"Ask my mistress," gasped Caesar, almost convinced that his last hour
had come, but still having firm faith in Mrs. Seymour. "Dun you know how
to speak to a lady?"

"I have safe-conduct from General Washington to enter New York," said
Mrs. Seymour calmly, extending her hand with the precious paper toward
the first speaker. The man took it, and gazed stupidly at it. Evidently
being German, he could not read it; but having turned it upside down and
gazed at it for some seconds, he gave a drunken leer as he peered inside
the coach.

"What you got in your hamper? blenty cognac, eh? Give us a pottle;
that's better than mugs of ale, eh, poys?" and he laughed uproariously.

"I shall give you nothing," said Mrs. Seymour firmly; "if you cannot
read my safe-conduct yourself, is there not one of your men who can?"

The Hessian was about to make angry reply, when a young fellow,
evidently an Englishman, shoved his way through the men to the coach
door.

"Stop that, Joris," he said, prodding the corporal with his elbow; "give
me the paper; I can read it." But Joris, who evidently had reached the
stage of ugly intoxication, did not choose to give it up, and stood his
ground.

"Ve wants cognac," he shouted, "an' you comes out, lady, an' ve'll find
for ourselves vhat you is," and seizing Mrs. Seymour by the arm he
attempted to drag her from her seat with some violence.