Page:Tomlinson--The rider of the black horse.djvu/296

280 that were held by the Americans at Esopus, had come. How different everything now was! All danger, it was true, had not departed, but the threatened attack upon Esopus was frustrated, his own letter he had succeeded in retaining, and the chances of his being able to deliver it into the hands of General Clinton had greatly improved. Despite his feeling of weariness, Robert was almost light-hearted as he moved onward through the darkness. It was true that he was now without any means of defense, and his clothing did not permit of his making a very agreeable presentation of himself if he chanced to meet any one, but that meeting for the present was what he most of all desired to avoid.

Even the perplexing questions as to how it chanced that Hannah Nott and her mother should now be where Joseph had declared they were, and whether or not Dirck Rykman had been released by the patrols who had seized him under such suspicious circumstances, would soon be solved, he assured himself, if he could secure his horse again; and in the renewed interest which the conviction afforded he quickened the pace at which he was moving, and in certain parts of the road even found himself running in his eagerness.