"Why should you think so, lad?" he asked, as if in surprise. "We had best
make the venture after midnight, rather than now while the enemy is
astir."

So great was my fear as to what the future might have in store for us that
I had failed to hear the hum of voices, until my attention was thus
attracted, and then I realized that it was yet quite early in the evening,
instead of well toward morning, as I had supposed.

Because he did not speak again I understood that Sergeant Corney was not
inclined for conversation, and I lay there motionless and silent until it
was as if twice four and twenty hours had passed, when the old man, rising
to a sitting posture, whispered, cautiously:

"I reckon, lad, that the time has come for us to make a try at deliverin'
the general's message. As I figger it, we had best bear off to the
westward, strikin' the fort on that side nearabout where the fragment of a
bush stands, than to push on for the main gate. It seems reasonable the
enemy will watch that part of the works closer than any other, in order to
guard against a sortie, an' if Colonel Gansevoort has been told of our
signals, every sentinel will be on the alert for us."

"Well?" I asked, as he ceased speaking for an instant.

"We'll do the trick after this fashion: You shall go ahead, an' I'll keep
two or three paces in the rear."

"Why do you propose such a plan as that?" I asked, suspiciously, and the
old man replied, hesitatingly, as if averse to having his reasons known: