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'What's that?' The Colonel's voice was very sharp.

Latimer delivered the burden of his news. 'The Governor is informed of the part I played in the raid last April.'

'Oons!' said Moultrie, startled. 'How d'ye know?'

'Read these letters. They'll make it plain. They reached me three days ago at Savannah.'

The Colonel took the papers Latimer proffered, and crossed to the window to peruse them. He was a stockily built man of middle height, twenty years older than his visitor, whom he had known from infancy. For Moultrie had been one of the closest friends of Latimer's father and his brother-in-arms in Grant's campaign against the Cherokees in which the elder Latimer had prematurely lost his life. And there you have the reason why Harry sought him now in the first instance, rather than Charles Pinckney, the President of the Provincial Congress, which the Royal Government did not recognize, or Henry Laurens, the President of the Committee of Safety, which the Royal Government recognized still less. The offices held by these two should have designated one or the other of them as the first recipient of this weighty confidence. But to either, Latimer had taken it upon himself to prefer the man who was in such close personal relations with himself.