encounter that shape again. His request was granted. The sentry who
succeeded him was startled, in the small hours, by a rush of hoofs and
the flash of a pallid form. He fired at it, and thought that he heard the
sound of a mocking laugh come back.

Every night the phantom horseman made his rounds, and several times the
sentinels shot at him without effect, the white horse and white rider
showing no annoyance at these assaults. When it came the turn of a
sceptical and unimaginative old corporal to take the night detail, he
took the liberty of assuming the responsibilities of this post himself.
He looked well to the priming of his musket, and at midnight withdrew out
of the moonshine and waited, with his gun resting on a fence. It was not
long before the beat of hoofs was heard approaching, and in spite of
himself the corporal felt a thrill along his spine as a mounted figure
that might have represented Death on the pale horse came into view; but
he jammed his hat down, set his teeth, and sighted his flint-lock with
deliberation. The rider was near, when bang went the corporal's musket,
and a white form was lying in the road, a horse speeding into the
distance. Scrambling over the fence, the corporal, reassured, ran to the
form and turned it over: a British scout, quite dead. The daring fellow,
relying on the superstitious fears of the rustics in his front, had made
a nightly ride as a ghost, in order to keep the American outposts from
advancing, and also to guess, from elevated points, at the strength and
disposition of their troops. He wore a cuirass of steel, but that did not
protect his brain from the corporal's bullet.




DELAWARE WATER GAP