“Nathaniel,” I said, and I contrived to keep my voice gentle, “come with us! In lots of ways, there isn’t anything more important in life than being able to say ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ It’s better to die with your own people than to live in torment forever for leaving them when they need you most.”

Nathaniel caught my wrist. “I’m not leaving them. Damn it, Peter, but you’re stubborn! I’m working for them! Look here—you don’t know what’s happening! You show it when you talk about our own people! There’s twenty-five thousand Loyalists under arms, Peter, fighting to keep America from being wasted and thrown away by lunatic Congressmen! Twenty-five thousand—as many as there are in the whole Continental Army! Aren’t they our people too? Aren’t they fighting the good fight? Aren’t they keeping the faith? Certainly they are! Major Peters, the commander of Burgoyne’s Canadians—he’s a Yale graduate; a fine fellow. There’s the Jessups and the DeLanceys and the Van Courtlands and—–”

Doc Means put his head out of the tent. The buffalo horns on his shaman’s headdress waggled, giving him an uncanny look. “This ain’t getting us nowhere,” he said, in a voice strangely mild for one of his hideous aspect.

“For God’s sake, Peter,” Nathaniel persisted, “can’t you see I know what I’m talking about? I don’t want you hanged!”

As Doc had said, we were getting nowhere: there was nothing to do but go. “I know you don’t, Nathaniel,” I said. “You’re thinking of my welfare, just as I’m thinking of yours. Now there’s something I want you to remember. We’re desperate, Doc and I. We’re going through to the American lines tonight. Of course you know that one careless word or one small scream out of any one of you, before we’re started, might put an end to all our chances.” I looked at him expectantly.

Nathaniel nodded.

“Very well,” I said, and I drew him back with me inside the tent. Then, although I spoke to Nathaniel, my words were intended for Marie de Sabrevois. “Since that’s understood, you’ll understand this, too: in spite of the two hundred Albany Tories who’ll be hanged if we don’t get through, I’m going to take a few ordinary precautions, even though they may seem unnecessary and even unpleasant. Remember I don’t want a sound from you, Nathaniel, or from that Indian woman there—or from any other!”