He wheeled his horse and set off toward Hubbardton, cheerfully urging on the straggling, frightened soldiers. Five minutes later we had his papers aboard the Gates and were moving slowly southward. Behind us the dock was littered with abandoned stores; and the scrawny ox, dragging the half-unloaded cart, moved dejectedly along the road St. Clair had taken.

LVII

THE unreasoning fear called panic is an appalling thing. In its grip a man behaves insanely. Then, when he thinks himself free of its clutches, he is filled with a revulsion of feeling that makes him slack and careless; and this carelessness and slackness is often more dangerous than the panic itself.

No sooner were we clear of the dock than everyone aboard the galley seemed sunk in a sort of heedless languor. The soldiers, lately witless with confusion, were yawningly tranquil now: the women camp followers who had found their way aboard were quick with airy laughter: even the hopelessly sick men were transformed to hopeful convalescents.

As for Kidder’s seamen, they moved abstractedly about the deck as if they might, at any moment, be called away on other weightier affairs; and Kidder seemed reluctant to disturb them in their abstraction—seemed almost grateful that they deigned to travel on his craft. He used only two men to a sweep; and they, as if husbanding their strength for more remunerative labor, put no body into their movements: merely leaned against the oars.

So slight was the galley’s headway that she barely answered her helm. At such a rate, I knew, we’d be lucky to reach Skenesboro in ten hours.

I walked the length of the deck. There were men everywhere, packed between the guns, wrangling over nothing, pouring out misinformation on weighty matters, after the eternal manner of soldiers and sailors. If I could have had command of the Gates, I’d have put five men on every sweep, and driven them hard. That was Arnold’s way of doing things. “Once you make up your mind what to do,” I had heard him say a score of times, “do it quick! If you don’t, somebody may cut you off! The wind might drop, and leave you high and dry.”

The dreadful slowness of our progress set my teeth on edge. I walked back to the quarterdeck, meaning to suggest that Kidder let me put his idle men to work on the sweeps. The colonel was writing—a report of his movements no doubt—and was oblivious of my presence. Kidder saw me; but he pretended not to. He didn’t want me interfering with his vessel. I went back to the main hatch and sat down beside Doc.

Once again, on the far side of Mount Independence, I heard musketry fire. To me it sounded like the fire of trained troops—British troops. I liked it so little that I felt I must speak to the colonel, Kidder or no Kidder.