Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/62

 up and down the silent road. No one was in sight, and there seemed to be no choice. Anyone escaping to the safety of the British stronghold on Staten Island would ride south on the Second Road—the lane past the Todd farm—to Elizabeth Town and the Point and thence across Kill von Kull. Yet a flight to New York and British protection there would lead one north on the Second Road to Orange Valley and so to Newark and across the swamos to Paulus Hook and the ferry.

Choosing the road to the settlement, Sally noticed a queer, unearthly light succeeding the late afternoon glow, the forerunner of a storm. The trees, which all day long had drooped motionless beneath the abnormal heat, were now tossing their branches in a moaning wind, and miniature whirlwinds tore up the thick dust that lay over road and underbrush alike. A zigzag of lightning tore across the sky upon her left, ripping open a great black cloud which had thrust its threatening head up over the mountain.

Sally shuddered. Almost more than anything else in the world was she afraid of a thunderstorm! More often than she cared to admit before the ridicule of Master Todd had she sought the protection of her feather bed during the frequent electrical storms which every summer were wont to play up and down the valley between Newark and the First Mountain. But now she gritted her teeth;