"The chair," proceeded Grandfather, "was now continually occupied by some of the high tories, as the king's friends were called, who frequented the British Coffee House.
"Well, frequently, no doubt, the officers of the British regiments, when not on duty, used to fling themselves into the arms of our venerable chair.
"It certainly was little less than sacrilege," replied Grandfather; "but the time was coming when even the churches, where hallowed pastors had long preached the word of God, were to be torn down or desecrated by the British troops.
"Now, children," said Grandfather, "I wish to make you comprehend the position of the British troops in King Street.
After dark that night he circled the flanks of both armies and passed through the British out-guards and into the British lines.
The officers were discussing the advantage in numbers possessed by the enemy and the inability of the British to more than hold their present position.
"Is it more difficult than entering the British lines?" asked Tarzan.
Some officer he had known in London, doubtless, he surmised, and went his way through the British camp and the British lines all unknown to the watchful sentinels of the out-guard.
Clayton asked no questions--he did not need to--and the following day, as the great lines of a British battleship grew out of the distant horizon, he half determined to demand that he and Lady Alice be put aboard her, for his fears were steadily increasing that nothing but harm could result from remaining on the lowering, sullen Fuwalda.
Toward noon they were within speaking distance of the British vessel, but when Clayton had nearly decided to ask the captain to put them aboard her, the obvious ridiculousness of such a request became suddenly apparent.
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, did not ask to be transferred to the British man-of-war.
"Will not your Excellency order out the guard?" whispered Lord Percy, who, with other British officers, had now assembled round the General.
But the British officers deemed that they had seen that military cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded from the folds of the cloak, and glittered in a vivid gleam of light.
As the deep boom of the cannon smote upon his ear, Colonel Joliffe raised himself to the full height of his aged form, and smiled sternly on the British General.
With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his cloak, and drawing his granddaughter's arm within his own, retired from the last festival that a British ruler ever held in the old province of Massachusetts Bay.