want one more lantern in your stern,” Arnold told them. “Screen it well, so it can only be seen from dead astern. Then all that’s necessary is for those with square sails to set ’em, along with your steering sails, run before the wind, and follow the lantern. Those with lateen rig need only the foresail. Understand?”

“Oars out or in?” Hawley asked.