“He will do until I reach my first stop,” said he.
“Good,” spoke the major as he watched the lad button the message tightly up in his breast pocket. “Make all haste.”
“You may depend upon me to do so,” returned Ezra evenly. “But first you must tell me where I am to go?”
Amazement was written large upon the soldier’s broad, red face at this. His eyes went to Abdallah; and the latter smiled easily.
“It is our way of conducting things,” said he. “We never allow our right hands to know what our left hands are doing.” Then turning to Ezra, he went on, “Return by way of Charlestown. Just outside of that village, near an elevation called Bunker Hill, there is a small place of resort known as the ‘Indian’s Head.’”
“Excellent!” Abdallah smiled pleasantly. “At the ‘Indian’s Head’ you will ask for Mr. Pennington. And when he is pointed out to you—by the landlord, mind you—deliver the message to him.”
“You understand perfectly?” inquired Jason Collyer.
“Perfectly,” replied Ezra, briefly. Then turning to the others he continued, “If that is all you have to say to me, I will be off at once.”
“That is all,” said Major Buckstone; and Abdallah smiled and inclined his hairless head.
They held candles for him as he went out, for night had come on.
“Ride carefully,” warned Major Buckstone. “It will be a dark night.”
“I am used to it,” said the boy, as he unfastened the tall bay and climbed into the saddle. “And then, this nag of mine has eyes like an owl.”
And so, with a shake of the rein and a wave of the hand to the three, the young patriot was off along the dark road, going by the way he had come.
HOW JASON COLLYER CAME TO THE “PLOW AND HARROW”
Once he had gotten the candle-light well out of his eyes, Ezra found that the darkness was not quite as thick as he had supposed.
“All of which suits my purpose very well,” he told himself, well pleased.
He had no idea of proceeding any great distance in the direction in which he was heading. He had promised to meet Ben Cooper at the place where the church tower reared itself above the tree-tops toward Chelmsford; and this he determined to do.
“If I fail to keep my promise, Ben will begin to imagine all sorts of things,” mused Ezra. “And, also, I’ll need to talk over this matter with him before I do anything.”