Free Long Knife by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom Page A

deliver’d you. Wishing you Success.
    I am Sir your hble Serv t
    P. Henry
    My anxiety, he realized as he folded the letter and returned it to his pocket, is just that I can’t quite comprehend yet that they listened to me and said yes. My God, my God, what I have ahead of me.
    He had taken half a dozen steps when he sensed swift movement behind him, even before he consciously heard it; reacting with that rush of bristling readiness which had become second nature to him in the Indian campaigns, he spun about and dropped into a widestanced posture, poised on the balls of his feet, facing the dark forms that were advancing on him.
    One look at his coiled attitude and killing eye and the two thugs went cold with fright and forgot their motive. They backed off toward the shadows.
    George saw the glint of lamplight on a knife, and touched the hilt of his sword, but felt no urgency to drawn it. Suddenly in this confrontation he had grown completely calm, with a keen and happy serenity in which no doubts existed. Mirth bubbled up in him like an intoxicant.
    “Hey now, you two!” he roared into the night after their retreating shapes. “Hey, now, gents, you want a fight? Then come and let me sign you up … Ha! Ha! You can be my first volunteers! Gain yourselves a medal or two, and a plot of ground for your old age, eh? Ha, ha! Ha, ha!”
    He turned and strode on toward the inn, leaving behind him the echoes of his own voice, the renewed barking of unseen dogs, and the sounds of window casements flying open. And from the darkness beyond the tavern lights a snarly voice yelled back:
    “Ho, you crazy coxcomb! God blast yer eyes!”
    And its cackle of laughter trailed off in the darkness.
    N ELL LAY AWAKE IN HER LITTLE ROOM UNDER THE STAIRS OF THE inn. For hours she had been listening to hear a carriage stop outside, but none had. She was hopelessly wide awake. She had turned over a hundred times under the great thick down comforter, trying to find the magical position which would make her too drowsy to think about the red-haired young officer. She hadsensed today that his sojourn here in Williamsburg was about to end, and that he would soon be gone without ever having known of her yearnings. This morning, going to his room to change the linen, she had found him cleaning his long rifle, and all his books were off the shelf and in his trunk. He had looked up at her, smiled pleasantly enough, then returned to his maintenance of the weapon, preoccupied and seemingly not even aware of her presence. And then this evening the carriage had come to take him away again, and there had been something about his manner which had made her feel that his efforts here, whatever they might be, were coming to a conclusion.
    Suddenly now she heard the front door of the inn open and close, and she recognized his footsteps, that soft, swift tread, going up the stairs above her alcove. Her heart sank, then raced.
    He had not rung for her. If she was to see him she would simply have to go to his room unbidden. The thought of being so bold frightened her even more. What if he should leave before morning? she thought.
    Nell slipped out from the bed’s warmth, and the icy air chilled her through the thin nightdress. She put her feet into the slippers beside the bed, draped a blanket around her shoulders and clutched it with one hand, picked up a candlestick, and opened her door. She lit the candle at a sconce in the hallway and, trembling with cold and apprehension, quietly mounted the stairs, carrying the small flickering point of light, followed by the huge leaping shadow of herself on the stairwell walls. She turned at the top of the stairs and rapped delicately on his door. Often in her daydreams he had opened the door and taken her into his arms. She breathed deeply, waiting. There was a pause, then the door handle turned, the door opened a few inches, and Nell gasped. She was looking into one dark blue eye and the barrel of a flintlock pistol.
    He