Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/253

 Dulcie! I had no right to ride past ye without the countersign!" she said quietly. "But come"—her voice changed—"now that ye know who I am, lead me to your officer. I have important news!"

It was not long, then, after the girl and the lad had entered the officer's hut, that the cannon given by General Washington for that purpose barked out its warning to the New Jersey countryside. Soon, too, great beacons, ready piled, blazed their message to the militia far and near.

Mehitable could see the scenes that were taking place in almost every home. The men leaping to arms, hurrying forth into the night with wives and children fetching their powder horns, their hats, their coats; the men reporting to their respective captains; the men, gathered together, marching to the point of battalion or regimental mobilization. She stood with clasped hands a little distance away from the cannon, gazing from the Sow's Back across distant valleys, and gloried in the answering beacon fires which sprang out against the darkness of the world, reassuring, magnificent.

"To arms! To arms!" thundered Old Sow.

"To arms! To arms!" came the echoes.

"We have armed! We have armed!" signalled the beacon fires.