"The night has already run into the morning watch, but the sun is backward to show himself in this latitude in the heart of winter.--I must depart, my friends, to rejoin you some ten hours hence: it will be necessary to look deeper into our scheme before we hazard anything, and no one can do the service but myself: where shall we meet again?"
"I have reason to think that there is an unfrequented ruin at no great distance from us," said Griffith; "perhaps we might find both shelter and privacy among its deserted walls."
"The thought is good," returned the Pilot, "and 'twill answer a double purpose. Could you find the place where you put the marines in ambush, Captain Manual?"
"Has a dog a nose? and can he follow a clean scent?" exclaimed the marine; "do you think, Signor Pilota, that a general ever puts his forces in an ambuscade where he can't find them himself? 'Fore God! I knew well enough where the rascals lay snoring on their knapsacks, some half an hour ago, and I would have given the oldest majority in Washington's army to have had them where a small intimation from myself could have brought them in line ready dressed for a charge. I know not how you fared, gentlemen, but, with me, the sight of twenty such vagabonds would have been a joyous spectacle; we would have tossed that Captain Borroughcliffe and his recruits on the point of our bayonets, as the devil would pitch----"
"Come, come, Manual," said Griffith, a little angrily, "you constantly forget our situation and our errand; can you lead your men hither without discovery, before the day dawns?"
"I want but the shortest half-hour that a bad watch ever traveled over to do it in."
"Then follow, and I will appoint a place of secret rendezvous," rejoined Griffith; "Mr. Gray can learn our situation at the same time."
The Pilot was seen to beckon, through the gloom of the night, for his companions to come forward; when they proceeded, with cautious steps, in quest of the desired shelter. A short search brought them in contact with a part of the ruinous walls, which spread over a large surface, and which, in places, reared their black fragments against the sky, casting a deeper obscurity across the secret recesses of the wood.