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diff --git a/old/69849-h/69849-h.htm b/old/69849-h/69849-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index c0e4838..0000000 --- a/old/69849-h/69849-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12577 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html lang="en"> -<head> - <meta charset="UTF-8"> - <title> - Mr. Arnold, by Francis Lynde—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> - <style> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - -.tdr {text-align: right;} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal; - font-variant: normal; - text-indent: 0; -} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -.x-ebookmaker .blockquot { - margin-left: 7.5%; - margin-right: 7.5%; -} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph3 {text-align: center; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - -.xxlarge {font-size: 200%;} -.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} -.large {font-size: 125%;} - -.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; - page-break-inside: avoid; - max-width: 100%; -} - -p.drop-cap { - text-indent: -0.35em; -} - -p.drop-cap:first-letter -{ - float: left; - margin: 0em 0.15em 0em 0em; - font-size: 250%; - line-height:0.85em; - text-indent: 0em; -} -.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap { - text-indent: 0em; -} -.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap:first-letter -{ - float: none; - margin: 0; - font-size: 100%; -} - -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; - padding: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - -</style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mr. Arnold, by Francis Lynde</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Mr. Arnold</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A romance of the Revolution</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Francis Lynde</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: John Wolcott Adams</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 21, 2023 [eBook #69849]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. ARNOLD ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/deco-top.jpg" alt=""></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<p>“Mais j’y suis, et, mes bons<br> -camarades, par tous les dieux,<br> -j’y reste!”</p> -</div></div> - -<p class="center">CHARLES K. JOHNSTON.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/deco-bottom.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>MR. ARNOLD</h1> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<p><span class="xxlarge">MR. ARNOLD</span></p> - -<p><span class="xlarge">A ROMANCE OF THE REVOLUTION</span></p> - -<p><i>By</i><br> -<span class="large">FRANCIS LYNDE</span><br> -<i>Author of</i><br> -<span class="smcap">The Grafters</span>, <span class="smcap">The Master of Appleby</span>,<br> -<span class="smcap">The Quickening</span>, <span class="smcap">Etc.</span></p> - -<p><i>Frontispiece by</i><br> -<span class="large"><span class="smcap">John Wolcott Adams</span></span></p> - -<p>INDIANAPOLIS<br> -THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br> -PUBLISHERS</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1923<br> -By The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span><br> -<br> -<br> -<i>Printed in the United States of America</i><br> -<br> -<br> -PRESS OF<br> -BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br> -BOOK MANUFACTURERS<br> -BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table> - -<tr><td class="tdr"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I</td><td>   <span class="smcap">How We Drank a Toast</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1"> 1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II</td><td>   <span class="smcap">A Voice in the Night</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13"> 13</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III</td><td>   <span class="smcap">In Which I Shed My Rank</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32"> 32</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV</td><td>   <span class="smcap">How My Rank Was Regained</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50"> 50</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">V</td><td>   <span class="smcap">A Kiss and a Man’s Life</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73"> 73</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VI</td><td>   <span class="smcap">Dark Night</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85"> 85</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">And an Unblest Dawn</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_93"> 93</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VIII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">A Walk up Gallows Hill</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104"> 104</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IX</td><td>   <span class="smcap">In Which I Pay a Duty Call</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114"> 114</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">X</td><td>   <span class="smcap">In Which a Wall Has Ears</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131"> 131</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XI</td><td>   <span class="smcap">Out of the Nettle, Danger</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146"> 146</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">How the Hook Was Baited</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_163"> 163</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">How a Fish Was Hooked and Lost</span>    </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_176"> 176</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIV</td><td>   <span class="smcap">A Cask of Bitters</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_192"> 192</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XV</td><td>   <span class="smcap">In the Fog</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_205"> 205</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVI</td><td>   <span class="smcap">The Cup of Tantalus</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_209"> 209</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">Masked Batteries</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_221"> 221</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">In Which the Wind Keeps Revels</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239"> 239</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIX</td><td>   <span class="smcap">Mine Honor’s Honor</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_256"> 256</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XX</td><td>   <span class="smcap">Traitors All</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_277"> 277</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXI</td><td>   <span class="smcap">The Drumhead Court</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_296"> 296</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">In the Powder-Room</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_307"> 307</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIII</td><td>   <span class="smcap">Open Field and Running Flood</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_329"> 329</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph3">MR. ARNOLD</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> -<p class="ph2">MR. ARNOLD</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">I<br> - -<small>HOW WE DRANK A TOAST</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IF THERE were nothing else to recall the day and -date, December 14, 1780, I should still be able to -name it because it chanced to be my twenty-second -birthday, and Jack Pettus, of the Virginia Hundreds, -and I were breaking a bottle of wine in honor of it in -the bar of old Dirck van Ditteraick’s pot-house tavern -at Nyack.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was cold and gray and dismal. The -wine was prodigiously bad; and the tavern bar, lighted -by a couple of guttering candles in wall sconces, was a -reeking kennel. I was hand-blistered from my long -pull down the river from Teller’s Point; and Jack, who -had ridden the four miles from General Washington’s -headquarters at Tappan to keep the mild birthday wassail -with me, was in a mood bitter enough to kill whatever -joy the anniversary might be supposed to hold -for both or either of us.</p> - -<p>“I’m telling you, Dick, we’re miles deeper in the -ditch than we’ve been any year since this cursed war -began!” he summed up gloomily, when we had chafed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> -in sour impatience, as all men did, over the sorry condition -of our rag-tag, starving patriot army. “Four -months ago we had eight thousand men fronting Sir -Henry Clinton here in the Highlands; to-day we -couldn’t muster half that number. Where are all the -skulkers?”</p> - -<p>“Gone home to get something to eat,” I laughed. -“We need to hang a few commissary quartermasters, -Jack.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t all in the commissary,” he contended, -“though I grant you there are empty bellies enough -among us. But above the belly-pinching, it’s the example -set by that thrice-accursed traitor, Arnold, in -his going over to the enemy. Not a night passes now -but some troop breaks the number of its mess by losing -a man or two to the southward road.”</p> - -<p>“But not Baylor’s,” I qualified. Pettus was a -lieutenant in Major Henry Lee’s Light Horse Legion, -and I a captain in Baylor’s Horse, at the moment -posted at Salem on scouting duty.</p> - -<p>“Our record is broken,” he confessed, staring soberly -at his wine-cup. “Some time back, John -Champe, our sergeant-major, took the road at midnight, -beat down the vidette with the flat of his sword, -and galloped off, with Middleton and his troop in hot -pursuit. They rode till dawn, and were in good time -to see Champe take to the river at Bergen and swim -out to a king’s ship anchored off-shore.”</p> - -<p>“We of Baylor’s are whole yet, thank God, save -for the potting of a man or so now and then by the -Cow-boys,” I boasted.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>“The Light Horse is stirred to the very camp-followers -by Champe’s desertion,” Pettus went on, with -growing bitterness. “It’s the honor of the South.” -Then, Van Ditteraick’s vile vintage getting suddenly -into his blood, he clapped bottle to cup again and -sprang to his feet. “A toast!” he cried. “Fill up and -drink with me to the honor of Virginia!”</p> - -<p>“Always and anywhere, and in any pot-liquor, -however bad,” said I; and when he let me have the -bottle I filled the cup, and was glad to note that my -hand was still steady.</p> - -<p>“Now, then—standing, man, standing!” he bellowed, -waving me up: “Here’s to the loyalty of the -Old Dominion, and may the next Virginian who -smirches it, though that man be you or I, Dick Page, -live to lose the woman he loves, and then die by inches -on a gibbet, with crows to pluck his eyes out!”</p> - -<p>If I smiled in my cup it was at the naming of a -woman in the curse, and not at Jack’s extravagance, -nor at the savage sentiment. For we of Baylor’s had -privately agreed and sworn to flay alive and burn the -first man caught deserting the colors, no matter what -his name should be nor how high his standing.</p> - -<p>After drinking his terrible toast, Jack dropped -into his chair and relapsed into silence; whereat I had -a chance to look about me, and to gather myself for -the question which, more than the mere drinking of a -birthday bottle with Pettus, had brought me to the -point of asking Colonel Baylor’s leave to ride and row -from our camp at Salem to Nyack on this raw December -day.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>“Jack,” I began, when the silence had sufficed, -“are you sober enough to thread a needle for me in -that matter of Captain Seytoun’s?”</p> - -<p>“Try me and see, Dick,” he said promptly, sitting -up and pushing the bottle aside.</p> - -<p>“Word came to me yesterday, through Martin, the -orderly who rode with despatches from the commander-in-chief -to Colonel Baylor, that Seytoun had been -talking again,” I went on, trying to keep the rage -tremor out of my voice. “Martin had it that he had -been revamping that old lie about the Pages and the -ship-load of loose-wives sent over to Virginia in -Charles II’s time. Is this true?”</p> - -<p>Pettus shook his head, not in denial, I made sure, -but in deprecation.</p> - -<p>“This is no time to be stirring up past and gone -private quarrels, Dick,” he said. “The good cause -needs every sword it has; Bully Seytoun’s, as well as -yours.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not answering my question, Jack,” I retorted, -fixing him with hot eyes. “I heard this of -Captain Seytoun, and more: it was said that he cursed -me openly, and that he dragged in the name of Mistress -Beatrix Leigh, swearing that he would take her -from me if I were thrice wedded to her.”</p> - -<p>“A mere pot-house tongue-loosing when he was -in liquor, Dick,” said my friend placably. “It was -here, in this very den of Van Ditteraick’s.”</p> - -<p>“Then you heard him?”</p> - -<p>Pettus nodded. “And can testify to his befuddling.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>“He shall answer for it some day, drunk or sober,” -I vowed; and then I stood my errand fairly upon its -rightful feet. “That is what fetched me to Nyack to-day, -Jack. There must be some accommodation -brought about with Captain Seytoun. I am not made -of sheepskin like a drumhead—to be beaten upon forever -without breaking.”</p> - -<p>“‘Accommodation’?” Jack queried, with a lip-curl -that I did not like.</p> - -<p>“Yes. You are near to Major Lee, who is your -very good friend, Jack; a word from you to the major, -and from the major to Captain Seytoun——”</p> - -<p>Pettus never knew what it cost me to say this, or -he would not have countered upon me so fiercely.</p> - -<p>“Good heavens, Dick Page! Has it come to this?——are -you asking me to go roundabout to Seytoun -to cry ‘Enough!’ for you? Where is your Virginia -breeding, man!—or have you lost it campaigning in -this cursed country of the flat-footed Dutch?”</p> - -<p>I smiled. This, you may notice, was my cool-blood -Jack Pettus, who, but a moment earlier, had -been telling me that the present was no time to be -stirring up private quarrels. But my word was passed—as -I knew only too well, and as he could not know.</p> - -<p>“I can’t fight Captain Seytoun, Jack; but neither -can I brook his endless tongue-lashing,” I said, moodily -enough, no doubt.</p> - -<p>“‘Can’t’ is no gentleman’s word, Dick,” he insisted, -still fiercely emphatic upon the point of honor.</p> - -<p>“But just now you said that private quarrels——”</p> - -<p>“I was drunk then, on this vinegar stuff of Van<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> -Ditteraick’s; but I’m sober now. This thing that you -propose is simply impossible, Dick. Can’t you see that -it is?”</p> - -<p>I must confess that I did see it as a miserable -choice between two evils. But my chance to win the -love of Mistress Beatrix Leigh had not been lightly -earned, and though it was but a chance, I dared not -throw it away.</p> - -<p>“But if I have a good reason—the best of reasons—for -not fighting Captain Seytoun at the present -time,” I began.</p> - -<p>Pettus flung up his hand impatiently.</p> - -<p>“You are the judge of that; also of how far a gentleman -from Virginia may go in the matter of eating -dirt at his enemy’s hands. But don’t ask me to carry -your apologies for his insults to this bully-ragging -captain, Dick. I’m your friend.”</p> - -<p>I made the sign of acquiescence. The war would -end, one day, and then I should be free of my fetterings. -Since our legion had been sent across the river, -I had had no opportunity of collision with Captain -Seytoun—the opportunity which had recurred daily -while the two legions, Baylor’s and Major Lee’s, had -been quartered together below Tappan. If the gossiping -orderly had only kept a still tongue in his head—but -he had not, and here I was at Nyack, on Seytoun’s -side of the river, with my finger in my mouth, like a -schoolboy caught putting bent pins on the master’s -seat, mad to have it out once for all with my tormentor, -but more eager still to get away with a whole -conscience.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>Matters were at this most exasperating poising-point, -with the two of us sitting on opposite sides of -the slab drinking-table and glowering at the half-emptied -wine-bottle, when the choice was suddenly -taken from me. There was a medley of hoof-clinkings -on the stones of the inn yard, a great creaking of -saddle leather and clanking of accouterments to go -with the dismounting, and some four or five officers -of Lee’s Horse tramped into Van Ditteraick’s bar and -called for refreshment.</p> - -<p>Being fathoms deep in an ugly mood, I did not -look up until I felt Jack calling me with his eyes. -Then I saw that one of the in-comers was none other -than this same Captain Howard Seytoun; that his red -face and pig-like eyes spoke of other tavern visits -earlier in the day; and that the ostentatious turning of -his back upon me was merely the insulting preface to -what should follow.</p> - -<p>What did follow gave me no time to consider. As -if he were resuming a conversation that moment interrupted, -Seytoun turned to the man next at hand—it -was Cardrigg, of his own troop—and began to harp -on the old out-worn lie; of how Richard Page, first of -the name, had got his wife out of that ship-load of -women gathered up by the London Company from -God knows where and sent out to Virginia to mate -with our pioneers, and how the taint had come down -the line to make cowards of the men, and——</p> - -<p>I think he was going, on to tell how it wrought in -the women of our house when my hand fell upon his -shoulder and he was made to spin around and face me.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -I do not know what I said; nor would Jack Pettus tell -me afterward. I know only that there was a hubbub -of voices, that the murky candlelight of the dismal -kennel had gone red before my eyes, that Seytoun’s -fat hand was lifted, and that before it could fall I had -done something that brought sudden quiet in the low-ceiled -room, like the hush before a tornado.</p> - -<p>Seytoun was dabbling his handkerchief against -the livid welt across his cheek when he said, with an -indrawing of the breath: “Ah-h! So you <i>will</i> fight, -then, after all, will you, Mr. Page? I had altogether -despaired of it, I do assure you. To whom shall I -send my friend?—and where?”</p> - -<p>Pettus saved me the trouble of replying; saved me -more than that, I think, for the red haze was rising -again, and Seytoun’s great bulk was fast taking the -shape of some loathsome thing that should be throttled -there and then, and flung aside as carrion.</p> - -<p>“Captain Page lodges with me to-night at Tappan,” -I heard Jack say, and his voice seemed to come -from a great distance. And then: “I shall be most -happy to arrange the business with your friend, Captain -Seytoun, the happier, since my own mother’s -mother was a Page.” After which I was as a man -dazed until I realized that we were out-of-doors, Pettus -and I, in the cold frosty mist, and that Jack was -pitching me into the saddle of a borrowed horse for -the gallop to the camp at Tappan.</p> - -<p>“I’ve taken it for granted that your leave covers -to-night and to-morrow morning,” said this next -friend of mine, when we were fairly facing southward.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>“It does,” I replied; and then with the battle murmur -still singing in my ears, and the hot blood yet -hammering for its vengeful outlet: “Let it be at daybreak, -in the grass cove at the mouth of the creek, and -with trooper swords.”</p> - -<p>It was coming on to the early December dusk when -we rode through the headquarters cantonments below -Tappan village, and the four miles had been passed in -sober silence. I know not what Jack Pettus was -thinking of to make him ride with his lips tight shut; -but I do know that my own thoughts were far from -clamoring for speech. For now a certain thing was -plain to me, and momently growing plainer. By -some means Seytoun had learned that I was under -bond not to fight him, and he knew what it would cost -me if I did. Wherefore, his repeated provocations -had an object—which object would be gained, and at -my expense, whichever way the morning’s weather-cock -of life and death should veer.</p> - -<p>Hot on this thought came the huge conviction that -I had merely played into my sworn enemy’s hands. -If he should kill me, I should certainly be the loser; -if I should kill him, I should still be the loser, with the -added drawback of being alive to feel my loss.</p> - -<p>We were walking the horses, neck and neck, up the -low hill leading to the legion cantonments when I -asked Jack what I had said and done in Van Ditteraick’s, -and if it were past peaceful, or at least postponing, -remedy.</p> - -<p>“Never tell me you don’t know what you said and -did, Dick,” he laughed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>“But I don’t,” I asserted, telling him the simple -truth. “I saw things vaguely, as if the place were -filled with a red mist, and there was a Babel of voices -out of which came a great silence. Then I saw Seytoun -with his handkerchief to his face.”</p> - -<p>“You saw and heard and did quite enough,” he -replied, and his smile was grim. “And there is no -remedy, save that which the doctors—and sundry hot-blooded -gentlemen of our own ilk—are fond of; -namely, a bit of blood-letting.”</p> - -<p>“Yet, Jack,” I stammered, “if I say that some -remedy must be found; that it is worse than folly for -me to fight this man at this time?”</p> - -<p>He stopped his horse short in mid-road and swore -at me like the good friend he was.</p> - -<p>“If you could turn your back on this now, Dick -Page,” he raged, when the cursing ammunition was -all spent, “I could believe at least one thing the captain -says of you. He called you a coward,—as I remember,—and -put a scurrilous lie on all the Pages since -the first Richard to account for it. Great heavens, -Dick! can’t you see that this lie must not go uncontradicted?”</p> - -<p>“You are altogether right, Jack,” I acquiesced; and -then, telling the simple truth again: “This day I -seem to have lost what little wit I ever had. As you -say, there is no remedy, now; so we fight at daybreak.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you do,” said Pettus; and so we rode -on to the horse-rope where the legion mounts were -tethered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>It was at the door of Pettus’s quarters, one of the -rude log cabins chinked with clay that the army had -been throwing up for winter shelters, that a surprise -was awaiting me in the greeting of Melton, a young -Pennsylvanian who was acting-orderly for General -Washington.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, Captain Page,” he said pleasantly. -“You have despatches from Colonel Baylor for the -general?”</p> - -<p>“No, Mr. Melton,” I replied, wondering a little. -“I am on leave until to-morrow. This is my birthday.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said he, taking my hand most cordially, -“allow me to wish you many happy returns.” Then -he went back to the matter of the despatches I was -supposed to be carrying. “It is very singular; Mr. -Hamilton seemed quite sure, and he was certainly advised -of your coming to Tappan headquarters. Perhaps -you will be good enough to report to him—after -supper?”</p> - -<p>I said I should be honored, and he went his way -and left us to our frugal evening-bread—how the -Dutch speech clings when once you have washed your -mouth with their country wine!—prepared for Pettus -by his scout and horse-holder.</p> - -<p>It was not a very social meal, that supper in Pettus’s -hut before the cheerful open fire—fire being the -one thing unstinted in that starving camp. My -thoughts were busy with the meshings of the net into -which I had stumbled; and as for Jack, I think he -must have been eager to get me out of the way before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> -Seytoun’s second should call. At any rate, it was he -who reminded me of Melton’s hint that I would be -expected at General Washington’s headquarters, and -I do him no more than fair justice when I say that he -sped the parting guest quite as heartily as he had welcomed -the coming.</p> - -<p>So it came about that it was still early when I set -out in the starlight for the low tilt-eaved farm-house -a half-mile farther up the road, passing on the way the -field where poor Major André had paid his debt and -where he now slept in his shallow grave; passing also, -a scant hundred yards from the great chief’s headquarters, -the fortress-like stone house where André -had heard his sentence and spent his last night upon -earth.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">II<br> - -<small>A VOICE IN THE NIGHT</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">I  FOUND Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton waiting for -me in that room of the De Windt house which -served as an outer office in the commander-in-chief’s -suite. It was my first visit to our army’s brain and -nerve center since the execution of Major André, and -I saw, in the posting of double sentries and by the -many times I was halted before I could come to the -door of Mr. Hamilton’s room, one of the consequences -of Arnold’s treason. Our general was no -longer free to go and come and be approached as -simply as he had been in former times.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hamilton’s greeting was as pleasant as Melton’s -had been, though few ever saw him otherwise -than cordial and suave. A slender fine-faced stripling, -with the deep-welled eyes, short upper lip and -sensitive mouth of his French mother, a man but little, -if any, older than I, he had the manner of a true -gentleman gently bred, and few as were his years, he -carried a wise head on his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, Captain Page. Come in and -stretch your legs before my fire,” he said; “you have -the first requisite of a good soldier, Captain; you -come promptly when you are called.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>At first I thought he was rebuking me gently because -I had stopped to sup with Jack before reporting -myself, but a quick glance at his smiling eyes showed -me that I was wrong. Yet without that explanation -I was left in the dark as to his meaning.</p> - -<p>“A soldier’s call is apt to be an order, Mr. Hamilton,” -I said, giving him the lead again.</p> - -<p>“So was yours,” he announced. “But we scarcely -looked for you to come before midnight, ride as you -would.”</p> - -<p>“I was sent for?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Surely; didn’t you know it?”</p> - -<p>“I did not. I left Salem at daybreak, with two -days’ leave from Colonel Baylor.”</p> - -<p>“In that case,” he said reflectively, “you should -have met Halkett on the road, riding with letters to -you and to Colonel Baylor.”</p> - -<p>“I did not come by the main road to King’s Ferry. -I had agreed to meet Lieutenant Pettus at Nyack, -and——”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” he said, smiling again; “a drinking bout at -Van Ditteraick’s in honor of your birthday, I take it. -You are sad roisterers—you Virginia gentlemen”—a -thing he could say and carry off, since he was himself -West-Indian born.</p> - -<p>“It was but a single bottle, I do assure you, Mr. -Hamilton,” I protested; “and such wine as would -make one vow never to be caught under the shadow -of a grape-vine again.”</p> - -<p>“Still, you are sad roisterers,” he persisted quietly. -“And it was precisely because you are the saddest of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -them all, and, besides, the greatest daredevil in your -own or any other troop, that you were sent for at this -particular time, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>I hope I was not past blushing at the left-handed -compliment, well-meant as it seemed to be. Some few -passages there had been in my captaincy where foolhardy -daring had taken the reins after wise caution -had dropped them hopelessly upon the horse’s neck, -and the event on each occasion had had the good luck -to prove the wisdom of the foolishness. But as for -being a daredevil—why, well, that is as it may be, too. -The veriest sheep of a man will often fight like the -devil if you can corner him and get him well past caring -too much for the precious bauble called life.</p> - -<p>But I was killing time, and Mr. Hamilton was -waiting.</p> - -<p>“Don’t count too greatly upon a roisterer’s courage,” -I laughed. “But what desperate venture does -his excellency wish to send me on, Mr. Hamilton?”</p> - -<p>He held up a slim hand warningly.</p> - -<p>“Softly, Captain Page, softly: the commander-in-chief -is not to be at all named in this. You will take -your orders from me—if you take them from any one; -though as to that, there will be no orders. And you -have hit on the proper word when you call the venture -‘desperate.’”</p> - -<p>“You are whetting my curiosity to a razor-edge,” -I averred, laughing again. “By the time you reach -the details I shall be ripe for anything.”</p> - -<p>He sat staring at the blazing logs for a long minute -before he began again; not hesitating, as I made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -sure, but merely arranging the matter in orderly sequence -in his mind.</p> - -<p>“First, let me ask you this, Captain Page,” he began -at the end of the forecasting minute. “You come -of a long line of gentlemen, and no one knows better -what is due to a keen sense of honor. How far would -that sense of honor let you go on a road which would -lead to Sir Henry Clinton’s discomfiture and possible -overthrow?”</p> - -<p>“There need be little question of honor involved -in dealing with Sir Henry Clinton,” I replied -promptly. “When he bought Benedict Arnold for a -price, and sent his own adjutant-general into our -lines as a spy, he set the pace for us. I’d keep faith -with any honest enemy, to the last ditch, Colonel -Hamilton; but on the other hand, I’d fight the devil -with fire, most heartily, if need were, and take no hurt -to my conscience.”</p> - -<p>“Then I may go on and tell you where we stand. -You know very well, Captain Page, the ill effects of -Arnold’s treason and desertion; how the infection is -spreading in the rank and file.”</p> - -<p>I said that I did know.</p> - -<p>“This infection is like the plague; it must be -stamped out at any cost,” he declared, and the deep-welled -eyes flashed angrily. “It is a double evil, sapping -the honor of our army on the one hand, and -bringing us into contempt with the enemy on the -other. The remedy must be a sharp lesson, no less to -Sir Henry Clinton than to the traitors. Do you see any -way in which it can be administered, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>“If you could once lay hands on Benedict Arnold,” -I suggested.</p> - -<p>Hamilton nodded slowly.</p> - -<p>“You have put your finger most accurately on the -binding strand in the miserable knot. If the chief -traitor could be apprehended and brought to justice, -it would not only stay the epidemic of desertion, it -might also convince Sir Henry that we are not to be -treated as rebels beyond the pale of honest warfare.”</p> - -<p>“Truly,” I agreed. “I wonder it hasn’t been done -before this.”</p> - -<p>“It has been tried, Captain Page. Let me tell you -a thing that is thus far known only to our general, to -Major Lee and myself. You have heard of the desertion -of a certain sergeant from our army?”</p> - -<p>I bowed, saying that I had and knew the man’s -name.</p> - -<p>“This sergeant posed as a deserter only for the -better concealment of his purpose; he went upon this -very errand we are speaking of. He is in New York -now, and is not only unable to accomplish his object, -but is in hourly danger of apprehension and death as -a spy.”</p> - -<p>“Pardon me, Colonel Hamilton,” I broke in, “but -you should not have sent, as they say, a boy to mill. -This man would be helpless if only for the reason -that he comes from the ranks. Arnold was always a -stickler for the state and grandeur of his office; a -common soldier could never get near enough to plot -against him.”</p> - -<p>“Again you have touched upon the heart of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -matter, Captain Page. The commander-in-chief suffered -the sergeant to go in the first instance (he volunteered -for the enterprise, you understand) because -he was only a sergeant, and it was not thought to be -an errand upon which a commissioned officer could -honorably go. But now the affair is all in confusion. -The enterprise promises to fail, and our man may -easily lose his life on the gallows.”</p> - -<p>I rose to terminate the interview.</p> - -<p>“Are there any special instructions for me, Colonel -Hamilton?” I asked.</p> - -<p>The general’s aide laughed like a pleased child and -bade me sit down again.</p> - -<p>“What a hot-headed firebrand you are, to be sure, -Captain!” he said warmly. “I was certain you would -not fail us. Have you no curiosity to learn how the -choice fell upon you?”</p> - -<p>“None whatever,” I replied. “I’m vastly fonder of -action than of the whys and wherefores.”</p> - -<p>“Then I need only say that you have me to thank -for the choice. When it was decided to seek for a -stronger head than the sergeant’s seems to be, the -choice of the man was left to me, and it was agreed -that no one else should know. So this is strictly between -us two, as it should be. Colonel Baylor merely -knows that you have been detailed for special duty.”</p> - -<p>“Good,” I commented. It was best so. By this -means I should stand or fall quite alone, as the leader -of a forlorn hope should be willing to do.</p> - -<p>“As for your instructions, there can be none at all. -Our information from the sergeant is most meager;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -and if it were not, we should not hamper you. Haste -and success are your two watchwords. Have you -money?”</p> - -<p>I had. The Page tobacco of the year before had -escaped the clumsy British blockade, and when we -Pages sell our tobacco, we lack for nothing in reason.</p> - -<p>“That is a comfort,” he smiled. “Our sergeant -begged for five guineas in one of his letters, and I -promise you we had to scratch painstakingly before -we found them. Now for your plan: have you any?”</p> - -<p>“The first move is simple enough,” I rejoined. -“I shall desert, as the sergeant did, and throw myself -into the arms of the enemy. After that—well, sufficient -unto the moment will be the evil thereof. I -must be guided wholly by conditions as I find them.”</p> - -<p>“So you must. And for your communications -with me, you may use the same channel the sergeant -is using—a Mr. Baldwin, of Newark, who will carry -your letters. How will you reach New York?”</p> - -<p>I thought a moment upon it.</p> - -<p>“The river is the quicker. I have a boat at Nyack; -the one in which I pulled from Teller’s Point -to-day.”</p> - -<p>There was a little pause after this, and I saw that -my companion was staring thoughtfully into the fire.</p> - -<p>“We have been going at too fast a gallop, Captain -Page,” he said at the end of the pause. “We must go -back a moment to that point that was raised in the -beginning. If you could go with your troop at your -back and cut the traitor out and bring him home that -would be one thing—and I know of no man fitter to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -attempt it. But to go as you must go, and use guile -and subterfuge ... truly, Captain Page, you -must sort this out for yourself; to determine how far -in such a cause an officer and a man of honor may go. -I lay no commands upon you.”</p> - -<p>I put the scruple aside impatiently.</p> - -<p>“Benedict Arnold has put himself beyond the pale, -Colonel Hamilton. There can be no question of honor -in dealing with such as he.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not,” was the low-toned reply; “though -that word of yours is most sweeping and far-reaching. -I mean only to leave you free, Captain Page. Our -desires, keen as they are, shall not run farther than -your own convictions of an honorable man’s duty.” -Then he looked at his watch. “The tide serves at -eleven, and you have the borrowed horse to return to -Nyack. It is best so, since in that way you will seem -to be returning to your troop at Salem.”</p> - -<p>His mention of the borrowed horse first set me to -wondering how he came to know that I had borrowed -a horse; but a moment later the wonder went out in a -blaze of sudden recollection. As I am a living man, -up to that instant I had clean forgotten that I was -pledged to meet Captain Howard Seytoun at dawn-breaking -in the grass cove at the river’s edge!</p> - -<p>I was on my feet and breathing hard when I broke -out hotly: “Good heavens, Colonel Hamilton! I can -not go to-night; it is impossible! A thing I had forgotten——”</p> - -<p>He rose in his turn and faced me smiling.</p> - -<p>“Tell me where she lives, Captain Page,” he said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -slyly, “and I’ll promise to go in person to make your -excuses. Nay, no cunningly devised fables, sir, if you -please; it is always a woman who hangs to our coat-skirts -at the plunging moment. But seriously,” and -now his face was grave, “there should not be an hour’s -delay. Not to mention our sergeant’s safety, which -seems to be hanging in a most precarious balance, -there is a sharp chance of your missing the target entirely. -Word has come that Arnold is embodying, or -has embodied, a regiment with which he may take the -field at any moment. No, you must go to-night, if -you go at all.”</p> - -<p>“But you were not expecting me here from Colonel -Baylor’s camp until midnight,” I protested, trying -to gain time for the shaping of some excuse that -would hide the truth and still seem something less -than childish.</p> - -<p>“For the anticipating of which expectation by -some hours, we are discussing this matter here in -comfort before my fire, instead of on horseback and -on the southward road, Captain Page. I had planned -to ride with you to our outposts, enlisting you as we -went.”</p> - -<p>“Yet—good lord, Mr. Hamilton! if I could tell -you—if I only dared tell you what it will cost me to -go to-night....”</p> - -<p>He spread his slender hands in a most gentlemanly -way.</p> - -<p>“I have laid no commands upon you for the services, -Captain Page; as I have said, your going rests -entirely with yourself. Nor must you think I am trying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -to bribe you when I point out that the man who -carries the enterprise through will have earned much -at the hands of his country and of the army. It is for -you to decide whether this obstacle of yours is great -enough to weigh against the arguments for instant -despatch—remembering that these arguments may -well include the life of the worthy soldier who has -piloted out the way for you.”</p> - -<p>It has always been my failing to omit to count the -personal cost of anything until the day of reckoning -rises up to slap me in the face.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go—to-night,” I said grittingly. “But if I -could leave an explanatory word with Pettus——”</p> - -<p>Again he stopped me in mid-career with a hand -laid affectionately on my shoulder.</p> - -<p>“You would cancel my permission with your own -sober second thought, my dear Captain. That second -thought will tell you that there must be no hint, no -word or whisper that could remotely point toward -your purpose. Further, you must go back to Pettus, -smooth over as best you can your visit to me here, and -lull his curiosity, if he have any. Then, if you can not -tell him point-blank the lie about your returning northward -to-night, wait until he is asleep, and make your -escape as you can.”</p> - -<p>We went somewhat beyond this, but not far; -Hamilton telling me of his sergeant’s present besetment, -and of how all his plans had come to naught. -When I had it all he went with me to the door and I -was out of the ante-room when he took leave of me -and bade me God-speed; out under the stars and with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -only the half-mile walk between me and Jack Pettus -for the cooking up of all these raw conditions thus -thrust masterfully upon me. I saw well enough what -I must face; how, when I should turn up missing, Seytoun -would lose no time and spare no pains in black-listing -me from one end of the army to the other. -Yet if I could go quickly and return alive, dragging -our Judas with me as the result of the endeavor ... well, -then Seytoun would still say that I had deliberately -provoked a quarrel which I knew I could not -carry out to the gentlemanly conclusion.</p> - -<p>It was the cursedest dilemma, no matter how I -twisted and turned it about. And to cap the pyramid -of misery, there was a lurking fear that Mistress Beatrix -Leigh might come to hear some garbled misversion -of it, even in far-away Virginia, and would not -know or guess the truth. Up to the very present -moment, Seytoun owed his immunity solely to her, -or rather to a promise I had made her the year before -when I came out of the home militia to join Colonel -Baylor’s new levies. When she should know the -provocation, she might generously forgive the duel, -though she had exacted the promise that I would not -fight him; but would any explanation ever suffice to -gloze over the fact that I had struck the man, and -afterward had run away to escape the consequences?—for -this is how the story would shape itself in Seytoun’s -telling of it.</p> - -<p>I saw no loophole of escape, no light on the dark -horizon, save at one uncertain point. Seytoun was -brave enough on the battle-field; all men said that for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -him. Yet he was a truculent bully, and bullies are -often weak-kneed where the colder kind of courage -is required. What if he had pocketed my affront?—had -failed to send his friend to Jack Pettus?</p> - -<p>The slender chance of such a happy outcome sent -me on the faster toward the legion cantonments; and -when I saw the scattering of tents and log shelters -looming in the starlight I fell to running.</p> - -<p>Pettus was waiting for me when I kicked open -the door of the low-roofed shelter and entered, and it -was my good genius that prompted me to sit by the -fire and ask for a pipe and a crumbling of Jack’s tobacco, -and otherwise to mask the fierce desire I had -to put my fate immediately to the touch. For my -Jack was as quick-witted as a woman, and I remembered -in good time that I had to deceive him. So my -first word was not of Seytoun, or of the quarrel, but -of Colonel Alexander Hamilton and the despatches I -had been supposed to bring from my colonel.</p> - -<p>“Curious how a rumor breeds out of nothing,” I -commented, when we were comfortably befogged in -the tobacco smoke. “Melton seemed to be sure that -I must be the bearer of despatches; and Colonel Hamilton -accused me of having ridden over from Nyack -on a borrowed horse.”</p> - -<p>“The which you did, despatches or no despatches,” -laughed Pettus. “But how did you get on with Mr. -Hamilton?”</p> - -<p>“As one gentleman should when he meets another -for a joint shin-toasting before a blazing fire of logs. -We chatted amicably, after Mr. Hamilton learned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> -that I brought no word from Colonel Baylor; and -when I could break off decently I came away.”</p> - -<p>After this silence came and dwelt with us for a -while, and when the fierce desire could be no longer -suppressed I said, as indifferently as I could: “You -have news for me, Jack?”</p> - -<p>“If you call that news which we were both expecting—yes. -Lieutenant Cardrigg has been here, in Captain -Seytoun’s behalf.”</p> - -<p>My gasp of disappointment slipped out—or in—before -I could prevent it, and it did not go unremarked -by Pettus.</p> - -<p>“What’s that, Dick? You sigh like the furnace of -affliction itself. Twice, already, you have changed -your mind about this little riffle with Seytoun. It is -far too late to change it again. I warn you as a -friend.”</p> - -<p>“Truly, it is indeed far too late,” I echoed, agreeing -parrot-wise. Then: “You arranged the business -as we talked?——to-morrow morning, in the grass -cove at the mouth of the creek?”</p> - -<p>“How else would I arrange it?” said Pettus querulously. -“You were as precise in your instructions as -any girl prinking herself for a rout.”</p> - -<p>“It is well to be precise,” I offered half absently. -The worst had befallen now, and my brain was busy -with the shameful consequences which must ensue.</p> - -<p>“Cardrigg haggled a little over the trooper’s -swords,” Pettus went on reflectively, after a moment. -“He is a chip of the same upstart block out of which -our red-faced captain was hewn. He said you might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -have chosen rapiers, if only out of consideration for -the captain’s standing; meaning to imply thereby that -the captain, at least, was a gentleman, and should be -allowed to fight with a gentleman’s weapon.”</p> - -<p>“You yielded him the point?” I questioned, trying -to show an interest which I could not feel.</p> - -<p>“Not I, damn him. I gave him to understand -flatly that we stood upon our rights, and that the -trooper’s sword was good enough for his principal—or -for him and me, if it came to that.”</p> - -<p>“It is a small matter,” I said, thinking bitterly that -Pettus could not vaguely guess how small a matter -this dispute over the weapons had suddenly become. -Then I saw how I might perhaps fend off the last -and worst of the consequences of the morrow’s revealments; -but it was necessary first to pave the way -cautiously and carefully.</p> - -<p>“The captain is a good swordsman, whatever else -may be said of him,” I began after another interval -of silence. “It may easily happen that the man who -fights with him will cross a wider river than this Hudson -of ours, Jack.”</p> - -<p>“Bah!” Pettus spat the word out contemptuously. -Then he added the friendly smiting, as I expected he -would. “Don’t try to make me see you in any other -light than that of a true man, Dick.”</p> - -<p>“I would not willingly do that, Jack, believe me. -But there are always chances, and the wise man, -though he were the bravest that ever drew steel out -of leather, will provide against them. If I should not -come off from this night’s—from to-morrow morning’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -work with a tongue to speak for itself, will you -carry a word for me?”</p> - -<p>“Surely I will. But to whom?”</p> - -<p>“To Beatrix Leigh. Tell her she must go down -to her grave believing that I was no craven. Tell -her——”</p> - -<p>“I’m listening,” said Pettus, when the pause had -grown to an impossible length.</p> - -<p>My lips were dry, and I moistened them and swallowed -hard. After all, what word was there that I -could send to the woman I loved without taking the -risk of betraying my trust as an officer and the confidant -of Mr. Hamilton?</p> - -<p>“It isn’t worth the trouble,” I went on, when the -hopelessness of it became plain. “She will understand -without my message; or she will refuse to understand -with it.”</p> - -<p>Jack laughed boisterously. “I’m no good at conundrums, -Dick. I’ll tell her the captain challenged -you for brushing a fly from his face. Will that do?”</p> - -<p>I smiled in spite of my misery. There would be -nothing to tell Beatrix Leigh or any one else about -the meeting which was already impossible for one of -the combatants.</p> - -<p>“Let it go, Jack, and pinch the candle out. Didn’t -you hear the drum-roll? We’ll have the patrol in upon -us presently. Do you turn in, and catch your few -hours of beauty sleep. It’s one of my notions to sit -alone before the fire on my birthday night, casting up -the year’s accounts. You’ll indulge me, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>Jack did it, grumbling a little at what he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -pleased to call my churlishness. It was weary work -killing the time till he should be safely asleep. I was -young, vigorous, and for all my youth, somewhat of -a seasoned veteran, but that lonely hour or more spent -before Jack Pettus’s fire went nearer to sapping my -determination than any former trial I could recall.</p> - -<p>I might have made my exit sooner, I suppose. -Though he tossed restlessly in his bunk, Jack was -asleep before I had filled my second pipe. But there -was no object in my reaching Nyack before tide-turning, -and I stayed on, dreading the moment which -would set the wheels fairly a-grind on my hazard of -new fortunes.</p> - -<p>It was the hour of guard-changing when I rose -noiselessly, struggled into my watchcoat, slung my -sword around my neck so that it should not drag and -waken Jack, and cautiously secured the little portmanteau -which held all the impedimenta I had brought -with me from the camp at Salem.</p> - -<p>I was carefully inching the door ajar to let me out -when Pettus stirred afresh and threw his arms about, -muttering in his sleep. I waited till he should be -quiet again, and while I stood and held the door, the -mutterings took on something like coherence.</p> - -<p>“I say you shall drink it! Up, man, up! Now, -then; here’s to the loyalty of the Old Dominion, and -may the next Virginian who smirches it——”</p> - -<p>I whipped through the half-closed door and closed -it behind me, softly. It was sobering enough to do -what I had to do, without staying to listen to such a -word of leave-taking from the dearest friend I owned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>I found the borrowed horse where I had left him -at the hitching-rope, and had the saddle on, and the -portmanteau strapped to the cantle, when Middleton -came up with the guard relief.</p> - -<p>“Ho, Captain Page!” he chuckled, when the patrol -had thrown the lantern light into my face, “I thought -I had caught another deserter in the very act. Has -your leave expired so soon?”</p> - -<p>I forced a laugh and said it had, more was the -pity. And then he asked how I expected to get -across the river at that hour; whereupon I told him a -part of the truth, saying that I should ride back to -Nyack, and from there take the small boat in which -I had drifted and rowed down from Teller’s Point.</p> - -<p>At this he had the saddle flung upon his own -beast, and mounted and rode with me to put me past -the sentries on the Nyack road; and now I was -enough recovered to grin under cover of the darkness -and to picture his rage and astonishment when, within -a day or so, he should learn that he had been setting -another deserter safely on his way to the British lines. -For I made no doubt that the camp, and all the others -in the Highlands, would presently be ringing with the -news that a captain of Baylor’s Horse had been the -latest to go over to the enemy—as, indeed, I hoped -they would, since my best guaranty of safety in New -York would be in the hue and cry I might leave behind -me.</p> - -<p>Lieutenant Middleton bade me God-speed at a -turn in the road about a mile from his cantonments, -and from this on to Nyack I pushed the borrowed nag<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -smartly. At Van Ditteraick’s stable there was only a -sleepy horse-boy to rouse up and meet me, and when -I had paid the horse’s hire, I made him go with me to -the waterside to help me embark, so there might be a -witness of the way I went and the manner of my -going.</p> - -<p>It was the boy himself who pushed me off and -saw me lay the boat’s head up the river. And, sleepy -as he was, he had wit enough to mumble in broken -Dutch that the dunderhead captain had taken the -wrong turn of the tide for a pull up the stream.</p> - -<p>I headed upward and currentward only until I -had made sure that my small boat could not be seen -from the western shore. Then I turned the boat’s bow -down-stream and pulled lustily for half an hour to -warm me, for the gray and cloudy day had cleared -into a night of bitter cold.</p> - -<p>It was near midnight, as I judged, when I made -out by the configuration of the shore lines my passing -from the great lake of the Tappan Zee to the narrower -channel of the river proper. Here, where King’s -Ferry crossed from bank to bank, lay my greatest -chance of danger; and taking the mid-channel for it, -I unshipped the oars and let the boat drift as it would -in the tideway. So floating, when I was well past -the line of the ferry, past all hazard of being discovered -by one of our patrol boats, as I imagined, I ventured -to step the mast and to hoist the little leg-of-mutton -sail with which the boat was provided. The -showing of the small triangle of white cloth was my -undoing. The little craft had scarcely felt the wind-pull,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -when a dark shape shot swiftly out from the -shadow of the western shore and a voice came bellowing -at me across the water.</p> - -<p>“Ahoy, there! Spill your wind and come to, or -we’ll fire upon you!”</p> - -<p>My answer was to ship the oars as silently as possible, -and to settle down to the long lifting stroke old -Uncle Quagga, our black boatman, had taught me on -the quiet waters of the James River in the peaceful -days before the war began. It promised to be a hopeless -flight, with only my two arms against a dozen; -but what disquieted me most was the stentorian voice -that came booming once again across the gap, cursing -me and commanding me to heave to. For the yell was -Seytoun’s; and now I remembered that Jack had told -me something about Seytoun’s being on boat duty -for the middle watch of the night.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">III<br> - -<small>IN WHICH I SHED MY RANK</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT IS little less than marvelous how the mind’s eye -sweeps all the horizons instantly at the apexing -point of a crisis. Seytoun’s cursing hail, the sheering -cut-water hiss of the well-manned boat as it drove out -to head me off, the panic helplessness of my attempt -to escape—none of these was distracting enough to -cloud the picture of the frightful consequences which -would follow my overtaking.</p> - -<p>Mr. Hamilton might save me from a deserter’s -death; I supposed he would find means to do that -much, though all the army would be clamoring for -vengeance on me. But every other humiliation the -wrath of man could devise would be mine; and in all -the mad hurry of the moment one grim determination -stood apart in my brain and held itself in readiness to -act. I would never be taken alive. If the bullets -which would presently begin to spit from the muskets -in the watchboat should not put me out of misery, I -could at least go overboard with the skiff’s anchor -stone to hold me under for the necessary choking -time.</p> - -<p>The bullets came quickly enough, a ragged fire of -them buzzing high overhead to emphasize Seytoun’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -second warning. If the marksmen in the watchboat -had been my men, I thought I should have a word to -say to them about holding well down on a target when -powder and lead were worth their weight in gold—as -they were with us in that winter of 1780. They -wasted a dozen shots on me, I think, before a long -drum-roll boomed across the water to tell me that now -the camp was aroused and more boats would be -coming.</p> - -<p>That was only an incident, however. My business -was to put my heart and soul into the oars and to keep -the narrow gap between me and Seytoun’s boat from -closing any more swiftly than it had to. It was closing -certainly enough, and by leaping boat-lengths, -when my straining ears caught the sound of other -oars rolling in muffled row-locks, and a guarded hail -came from somewhere in the darkness just ahead of -me. I dared not turn around to try to descry the -fresh peril. Seytoun’s marksmen were doing better -now, and coincident with the low-toned hail ahead a -bullet struck the stern of my shallop and neatly stuck -a splinter in the calf of my leg.</p> - -<p>Another volley from the guardboat would have -settled matters, but the volley was never fired—at me. -At the flint-snapping crisis my boat’s bow crashed in -among banked oars, dark shapes loomed suddenly all -around me, and a gruff voice shouted, “Avast there, -you lubber! Heave to, or we’ll sink you!”</p> - -<p>I needed no command to stop me. The collision -with the banked oars, and a dozen hands gripping the -gunwales of my shallop, did that for me. What I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> -most needed was the discretion to throw myself flat -in the bottom of my boat to escape the storm of lead -that was promptly hurled at my pursuers—and that I -had, too.</p> - -<p>When it was all over, and Seytoun’s boat had -turned tail to claw out of harm’s way in frantic haste, -I learned to what I owed my opportune deliverance. -I had pulled straight into the midst of a British boat -expedition (one of the many since Admiral Sir -George Rodney had come to Sir Henry Clinton’s aid), -sent up from New York to take a chance of surprising -some one of our outpost camps. I was rejoicing secretly -that my ill-luck had killed the chance of such a -surprise, when I was brought roughly to book by the -officer in command of the expedition.</p> - -<p>“Now, sir, who the devil are you, and what are -you doing here?” were his shot-like questions, when -my craft had been passed back to the long-boat which -served as the flag-ship of the flotilla.</p> - -<p>I gave my name and standing briefly, and was -adding a hypocritical word of thanks for my rescue -when he cut me off abruptly.</p> - -<p>“A deserter, eh?” he rasped. “It’s a thousand -pities we didn’t let them take you. An officer, too, -you say? Then the pities are ten thousand. I would -to God some of your fellows in that boat had shot -straighter!”</p> - -<p>His sentiments were so soldierly and worthy that -I loved him for them, and was able to pull the splinter -from my leg and laugh.</p> - -<p>“You don’t follow your commander-in-chief’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -lines very closely, sir,” I ventured. “We gentlemen -who are sick of our bargain with General Washington -and the Congress get a warmer welcome from Sir -Henry Clinton than you are giving me. But there -are deserters and deserters; some who are traitors in -fact, and some who are merely coming to a better -sense of their duty as they see it. My conscience is -clear, sir.”</p> - -<p>I hoped he would not suspect the double meaning -in my answer; as, indeed, he did not. As well as I -could make him out in the darkness, he was a bluff, -hearty bully of a man; a sea officer, I took it.</p> - -<p>“We’ll take you back with us, since that is what -you want,” he rejoined crustily; adding: “And I’d -hang you to a yard-arm when we get there, Captain -Page—as Sir Henry Clinton doubtless will not. To -the rear with you, and consider yourself a prisoner. -Pass the captive astern, Bannock, and take the oars -out of his boat,”—this last to the ensign in command -of the long-boat.</p> - -<p>The effect of this order was to turn me adrift -without any means of locomotion, and my shallop -dropped away from the flotilla on the slowly ebbing -tide until the British boats became a shadowy blur in -the night. There was some huddling of them for a -hasty council of war, I judged, and if so, an order to -retreat was all that came of it. With our forces on -either side of the river aroused and alert, as the firing -would ensure, there was little else to be done.</p> - -<p>My masterless craft had drifted a mile or more -when the boat expedition overtook me. With no more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -ado my boat was taken in tow, and I chuckled inwardly. -I love a boat and the water as I love a good -horse; but it is worth something to have your enemy -drag you where you expected to drag yourself, and -when the shadows of the great western cliffs were -blackening thick upon the waters, I kicked the rowing -seat out of the way, and stretched myself at ease in -the shallop’s bottom to get a soldier’s nap before the -sun should rise upon my further adventures.</p> - -<p>The day was dawning coldly when I awoke and -found that my rescuers—or my captors—were debarking -at the town landing-place under the guns of -Fort George. It was a raw morning, my leg was stiff -and sore from the splinter wound, and the ensign who -ordered me to tumble out had evidently taken his cue -from his gruff commander and cursed me heartily because -I did not move as quickly as he thought I -should.</p> - -<p>It is remarkable how the morning after takes the -fine edge off the enthusiasm and daring of the night -before. When I set foot upon the landing-stage and -remembered all that I had undertaken to do in this -British stronghold of New York, remembered, also, -how at this very moment, most likely, Jack and Seytoun, -and—save Mr. Hamilton alone—every friend -and enemy I had left behind me in the camp at Tappan -was cursing the very day of my birth, my teeth -chattered with the morning’s cold, and I would have -given many broad acres of the Page tobacco lands to -be well out of the wretched tangle into which my desperate -mission had led me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>My first near-hand view of the lower town, obtained -after I had been turned over to one of Sir -Henry Clinton’s aides—who was my host or guard, I -could not tell which—brought a decided shock. My -memories of the city, carried over from a visit made -with my uncle Nelson when I was a hobbledehoy of -sixteen, were rudely swept away. The great fire of -the night of September 20th, 1776, just after the British -General Robertson had driven our army back upon -Harlem Heights, had made a ruin of what had been -the best-built portion of the lower town. Starting -near Whitehall Slip, it had left blackened ruins all the -way across to the Bowling Green and for some distance -up on both sides of Broad Way, and but little -in the way of rebuilding had been done during the -four years of British occupation. Instead, some of -the ruins had been converted into makeshift dwelling -places by using the chimneys and parts of the walls -that were still standing, eked out with spars from the -ships and old canvas for shelter.</p> - -<p>It was a dreary prospect that was revealed as we, -my guard-host and I, came around the western bastion -of the fort and so into the lower end of Broad Way. -The fire had spared some few houses on the left, and -in one of these, so Mr. Hamilton had told me, Arnold -had his headquarters and living-rooms. It was to an -inn just beyond these houses, and on the edge of the -ruined district, that my walking companion led me; -and by the time we were inside and were breaking our -fast in the blaze-warmed coffee-room, the hue of -things had become less somber, and I could laugh and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -crack a joke with my entertainer much as if he had -been Jack Pettus masquerading in a red coat.</p> - -<p>“You do good justice to the commissary, Captain -Page,” said my youth in the red coat, when I had -begged his leave to order more of the ham and eggs -that reminded me most gratefully of Virginia and -home.</p> - -<p>“If you could know how I have been starved, -Mr. Castner,” I retorted. “All you have to do for -us—for the rebels, I mean—is to hold them still for a -few months longer, and hunger will do for them what -your arms have somehow seemed unable to do.”</p> - -<p>“Is it that bad, Mr. Page?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Worse than I can describe, I do assure you. I -doubt not we of the turncoat legion assign all sorts of -reasons for our forsaking of the cause, but I am telling -you the bald truth—as I shall tell Sir Henry. We -are hungry, and an empty stomach knows neither -king nor Congress.”</p> - -<p>But my young lieutenant laughed in a most -friendly way and shook his head at this.</p> - -<p>“You are carrying it off as a brave man should, -Mr. Page, and making a jest of it. But you are like -a good many of the others; a true Loyalist at heart, -with only the eleventh-hour determination to turn -your back upon whatever influences swung you first -in the wrong direction. Confess, now; are there not -many others in the same case, and lacking only the -eleventh-hour courage to come over?”</p> - -<p>I said there were, doubtless—and hoped most fervently -that it was the lie I firmly believed it to be.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -Then, after I had answered freely all his questions -about our camp at Tappan—with more and more -ingenious lies, you may be sure—I ventured upon the -ground of my own perilous debate.</p> - -<p>“There have been rumors in the Highlands of -Mr. Arnold’s raising of a regiment of his own here -in New York. Is that so, Mr. Castner?” I asked -guardedly.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant nodded, and there was a graver -look in his eyes when he asked, in turn, “Do you -know Mr. Arnold, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t that honor, as yet,” I replied. “My -short service in the Continental Line has been in the -horse; and he, as you know, has been lately in garrison -at West Point.”</p> - -<p>He bowed thoughtfully. “A strange man, Mr. -Page; and growing stranger to all of us, I think, as -the days pass. He has not come over to us for any -overmastering love of the king or the king’s cause, I -fear.”</p> - -<p>“No?” said I.</p> - -<p>“It is little likely. If I read him aright, he is -burned and seared through and through with his own -ambition.”</p> - -<p>It was no part of my plan to be drawn into open -criticism of the man I was shortly to approach in the -character of an outspoken fellow traitor.</p> - -<p>“We must not judge too hastily, Mr. Castner,” I -put in placably. “Arnold was greatly respected by his -former subordinates, and, truly, he did many things -to win their regard, I am told. But that is neither<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -here nor there: this legion he is enrolling—is it horse -or foot?”</p> - -<p>“Foot. It is called the ‘Loyal American,’ and is -pretty largely composed of—of men who, like yourself, -Mr. Page, have changed flags.”</p> - -<p>“Are the lists full?” was my next query.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant smiled.</p> - -<p>“Would you take service under your country’s -bitterest enemy, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>I laughed.</p> - -<p>“Beggars mustn’t be choosers. And as for my -country’s enemies; my country is the king’s, or at -least, he says it is, though you must confess, Mr. -Castner, that the standing-places where a Loyalist -may hear the whipping of the royal standard above -his head have become sadly few and restricted.”</p> - -<p>Once again the lieutenant was shaking his head in -mild deprecation.</p> - -<p>“You must teach your tongue a better trade, Captain -Page,” he said quite good-naturedly. “There are -those in this town who would find fault with that last -speech of yours.”</p> - -<p>I saw at once, what I should have seen at the outset; -that this frank-faced lieutenant was not one to be -played with in double-meaning rashnesses. So I went -back to Arnold and his “American Loyalists,” or -“Loyal Americans,” or whatever lying phrase it was -that headed his regimental book.</p> - -<p>“You have not told me yet of Mr. Arnold’s conscript -lists,” I reminded him.</p> - -<p>“Nor do I know,” he replied, and was going on to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -say more when a tall, harsh-visaged fellow, wearing -the insignia of a recruiting sergeant, looked in at the -door, swept the apartment with a shrewd glance, as -if in search of material for his trade of whipper-in, -and was turning away when the lieutenant marked -him and said to me: “There is a man who can tell -you more than I can.” And then to the soldier: -“Hey, Sergeant, a word with you!”</p> - -<p>It was not until the man stood at our table-end -and was near enough to shock me heartily that I recognized -him as Major Lee’s emissary, John Champe; -the man I had come to drag out of the peril he had -blundered into.</p> - -<p>Lieutenant Castner smiled at my start of surprise, -and he was further edified, I suppose, by Champe’s -drawing back with a muttered oath at his recognition -of me. There was humor in the situation, but I was -in no frame of mind to appreciate it just then.</p> - -<p>It was Champe who first broke the awkward little -silence. “You called me, sir?” he asked, saluting -Castner, and turning his back on me.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget how the young redcoat lieutenant -played the gentleman at this crisis. Had there -been a trace of malice in his heart he might have -flung us two flag-changers at each other’s throats and -stood aside to see the sport. Instead, he replied to -Champe, quite gravely.</p> - -<p>“Yes; your lists for the Loyal Americans—are -they filling well, Sergeant?”</p> - -<p>“They are closed,” said Champe, with his dour -face as expressionless as a slab of wood.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>“Ah,” said Castner; and then, with a hand-wave -of dismissal for the sergeant, which Champe obeyed -instantly: “That answers your question, Captain -Page. I hope it does not seriously change your -plans.”</p> - -<p>I assured him that it did not; telling him that I -had no plan beyond seeking an audience with Sir -Henry Clinton at the earliest possible hour.</p> - -<p>“Then your inclination matches with the necessities,” -laughed my jailor. “I should be obliged to put -you under guard, conveying you to Sir Henry forcibly, -if you were not minded to go of your own -accord.”</p> - -<p>My heart beat a little less steadily at this. Was -it possible that Mr. Hamilton’s plot had leaked so -swiftly?—that word of my coming, or of my planned-for -coming, had already reached the British commander-in-chief? -It was a soul-destroying thought, -but Castner’s next word relieved me.</p> - -<p>“It is a general order,” he explained. “Sir Henry -wishes to see each of you gentlemen—our friends -from the other side, you know—as soon as may be -after your arrival. If you have finished your breakfast -we may as well go at once. I don’t know how -your late staff headquarters keeps its hours, but our -Sir Henry is an early riser.”</p> - -<p>There was no reason on my part for delay, and -every reason for haste without the appearance of -haste. So I made ready to go with the lieutenant, -and we presently fared forth into the crisp December -morning and took our way to the row of Dutch-fashioned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -houses with their sides to the street and facing -the Green, the row lying a little to the right of -Fort George as you face the harbor.</p> - -<p>Before one of the houses a sentry stood on guard, -and with a stiff presenting of his duty salute to my -officer, the man passed us up the steps.</p> - -<p>Castner put me into the audience chamber of the -man who stood, for us of the patriotic side, as the embodiment -of British duplicity and tyranny, without a -word to me by way of preparation; and in introducing -me I thought there was a twinkle of grim humor in -his grave boyish eyes.</p> - -<p>“Sir Henry, I have the honor of presenting to you -Mr. Richard Page, late Captain Richard Page, of -Baylor’s Horse, in Mr. Washington’s army, and the -newest of our new friends.”</p> - -<p>His handicapping of me in these few words of introduction -was most embarrassing—as perhaps it was -meant to be—and for the moment I could only stare -at the great man sitting calmly behind his writing-table, -which, as I remember, was well littered with -papers.</p> - -<p>At first sight the British commander was disappointing. -He was short, fat and stodgy, with the -heavy face of a good feeder, and his nose was aggressively -prominent. His eyes, as I saw them, were cold -and calculating, and I could never fancy them lighting -with enthusiasm or mellowing into anything like good-fellowship. -And, indeed, it was told me afterward -that he was a man to take his pleasures stolidly, warming -neither to wine nor women. Washington, Greene,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -Hamilton, Lee—all of our leaders, were soldiers and -they looked it. But this broad-girthed little man with -the great nose and the chilling eyes was a soldier and -he did not look it.</p> - -<p>To my relief, the interview was short, and to my -still greater relief it was not made harder for me by -the lieutenant’s presence, that gentleman having disappeared -after presenting me. Naturally, Sir Henry -wanted news of Washington’s army, his dispositions, -his plans and intentions; and having by this time come -to my own in my heritage of the Page impudence, I -lied to him as freely and joyously as I had to Castner, -taking care only to make the lies dovetail neatly with -what I had told the lieutenant over the inn breakfast-table.</p> - -<p>But my cross-examiner saved his shrewdest question -for the last, as if he had been a lawyer.</p> - -<p>“Now, for yourself, Mr. Page,” he said finally, -fixing me with that cold stare that seemed to read my -inmost thoughts. “What brought you here?”</p> - -<p>This was a harder thing to lie out of than any of -the others. My family, and my own record, for that -matter, were too well known to let me dish him up -some plausible story of how we were all merely waiting -the chance to come over to the king’s side. I -must invent some personal grievance, and with those -chilling eyes upon me it was a task to make the blood -thicken in my veins—at a time when it should have -been galloping most freely.</p> - -<p>It was at this point that I had an inspiration. -There is no lie so compelling as the truth, when the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -truth can be made to serve the purpose of a lie. I had -heard that Sir Henry frowned like a straight-laced -Puritan upon dueling; that he put it under the ban for -his own officers, punishing for it as he would for any -other infraction of orders.</p> - -<p>My resolve was taken on the spur of the moment.</p> - -<p>“Aside from one other cause, which was great -enough in itself to make me wish to change flags, I -ran away from a duel,” I told him, returning the stare -as hardily as I dared.</p> - -<p>“How is that, sir?” he demanded, a shade less coldly.</p> - -<p>At that I gave him the story of the quarrel with -Seytoun, coloring it only so much as to make it appear -that dueling was the accepted code in our army, -and that the entire ostracising pressure of my late fellow -officers had been put upon me to drive me into a -corner from which there was no escape save in the -course I had taken.</p> - -<p>“You have conscientious scruples, Mr. Page?” he -asked, after what seemed an interminable weighing -and balancing of my tale.</p> - -<p>“You may call them so, if you wish, Sir Henry,” -I replied gravely. “I have no desire to kill or to be -killed in such a cause. And since, if I had stayed, I -should certainly have had to fight this Captain Seytoun, -I put this with the other, and possibly better, -reason, and crossed the lines.”</p> - -<p>“And that other reason?” he questioned shrewdly. -“Speak plainly, Mr. Page. You stand upon the dividing -line between some honorable occupation with us -on one hand, and the prison hulks on the other.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>I saw that my excuse was not big enough, and -tremblingly tore another page out of the book of -truth.</p> - -<p>“I am ashamed to tell you of the other reason, Sir -Henry,” I demurred, with as near the proper shade of -wounded self-esteem as I could simulate. “It touches -me very nearly, and in a tender spot. You know, -without my telling of it, how we Pages, my father’s -family, have given everything to the cause which is -even now tipping in the balance of defeat?”</p> - -<p>“I do know it,” he replied, somewhat grimly I -thought.</p> - -<p>“With that in view, Sir Henry, imagine my feelings -as a gentleman and an officer when proposals -were made to me involving a complete and entire surrender -of all that a man of honor may be supposed to -hold most dear. Do you wonder, sir, that I have -thrown myself into the arms of a generous and high-minded -enemy?”</p> - -<p>“Ha!” said he, relaxing the hold of the freezing -stare for the first time in the interview. “They -wished you to turn spy, did they? Mr. Page, I thoroughly -applaud your courage and resolution, as well -as your frankness in telling me this. Not many men -in your situation would have dared to do it. But I -have long suspected Mr. Washington and his advisers -on this score. It is the least honorable part of their -stubborn resistance to their king.”</p> - -<p>I should have laughed outright if I had had liberty. -This from the man, mind you, who had corresponded -secretly for months with Benedict Arnold,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> -bribing, suborning and finally protecting the traitor; -the man who had sent the brave Major André, his -own adjutant-general, into our lines, if not as a spy, -at least as a go-between to treat with our Judas of -West Point!</p> - -<p>“As you say, Sir Henry, it is the least honorable -part of warfare,” I agreed mildly, fearful now lest, my -case being safely made, I should say too much.</p> - -<p>But Sir Henry would not let it rest at that.</p> - -<p>“It is greatly to your credit that you were courageous -enough to refuse, Mr. Page,” he went on, taking, -as I meant he should, my refusal for granted. -And then, as if upon a premeditated thought: “Are -you acquainted with Mr. Arnold?”</p> - -<p>I said I was not; that my arm of the service, the -horse, had never chanced to be under his command.</p> - -<p>The commander-in-chief found a pen and quickly -wrote me a note.</p> - -<p>“Take that to Mr. Arnold,” he said almost graciously. -“He lodges next door, and his hour is nine -o’clock.” And, as I was bowing myself out: “Stay, -Mr. Page; shall I give you an introduction to the pay-master?—for -present necessities?”</p> - -<p>I understood this to be an offer to pay, not for my -allegiance, but for the information he had—or -thought he had—of me, and I declined as delicately -as I could, saying that a soldier’s wants were few, and -that I had taken the precaution to provide for myself -out of my private funds. This seemed to please him -still more, and, on the whole, the Sir Henry Clinton -who bade me an affable “Good morning” was greatly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -less alarming and formidable than had been the one -who had gripped me so chillingly in his stony stare -while Lieutenant Castner was presenting me.</p> - -<p>Castner was waiting for me in the ante-room, as I -found, but this time only to pass me beyond the sentry -at the door. The fact that I was allowed to depart -unhindered seemed to be a sufficient guaranty that I -had satisfied his chief; but I owe it to the young aide -to say that his manner to me now was neither more -nor less cordial than it had been over the ham and -eggs in our breakfast tavern.</p> - -<p>Having thus crossed my Rubicon, and, as one may -say, burned my boats behind me, the next thing was -to find Champe and to put that ferocious patriot on a -proper footing with me. But first I had to get rid of -my uniform as a captain of Baylor’s Horse, and here -Castner served me again, quite willingly, going with -me to a shop north of the burned region and knocking -the sleepy proprietor out of his morning nap to wait -on me.</p> - -<p>Though I had said that I did not know Arnold -personally, I knew enough of him and of his foppish -taste in dress to make me drive a gentleman’s bargain -with the shop-keeper; and when I was arrayed like -the lilies of the field in such ready-made finery as I -could purchase, Castner looked me up and down approvingly, -and swore it was a pity I had ever forsaken -my proper garmenting to don the coarse homespun -which we officers of Baylor’s Horse made it a -point of honor to wear.</p> - -<p>By the time my bargaining was done, it was too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -late to go in search of Champe if I were to take Sir -Henry Clinton’s nine o’clock hint pointing to Arnold. -So, rather against my better judgment, I faced southward -with Castner again, giving our Judas the preference -over the worthy sergeant-major—a mistake -which was to carry heavier consequences than I ever -dreamed could cluster upon so small a pin-point.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IV<br> - -<small>HOW MY RANK WAS REGAINED</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">NOTWITHSTANDING Sir Henry Clinton’s -voucher for Benedict Arnold’s receiving hour, -we found the man, Castner and I, on his door-step -and apparently just going out, as we came up.</p> - -<p>I expected Castner to introduce me at least, but -here I had my first hint of Arnold’s standing, or -rather his lack of standing, with the British officers, -which was pointed by the lieutenant striding on with -his head in the air, and leaving me abruptly to my own -devices.</p> - -<p>Since boldness was the only word I knew, or could -know, in all this business, I ran up the steps, struck -my hat to the man I hoped to see well hanged, and -gave him General Clinton’s note. While he was reading -the scrawl—the British knight wrote a most fearful -and wonderful hand—I had time to observe how -a few short weeks had changed the traitor.</p> - -<p>Always a handsome man, with a clear transparent -skin, intellectual features, thin nostrils well recurved -and sensitive to every changing mood, and eyes that -were almost womanish for size and for a certain languorous -sensuousness, he might still have sat for the -portrait of that Benedict Arnold who had braved the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -wrath of General Gates to save the day at the second -battle of Stillwater. Yet there was a striking change, -apparent even to one who had seen him as seldom as I -had. The lips were set in thinner lines, the eyes were -gloomy, and, when he turned them upon me, I saw a -lurking devil of sullen suspicion in them. Also the -deep furrows in his brow had grown still more marked -and they had taken an upward and outward curve like -the suggestion of a pair of horns.</p> - -<p>None the less, his reception of me was bland and -cordial, made with a half-offering of his hand, which, -I am happy to say, I found it possible to seem to overlook.</p> - -<p>“You are very welcome, Mr. Page,” he said, smiling -with his lips and at the same time probing me -with the eyes of gloomy distrust. “Sir Henry Clinton -says kind things of you here”—waving the letter—“and -I trust we shall go on to a better acquaintance.” -Then, a little doubtfully: “Should I be able to place -you more nearly?”</p> - -<p>I told him I thought not; that I had probably -seen him oftener than he had me. Then I added the -bold word which has slain many a better man—the -word of open flattery.</p> - -<p>“Like many another who knows you even less well -than I do, Mr. Arnold, I owe you a debt of gratitude. -But for your courageous example, not a few men who -are now faithfully serving the king would still be in -Mr. Washington’s riff-raff army, fighting for that -jack-o’-lantern thing called liberty. And, but for that -same act of yours, I can most truthfully say that I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> -should not be here this morning, trespassing on your -good nature, sir.”</p> - -<p>It was very gross, and I do think Mr. Dick Sheridan -himself could not have made the <i>doubl’ entendre</i> -more dramatic. Yet this gentlemanly turncoat, whose -vanity was even greater than his villainy, gulped it -down as I have seen our good Dominie Attlethorpe, -of Williamsburg, swallow a luscious oyster.</p> - -<p>“You are either the most astute of young scapegraces, -or the kindliest, Mr. Page,” he retorted, with -the moral glutton’s satisfaction in every intonation. -And then: “Have you breakfasted, sir?”</p> - -<p>I told him I had; whereupon he asked me to walk -with him, saying that we could come at my business -as well in that way as in any other, if I would so far -indulge him.</p> - -<p>I laughed in my sleeve, and gave him the wall, as -a poor dependent on his bounty should; and, reckoning -again without my host, wondered how long it -would take poor Champe to get within such easy -gripping distance of his quarry. As we passed northward -and eastward, quite to the other side of the -town, and well beyond the burned area Arnold put me -through my deserter’s catechism, which now, since I -had danced through it gaily once for Castner, and -again for Sir Henry, came off the tongue as glibly as -a schoolboy’s lesson.</p> - -<p>It was in front of a rather stately house facing an -open space that we paused finally, and I saw a woman -come and open the door and close it again quickly -when she saw there were two of us. I had but a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -glimpse of the woman’s face, but that was enough. -No one who had ever seen Margaret Shippen would -fail to recognize her even though she appeared, as she -did to me in that door-opening glimpse, in the guise -of a sweet young woman prematurely saddened and -aged by sorrow unnamable.</p> - -<p>But another thing I saw which disturbed me even -more than the sight of poor Peggy Shippen’s face; -disturbed me so greatly that I scarcely heard the -traitor’s question which gave me the opportunity I -had been flattering him for. The distracting thing -was a fleeting glimpse of another fair face at an upper -window of the house; a clean-cut profile appearing -for a single instant behind the leaded panes, and then -vanishing so quickly that I began to doubt that it had -been there. Now I could have sworn upon a stack of -Bibles that there was only one face in all the world -that could have flung that profile outline upon any -window that was ever glazed, and that face I had left -safely behind me in Virginia.</p> - -<p>Could it be possible—but no, it was only a fancied -resemblance, I told myself; and then I flogged my -wits into line again in time to answer Arnold’s leave-taking -query that had been all but lost in the sudden -jangle of emotions.</p> - -<p>“What can you do for me, Mr. Arnold?” I echoed. -“That is for you to determine. From what Sir Henry -Clinton said, or rather hinted at, I hoped you might -be able to make use of me in some way. But I shall -be at my best if you keep me near your person, sir. -Of that I am very sure.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>Again he swallowed the bait like a greedy -gudgeon.</p> - -<p>“You shall come to me at my headquarters this -afternoon, Mr. Page,” he said, with the air of one of -the great ones of earth dealing out largesse to a reverent -and admiring vassal; and then he ascended the -steps and the door was opened quickly for him by the -woman who stood inside.</p> - -<p>Some things were made plain to me on my chilly -walk back to the southward, with its opportunity for -quiet reflection. One was that I had not overrated -Arnold’s appetite for flattery, which was in truth -even grosser than I had imagined. Another developed -out of the side-glimpse given me of the traitor’s domestic -affairs. It was not passing strange that Arnold -should not wish to have his family with him in -the house in the lower town where, as Castner had -told me, he ate and slept and had his regimental rendezvous. -But I saw more than disinclination in the -town-wide severing. It spoke eloquently of the traitor’s -social isolation that Arnold should be only a daylight -visitor at the house where his wife and child -were, without doubt, the guests of family friends of -the Shippens.</p> - -<p>I was wondering upon what footing he stood in -this house, and if he were only tolerated there as he -seemed to be elsewhere, when the recollection of the -face I had seen at the upper window came to haunt -and perplex me again. My last letter from Beatrix -Leigh had pictured her hived up in the great house at -Sevenoaks, in County Warwick, her father and brothers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -gone to the south with General Greene,—in whose -campaign against Cornwallis she was patently more -interested than she was in our humdrum New York -fuse-sputterings,—and her mother and all the other -women-folk of the tidewater homeland shuddering in -anticipation of the long-threatened descent of the -British upon the Virginia coast.</p> - -<p>She had given me no hint of any intended desertion -of Sevenoaks, and though she had many friends -in Philadelphia, where her schooling had been, I -thought it the height of improbability that she would -get even that far on the way to New York in these -troublous times. Weighing all these things in the -mental balance, I saw how absurd it was to let a momentary -sight of a beautiful face at a window run me -so far aside from the beaten path of calm reasoning. -In sober fact the fancied identification proved nothing -but this: that Beatrix Leigh’s face was so constantly -present in my mind and heart that I was ready -to find and adore it under any suggestive guise.</p> - -<p>Having now some little time to call my own, I -first secured a lodging at the tavern where the ham -had made me homesick for the smoke-houses of Virginia, -and then set out to find Sergeant Champe. -That I should chance upon him readily enough, I had -no doubt; but with the town full of soldiers it proved -a more difficult thing than I had foreseen, so difficult -that the noon hour found me still groping for my -accomplice. But one thing I did find, namely, the -barracks of the “Loyal American Legion,” and, with -due respect for any true Loyalists there may have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -been in this traitor-built corps, I never saw a more -hang-dog shuffling of men than these who were -shortly to call our Judas “General.” They were a -curst lot, too, for in all my introductory foregathering -with them, I could not find more than three or -four who would join me in a soldierly pot of wine.</p> - -<p>Castner joined me at the midday meal at my inn, -this time as my guest; and now I began to regret my -knowing of this fine young fellow, who was condoning -in me what must have appeared to him as the -most deplorable wickedness a soldier can be guilty of. -I foresaw complications, if our acquaintance should -go on ripening into friendship; I must use him, or any -other man coming in my way, to forward the great -end in view, and already the idea of making the young, -fine-faced, upright lieutenant an innocent accessory -was growing repugnant to me. So I thought it no -more than right to give him his warning—which I -did.</p> - -<p>“You have rooms in the barracks, Mr. Castner?” -I asked when we had come to the long-stemmed pipes -after the meal in the inn common-room.</p> - -<p>“No,” he replied. “Being on detached duty as -one of Sir Henry’s aides, I live as I please.”</p> - -<p>“And where does it please you to live, if I may -ask?”</p> - -<p>“In this house at the present time. It is not so -good as the best, perhaps; but it is far better than the -worst.”</p> - -<p>Here was a promise of more complications. My -necessary meetings with Champe, which I had thought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -this tavern so near the fort might shelter, could -scarcely come under the same roof with Castner and -not awaken suspicion. Yet I reflected that I was not -tied to the tavern looking down Broad Way to Sir -Henry Clinton’s headquarters with any string; I -could break loose whenever I chose.</p> - -<p>“It is very good, indeed,” I allowed, thinking still -of the breakfast ham and eggs. Then quite abruptly: -“You have taken a fancy to me, Mr. Castner, and it -does you little credit. You will live longer and have -more money and a better digestion, if you give me the -cold shoulder.”</p> - -<p>The young Briton’s smile was altogether good-natured.</p> - -<p>“If I were inclined to be suspicious, which I trust -I am not, I might wonder why you particularly wish -to be quit of me, Mr. Page,” he said mildly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t, on my own account,” I denied bluntly. -“But I am telling you the truth—for your own good. -Have you ever fought a duel, Lieutenant?”</p> - -<p>He admitted that he had, and had come off second -best. But it was a mere point of honor with a brother -officer, and no life-and-death affair.</p> - -<p>“Then you are committed to the code? You think -a challenged man should fight?”</p> - -<p>“I think a challenged gentleman will always -fight,” he corrected.</p> - -<p>I hooked an arm over the back of my chair and -looked him full in the face.</p> - -<p>“Let me tell you something, Mr. Castner—always -for your own good, you will remember. Yesterday,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -about this time or a little later, I slapped a man’s face. -He sent his friend to my friend, and this morning at -daybreak, as I have reason to suppose, a party of three -which should have been a party of four, met in a -grassy cove on the riverside just below the town of -Nyack. At that hour, or possibly a short time afterward, -I was breakfasting very pleasantly here with -you, as you will recall.”</p> - -<p>He was evidently shocked, as I meant him to be, -and for a little while he was unable to find the fitting -word. When he did find it, it was a most gentlemanly -word, I had to admit.</p> - -<p>“You have your reasons for telling me this, Mr. -Page, and you will pardon me if I say that they do not -appear upon the surface. I will ask you one question—which -you may answer or not, as it pleases -you: Does Sir Henry Clinton know of this?”</p> - -<p>“I told him, as nearly as I can remember, in much -the same words.”</p> - -<p>“Yet he condoned this—this——”</p> - -<p>“The poltroonery?” I cut in, helping him out. -“Yes, in a way. But his way made a just and even-handed -discrimination between a brave man and a -coward. You will observe that he did not billet me -with his own people; he turned me over to Mr. Benedict -Arnold. Now will you give me the cold shoulder, -Mr. Castner?”</p> - -<p>He took time to think about it, regarding me now -a bit wistfully, I thought, and again, angrily. It was -a test that a tried friend might have balked at, and he -was only an acquaintance of a few hours.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>“You have neither the face nor the carriage of a -coward,” he said at length, speaking slowly. “Moreover, -you are from the South, where your kinsmen -would brand you for a deed such as you have described. -No, Mr. Page, I shall not cold-shoulder you, -because I know very well that you have carefully kept -back the key to your riddle. Some day you will think -well enough of me to let me have it.”</p> - -<p>What could I do with this generous, noble-minded -fellow who would not believe ill of me on my own -word? There seemed to be nothing for it but to take -him as he stood; to make the best of his abounding -nobility of character and friendly loyalty. Yet it was -now all the harder to deceive him and to play upon -this very friendship, as I feared I might be obliged to. -I have heard of those who are said to pray, sometimes, -to be delivered from their friends, and I have -always had a hot corner of despising saved for these -cold-blooded ones. But now I found myself on the -brink of saying the same unthankful prayer in my own -behalf.</p> - -<p>When we rose from the table, Castner asked me -very kindly if I would walk abroad with him, saying -that we might visit the fortification, if I wished. But -here I laid down a rule which I meant to adhere to: a -spy I might be; a spy I surely should be in every way -that might in the future prove helpful to our side. -But I did not need to make this friendly lieutenant a -blind accomplice, and I would not.</p> - -<p>So I pleaded my afternoon engagement with the -arch traitor, and was glad I had it to plead; and I went<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -to keep it, a little later, leaving Castner to smoke another -pipe by himself before the fire in the tavern bar.</p> - -<p>Arnold was writing at his table in the front room -of the upper suite when his man, who, as I noted, wore -the uniform of the new legion, marshaled me in. -Though the event proved that I was expected, Arnold -went on with his writing without so much as a look -for me, and again I had a chance to mark the deepening -furrows in his brow and the brooding look in -the moody eyes.</p> - -<p>When he was quite through he dropped the quill -with a sigh and turned to me.</p> - -<p>“Well, Mr. Page, you find me serving myself as I -can,” he said. “None the less, I will serve you, too, as -I may. Will you take a commission in the new legion?”</p> - -<p>I wondered a little at his reckless haste. Had I -been in his shoes, I think I should have considered -well before confiding in a man whose very presence -was a proof of his perfidy to others. But at that time -I had yet to learn that the enlisting of the “Loyal -American” Legion had proved a stupendous task for -our traitor, and one which tried him to the last reserve -of his ambitious will. There were privates in the ranks -who scorned to serve under him; and when it came to -the officering, the difficulties were almost insurmountable. -No British regular would go with him -willingly, and the few he had were under peremptory -orders from Sir Henry Clinton. So now, when he had -a chance to secure a subaltern whose fame as a troop -leader was not, if I do say it, altogether of the worst, -he caught at it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>I made no bones of accepting the commission, -meaning that there should be no occasion for my holding -it longer than the kidnapping purpose should require; -and so I told him, with more flattery, that -myself and my sword were at his disposal, or, if he -desired, I would place myself in the ranks, as possibly -many a better man had done.</p> - -<p>“No, no, Mr. Page,” he made haste to say. “We -don’t value you so lightly as that. You shall have a -captain’s commission when we are ready to sail, and -in the meantime, if you please, you may serve as my -aide.”</p> - -<p>It was here that my wonder burst into speech. -Was the man gone totally blind on the side of caution?</p> - -<p>“If I speak freely, Mr. Arnold, it is only a subordinate’s -duty,” I began. “As your aide I shall be -responsible in some sense for your personal safety. -That I can not be, if you take in every piece of flotsam -and jetsam that drifts across the lines, as you have -me.”</p> - -<p>He smiled soberly.</p> - -<p>“As I said this morning, Mr. Page, you are either -a very shrewd young man, or a very mirror of frankness. -Don’t you see that your raising of such a question -is the best possible proof of your own purity of -motives? But I am not so careless as I may seem. -Since we walked together this morning, you have -been vouched for by an unimpeachable authority.”</p> - -<p>“Now angels and ministers of grace defend us!” -said I, to the inward Richard Page: “who in the -devil’s name has been thrusting a finger into my pie?”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -But aloud, I said: “It is a good thing to have friends, -Mr. Arnold, even if one can not always thank them -for specific favors.”</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless, you may soon have an opportunity -of thanking this one,” he amended; but after this he -left me still bewildered as to the how and when and -where, passing at once into detail matters concerning -the new legion, telling me of the trouble he had been -at to find drillmasters and to get the raw levies -whipped into some semblance of an effective fighting -force.</p> - -<p>After some talk of this nature he began sounding -me delicately in the Virginian part of me, and instantly -I divined that the new legion was to take the -field in that quarter, and that my knowledge of the -coast and people was an asset that he was counting on -in bribing me with the captain’s commission. Whereupon -I had a chance to exercise my inventive faculty -again; and what he did not know about Virginia and -the temper of her people when I was through—well, -it would not have filled Governor Thomas Jefferson’s -library at Monticello, perhaps, but it would certainly -have furnished matter for a goodish-sized volume in -the same, I dare swear.</p> - -<p>Yet Arnold took it, or seemed to take it, all as Gospel -truth, the more readily, I think, because I taxed -him with the purpose of invading my native province; -and when he would neither deny nor affirm, fell to -pleadings for exemptions for my kinsfolk and others, -when he, and our triumphant legion, should be carrying -fire and sword into the rebellious colony. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -afterward, I prayed most heartily, with my head in the -dust, that God would forgive me for this excess of -daredeviling, for, as He is my witness, I had no more -thought that this consummate villain would live to lead -an army into Virginia than I had that he would come -back from the gallows-grave in which I hoped to see -him comfortably planted.</p> - -<p>It was while we were talking that one of Sir -Henry Clinton’s aides, not Castner but another, came -in with a bulky packet addressed to Arnold. I sat -quietly by while he opened it, and when I saw the blue -ribbon and the great seal appended to the parchment as -he unfolded it, I was at no loss to account for the sudden -lighting up of his eyes and the smile—it was almost -a smirk—of gratification that went with it.</p> - -<p>The parchment was his brevet as brigadier-general -in His Majesty’s Army, and I hastened to improve the -shining hour for another gentle stuffing of his vanity. -Rising quickly from my chair, I stood at attention before -him, gave him the graceful British salute in my -best style, and said, with a true Virginia bow to go -with the words: “Let me be the first to congratulate -you, General Arnold.”</p> - -<p>He tried to laugh it off, tossing the document carelessly -upon the writing-table, and calling it a bauble -which wise men valued at its true worth. But the -gratified smile was still playing fitfully across his face -even as he spoke; and in a little while he left me, going -to the alcove at the farther end of the long room, -where a new uniform was laid out carefully upon the -bed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>His viewing of his finery set me to thinking of my -own needs in that direction. As Arnold’s aide, I must -have a captain’s uniform, and I was the more anxious -to hasten it because it would give me an excuse to carry -serviceable weapons, which my civilian’s clothes did -not. So I broached this subject to my lord Lucifer -Judas when he came back to my end of the room, and -said I should be ashamed to serve a general in my citizen’s -garmentings, and that I hoped my service was to -begin at once.</p> - -<p>There was no dispute upon this point, Arnold -seeming to be as eager to have a bedecked-out captain -to tag him around the town, as I was eager to be the -tag. And now it appeared that he had overshot the -mark in his quartermaster’s stores, having, as he -assured me, several more outfittings than he had officers, -and among these possibly a captain’s. Hence, I -was shortly afterward sent to the legion barracks with -an order for my bedizenry, and a second order upon -the regimental tailor to cut and alter and fit the same -for me that I might report to General Arnold in full -panoply by six o’clock at the latest.</p> - -<p>I went willingly enough, being glad to escape from -the company of a man who stirred up all the evil I ever -owned and made my fingers itch to lay hold of him. -And because the afternoon was half spent when I -began, and because the fussy little Dutch tailorman -had to measure and fit and try and measure again, I -lost another chance of finding John Champe, and -thereby sealed his fate as well as my own, as will appear -a little farther on.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>Since I was ordered to report to Arnold at six -o’clock, I had an early supper at my tavern, and expected -to miss Castner. But he came in and sat down -at my table before I was through, and I was sure I -saw scorn in his honest blue eyes for my new plumage.</p> - -<p>“I like you better otherwise,” he said, when I had -laughingly given him leave to open his mind. “I -hate to see you in that—gentleman’s livery.”</p> - -<p>“What!” I retorted; “after I have told you how -emphatically it fits me?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; even after that.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said I; “I hope you may never have to -wear it, Mr. Castner, since you dislike it so warmly.”</p> - -<p>“Zounds, man!” he cried, leaping from his chair as -if I had pricked him with a sword’s point, “do you -know everything?”</p> - -<p>Of course, I modestly disclaimed the charge, and -begged him to sit down and be at his ease again; but -he began to walk the floor of the small snuggery -where I had my supper served, biting his lip and giving -a very fair imitation of a man too deeply enraged -to be able to swear it off easily.</p> - -<p>Naturally, I was curious to know how I had unwittingly -stirred the mud in the depths of his soul-pool, -but I would not question him. Apart from having no -special claim upon his confidence, I knew he would tell -me of his own accord when the rage-pot became hot -enough to boil over.</p> - -<p>But the way in which he began to tell me was with -a sober question.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Page,—Captain Page, I should say,—for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> -honor of the king’s service you must advise me how -you came to know a thing which, I am solemnly -assured, has never been mentioned outside of Sir -Henry Clinton’s cabinet. If we have traitors that near -to us, we must know it.”</p> - -<p>Now I was able to laugh at him and once more to -beg him to sit down and to compose himself.</p> - -<p>“I know nothing; less than nothing, Lieutenant -Castner,” I protested. “What did I say to stir you -so?”</p> - -<p>“You do know!” he insisted. “I saw it in your -eyes when you wished that I might not have to wear -the uniform of Mr. Arnold’s Loyal Americans. I -must know how you found out!”</p> - -<p>I laughed again. “So you are to wear it?” I asked. -“I’m sure I could not desire a better fellow officer. -Yet I think you need not borrow trouble in advance, -if it be Mr. Arnold you object to.”</p> - -<p>He sat down and rested his elbows on the table, -and tried to look me through and through with eyes -that were only meant to see out of, and to be read by -others.</p> - -<p>“More mysteries,” he fumed. And then he -added: “They are dangerous, Captain, most peculiarly -dangerous for a man in your situation.”</p> - -<p>“This is no mystery,” I replied boldly, never letting -him loose the eyehold for an instant. “Have you -never heard that Mr. Arnold’s health is most precarious? -It is, I promise you; every one on the other side -of the Neutral Ground knows it well. He will drop -off very suddenly some day, Mr. Castner. I may go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -so far as to say, in strictest confidence to you, that I -marked some of the symptoms while I was with him -to-day.”</p> - -<p>“You surprise me,” he said; but I saw that the nail -was holding. Then he asked in a tone that was almost -sympathetic, what the malady was.</p> - -<p>“It has never been written out in any doctor’s -book, I believe,” I rejoined gravely. “It is an obscure -thing, coming suddenly and tying a man in knots, so -that at the last he can move neither hand nor foot.”</p> - -<p>I had him fairly mesmerized by this time, and his -voice was hushed when he said: “And you say Mr. -Arnold has this—this disease?”</p> - -<p>“There is little doubt of it. Indeed, I overheard -two men, officers they were in our—in the rebel army, -speaking of it only last night, and, naturally, they were -lamenting that it had not carried him off before he -carried himself off. One of those men had known Mr. -Arnold from the beginning, I believe.”</p> - -<p>For a long minute Castner was silent, and he -seemed to have forgotten the supper that the pretty -serving maid had brought him. When he spoke he -was plumbing me again with the honest eyes—or he -thought he was.</p> - -<p>“It is a hard thing to say, Captain Page,” he said, -speaking like a man who has been digging in the very -bottom layer of his convictions, “but sometimes I think -that an outcome like this which you say is threatening -would be the best for all concerned.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure it would,” I agreed brazenly. But I -immediately took the edge off by adding: “For the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -king’s cause, of course. Mr. Arnold has his abilities; -no one will deny that. But however honest he may be -in his—ah—convictions, let us say, the obloquy that -attaches to eleventh-hour repentances in the popular -mind will hamper him, and through him the cause for -which he fights.”</p> - -<p>Castner smiled leniently.</p> - -<p>“You are a strange young man, Mr. Page. You -discuss such matters as if they were as remote from -you as the stars. Yet you come under Mr. Arnold’s -ban—if it be a ban—yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Not quite,” I countered hardly. “I have convictions, -you see, and I was never living up to them more -faithfully than I am at this moment. But now I must -beg your leave to go. I am due at Mr. Arnold’s quarters -at six o’clock.”</p> - -<p>It was but a short walk in the starlit evening to the -house next door to Sir Henry Clinton’s. There was a -soldier on guard at Arnold’s door now, a tall man -standing stiffly in the way to stop me until he saw my -Loyal American uniform and the captain’s shoulder-knot. -Then he let me pass without a word, and also, -as I observed, without the salute.</p> - -<p>Arnold was writing again when I ascended to the -working room, and with a nod to me and a wave of -the shapely hand toward a chair, he went on for a full -hour, I should think, filling sheet after sheet with industrious -application and singleness of purpose. It -was certainly no lightening of my responsibility that -made me sleepy when the quill-scratching grew by and -by into a soothing lullaby. But there had been a strenuous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -night and a none too restful day to follow it, and -before I realized that I had been asleep, I awoke to -find Sir Judas standing over me, with the gloomy -scowl of half-aroused suspicion wrinkling his brow, -his hands behind him, and his attitude that of a spy at -the windows of the unsuspecting.</p> - -<p>It is none so easy to come out of a sound sleep in -full possession of all the faculties. My first half-waking -impression was that something, a word muttered -in my sleep, perhaps, had betrayed me, and the impulse -that went with it prompted me to spring up and -throttle the traitor before he could give the alarm. In -good fact, I was starting from my chair with this same -insane purpose tugging at me, when his word reassured -me.</p> - -<p>“You sleep soundly, Captain Page, and I am old -enough and burdened enough to envy you the gift of -it,” he said moodily. And then, with a touch of sympathy -that made me wish he would always show me -only the hateful side of him: “I was about to command -your attendance for the evening, but you will be -needing rest to fit you for to-morrow’s duties, which -will be arduous enough.”</p> - -<p>Having a good grip upon my senses by this time, -I protested at once that I was fit and much refreshed -by my sleep, which I found, to my astonishment, had -stretched above an hour. Also, I expressed a willingness, -which was entirely unfeigned, to accompany him -wherever he was going, and I thought his somber eyes -lighted a little at that.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever heard me spoken of as a timid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> -man, Captain Page?” he asked, with a lifting of the -brow that was meant for a smile.</p> - -<p>I had not, and I said so. His worst enemy never -denied him courage and intrepidity, I think; and when -I remembered the stories they told of the rash boy who -had fired a pistol at his sister’s French admirer, and -had once stripped his coat and offered to fight a stout -constable who was interfering with some of his lawless -pranks, I could well believe that the daredevil boy of a -dozen years was the legitimate father of the man of -forty.</p> - -<p>“A timid man would scarcely have led the winter -march to Quebec,” I said in confirmation of the tribute -to his courage.</p> - -<p>At this the brow-wrinkling grew into a wintry -laugh.</p> - -<p>“That was five long years ago, and the times and -manners have changed much since then. In Mr. -Washington’s camp, now, they would be quoting -Shakespeare at me, saying that ‘Conscience doth make -cowards of us all.’ Do you read Shakespeare, Captain -Page?”</p> - -<p>“Not that part of him,” I laughed; adding: “Nor -do you, General Arnold.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not. Yet I find myself growing thoughtful -now, where I once took no thought,” he said reflectively; -“as in the present instance. You are fresh -from Washington’s camp, Captain. Have you ever -heard it said that he would give the half of his Virginia -estates to lay his hands upon me?”</p> - -<p>I could truthfully say “No,” to this.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>“It has been told me,” he went on moodily again. -“Also that he has his hired desperadoes here in these -streets waiting their chance to kidnap me. I am no -coward, Captain Page; so much I think I may say -without boasting. Yet there is something in that -Scripture that speaks of the terror of the arrow that -flieth by day and the pestilence walking in the darkness. -It will go hard with any or all of these assassin -emissaries of Mr. Washington’s if I can ferret them -out.”</p> - -<p>“It should, if you can catch them,” I agreed. “But -in the meantime, you should take no risks, General; -your safety means too much to the king’s cause. You -may call it a flattery if you will, but it is the simple -truth that the King’s Army on this side of the water -does not hold another commander who could fill your -place, sir,” I said, meaning, of course, that there was -no other base enough.</p> - -<p>“Oh, as to that,” he said, slipping on his air of -grandeur as if it had been a coat. “It would hardly -become me to agree with you, Captain Page. Still, -what I have done for the Congress and Mr. Washington, -I can do for Parliament and King George, I suppose. -But we are wandering from the point. I was -about to say that one of our friends gives a farewell -rout and supper to the officers of the Loyal Americans -to-night, and I thought that perhaps, partly because -of Mr. Washington’s hired Mohawks, and partly -from a desire to show your maiden uniform, you -would walk with me, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>I said I would be blithe to go; which was both<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -false and true. I thought it hard that I should have -to show myself as a Virginia Page in public places -wearing the feathers of a carrion bird. But on the -other hand, I was ready to bind myself to Sir Iscariot -by every tie that offered itself.</p> - -<p>So, when he had buttoned himself into a great -watchcoat, thrusting, as I observed, a pair of short, -thick-barreled dueling pistols into the outer pockets, -we took the stair for it, and so came down to the steps -where the crusty soldier stood at attention and saluted -as we passed him.</p> - -<p>Before we had gone many steps in the street I -thought I heard this soldier’s footfalls, or another’s, -close behind. Thinking it was a good time to show my -bodyguard watchfulness with little hurt to anybody, I -said, “One moment, General,” clapped hand to sword-hilt, -and made as if I would face about and charge the -man who was following us. But Arnold restrained -me.</p> - -<p>“No, not this time, Captain,” he said lightly. “It -is only our door-keeping sentry, and he has orders to -keep in touch with us. The streets are dark, and if -there should be an attack, three of us might be none -too many.”</p> - -<p>Having the information that I wanted, I caught -the step again, and when we had gone a little farther -on our way, I made bold to ask who our soldier-follower -was.</p> - -<p>“You should know him, as I take it, Captain -Page,” was the calm reply. “It is Sergeant Champe, -late of the rebel Henry Lee’s Light Dragoons.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">V<br> - -<small>A KISS AND A MAN’S LIFE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">OUR walking route, Arnold’s and mine, lay over -the ground we had covered together in the forenoon, -and was of an equal length. But with my brain -afire with the possibilities suddenly opened up by the -knowledge that Champe was only a step or two behind -us—that we two, bent upon the same object, had -the traitor practically in our hands—the distance we -traversed was all too short to let me invent a way to -take advantage of the Heaven-sent opportunity.</p> - -<p>Now came the time when I bitterly regretted the -headlong rashness that had led me to put the cart before -the horse in all the day’s work. It was clear now -that Champe was the only building basis for any rational -plot to take the traitor; he it was who was in -communication with Major Lee, without whose timely -cooperation in providing means of escape for us from -the town our mere seizing of Arnold would be but a -flash in the pan. My first and biggest care should -have been to make myself known in my true character -to Champe; and a sharp attack of self-abasement followed -the reflection that it might easily have been done -at our breakfast-table meeting. A nod, a hint, a wink—any -signal that might have given him a clue, would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> -have sufficed. And I had tossed the chance aside like a -spendthrift, telling myself that the day was yet young!</p> - -<p>Now, however, as we strode along through the ill-lighted -streets, the laggard afterwit spared me no stab. -Somewhere in the darkness behind us—never near -enough for me to signal to—tramped the sullen-faced -sergeant-major, ready enough to get into action, no -doubt, but firmly convinced that he was following two -traitors instead of one. For all I knew, the time might -be fully ripe for the striking of the blow. The difficulties -hitherto, as Mr. Hamilton had explained them, -had turned upon successive failures in fitting together -simultaneously the two halves of the plot, Champe’s -and Major Lee’s. What if the tangle had been -straightened out and got into working order in the -one-day interval, and I was merely obstructing instead -of helping?</p> - -<p>The thought was maddening, and yet I dared not -risk all by collaring my man and shouting to Champe -for help, and so, perhaps, making another blunder; -one which would cost Champe’s life as well as mine. -The better hope, it seemed, lay in retrieving the prime -error of the day at the earliest possible instant; and I -was still racking my brain to devise some way of communicating -quickly with Champe when we came to the -end of our walk.</p> - -<p>The house of entertainment, as it appeared, was on -the opposite side of the open space from the one which -Arnold had visited in the forenoon. It was a mansion, -as mansions go in the North, with a narrow lawn, -clipped hedges and box-borderings, and it was well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -illuminated in our honor. I thought we should be -early; at that hour our Virginia dames and damsels -would be just waking from their beauty naps. But -there was music within, and the dancing had begun, -though guests were still arriving in pairs and groups.</p> - -<p>Some half-dozen or more reached the door of welcome -just as we did, and here I hoped to get the -chance of speaking the necessary word to John -Champe. But though I was sure he had followed us -through the gate, he was nowhere to be seen; and -when Arnold’s name was called out by the footman in -waiting, my own was coupled with it, and again the -chance vanished.</p> - -<p>Our entry was into a large and brilliantly lighted -hall, which was well filled at the moment with the -arriving guests; bewigged civilians carrying the solid -Dutch pomp bequeathed to their successors by the -New Netherlanders; high-bred dames with powdered -hair and patches, which, however much they pique the -charms of the younger women are, to my mind, a -blemish on the face of maturity; officers and their -ladies, not so many of the gentlemen wearing the uniform -of the Loyal Americans as I had expected to see, -yet still a fair sprinkling of them.</p> - -<p>I missed the name of my hostess, though I afterward -learned that it was the roof of Chief Justice -Smith, brother of the Joshua Pett Smith who had been -the aider and abetter of the Arnold treason from the -beginning, that sheltered us. But this and kindred -trivialities were but the first few drops before the -storm which was presently to make me forget them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>I was still saying empty nothings to an elderly lady -to whom I had been passed on, with my brain busy, -as it had been for a good half-hour, upon the Champe -blunder, when I began to have a growing sense of impending -disaster. It was as if I had groped my way -into a dark room, believing it to be empty, and had -suddenly been warned, by that sixth sense which is yet -unnamed in the books, of the presence of another and -vaguely threatening occupant.</p> - -<p>It is curious how the instinct of self-preservation -bobs first to the surface, like a submerged bottle-cork, -in an emergency. The impulse was to duck and run, -without waiting to see what menaced me, and following -it, I bowed and made way for a snuffy old -gentleman who was ready to take my entertainer off -my hands. But being no better than a blind man in a -strange house, I went straight into the thick of the -peril. The ballroom lay beyond the broad stair running -by easy stages from the upper story, and my -thought was to go into the great room and so to lose -myself in the throng.</p> - -<p>At the turning of the newel-post, when the way -seemed altogether clear, a bevy of young women came -down the stair, and I stepped back and hung my head -and gave them precedence. They fluttered past, with -only a glance for the spick-and-span new uniform—all -save one. And when I looked up to find the reason it -was flashing down upon me in scorching contempt -from the eyes of Mistress Beatrix Leigh.</p> - -<p>She was standing on the next to the lowest step, -leaning with one hand lightly on the stair-rail, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> -though she was at the instant the very spirit and -image of the goddess of scorn and indignation, I never -saw her when she was more distractingly beautiful or -more to be desired. But she gave me little time to -admire her.</p> - -<p>“They told me,” she said most cuttingly, “that -there would be a Captain Page here to-night; one of -our Virginia Pages come at this late day to his proper -sense of loyalty. I could not tell them they lied, because -I was their guest; and now—oh, Dick! how -could you do it!” she ended, with a pitiful quivering -of the sweet lip and a sudden upspringing of tears to -the beautiful eyes.</p> - -<p>The human mind shuffles its cards quickly at such -a crisis. Had my secret been my own, she should have -had it there and then, and all would have been well. -I knew I could trust her, notwithstanding the fact that -she was Margaret Arnold’s friend—and her fellow-guest -in the house across the square, I feared.</p> - -<p>But the secret was not mine, and with the second -thought came the enlightening glimpse of how horribly -it would distress and embarrass her if she should -have even a hint of my true reason for this miserable -masquerade. So I hung my head and refused to say -the word which would have cleared me, though it -broke my heart to keep silence, in the face of the lip-quivering -and the tears and the reproachful exclamation.</p> - -<p>I could feel that the tears had been driven back and -that the glorious eyes were flashing again when she -went on.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>“You knew I should be here to-night, Mr. Page?” -she asked, giving me the courtesy prefix for the first -time in all our life-long knowing of each other.</p> - -<p>“No,” I replied dumbly. “How could I know it? -Your letters told me nothing of this—of your coming -to New York.”</p> - -<p>“Yet you saw me this morning,” she said accusingly.</p> - -<p>“I know now that I did; yet I could not believe it -then—nor later, when I tried to think it out. You saw -me?”</p> - -<p>“I did; and I have been telling myself all day long -that I did not. I said it could not be. By so much, -Mr. Page, your friends think better things of you than -you think of yourself.”</p> - -<p>“That may always be true of the worst as well as -the best of us,” I said, not knowing what else to say.</p> - -<p>She drew herself up proudly.</p> - -<p>“I never thought to have it to say for Mr. Richard -Page. Will you be good enough to let me pass, sir?”</p> - -<p>I stepped back, and she came down the two steps -with her face averted. I thought I could let her go; it -was my plain soldier duty. But when the fragrance of -her was in my nostrils I lost my hold on duty and all -else.</p> - -<p>“One word, Beatrix, for God’s sake!” I muttered, -praying that the words might go to her ears alone. “I -must see you before you quit this house, if only for -five little minutes! You can’t deny me this!”</p> - -<p>She left me without the promise, without a word, -without the slightest inclination of the proud head, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -I sank fathoms deep into the pit of wretchedness. And, -as if to make my punishment the sharper, in another -minute I saw her chatting gaily with a little whipper-snapper -British coxcomb of an ensign whom I could -most joyously have broken in two across my knee.</p> - -<p>As may readily be imagined, there was a miserable -hour or two for me after this; it might have been a -longer or a shorter time, I do not know. The clocks -were all stopped for me, and I know that I lived ages -head-under in the slime-pit of despair, coming to the -surface at intervals, when I had a glimpse of her -dancing, as she always danced, the very poetry of motion, -with one or another of the house guests, each -new man transforming himself, or being transformed, -into my bitterest foe because he had my place.</p> - -<p>Arnold I saw only once or twice, and scarcely gave -him a second thought; and as for Champe, whom I -might easily have hunted out now since he was probably -hanging about the door, I had forgotten the -worthy sergeant-major’s existence. So selfish and -single-eyed is a great love aroused and well convinced -that it has lost its all.</p> - -<p>During these ages of wretchedness, in which my -own dismal misery was only made the blacker by the -lights and the gay company filling the rooms to overflowing, -she never gave me a look or made me a sign -to show that she remembered my presence in the house -of merrymaking. But when I could endure it no longer—it -was while she was sitting out a dance with that -same popinjay ensign that I had desired to break in -two—I made my opportunity, passing in plainest view<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> -of her on my way to a hothouse garden pavilion connected -by a covered entryway with the drawing-room -where she was sitting.</p> - -<p>The air of the hothouse place was dense and heavy -with the perfume of blooming plants, and there was -little light save that which filtered through the glass -roof and came from a sort of cresset-lamp bracketed to -the housewall outside and overhead. But with all its -pent-up fragrance, or perhaps, because of it, the glass -house was empty, and I flung myself down upon a settle -to wait, hoping against hope that she would relent -and come and give me a word with her, though what -that word should be, I had no more idea than a simpleton.</p> - -<p>She did come, after what seemed like another full -age of suspense; and when I saw her dear face above -the intervening hothouse roses, I thought it was fairer -than any flower that ever bloomed, and so I should -have told her if she had not frozen me so that I could -only stand before her and try to stammer some word -of thanks for her coming.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she said, chilling me with a look of quiet -scorn.</p> - -<p>I tried to face her as I had faced my enemies in the -field, but it was no manner of use; she had me beaten -at my own game, and that before the game was begun.</p> - -<p>“How can I say what I’d like to say when you look -at me that way?” I protested. “Is it fair to condemn -me unheard?”</p> - -<p>“I have come to let you say that word you spoke -of,” she announced, and her tone was most discouraging.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>“You put me a thousand miles off!” I raged. “I -can’t shout across the world at you!”</p> - -<p>“There is no need to shout or to lose your temper, -Mr. Page. You can tell me in ten words, perhaps, -why you have thought it proper to change your coat -and your flag, when—” she broke down at this and -put her face in her hands, and I could hear her saying -over and over again softly, “Oh, the disgrace of it!—the -miserable, wretched disgrace of it!”</p> - -<p>“It is no disgrace, Beatrix,” I burst out hotly. “If -I could tell you—if I dared tell you—”</p> - -<p>There was no scorn in her eyes when she uncovered -them for me. But there were tears.</p> - -<p>“Yes; if you could tell me, Dick,” she repeated -after me, eagerly.</p> - -<p>If I had looked at her another second she would -have had it all out of me, in spite of my pledge to Mr. -Hamilton, or my life or John Champe’s or any other -thing that might be jeopardized. So I had to star-gaze -at the flaring lamp beyond the glass roof when -I said: “There may be reasons—good reasons, Beatrix. -Can’t you trust me to tell you them when we have a -better time and—and place than this?”</p> - -<p>“There can be no reason at all that will stand in the -breach for you, Dick. You know it, and that is why -you try to put me off. But there must have been a -cause, a most bitter cause, to bring you here in that -coat, and as the friend of that unspeakable man whose -mere presence makes me lock myself in my room when -he comes to see poor Margaret.” She was pleading -now; I knew it, and must still be obdurate and hard.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>“There was a cause, as you say,” I retorted. -“There must have been, since I have fought and spilt -blood on the other side. But I can tell you nothing -to-night without forswearing myself more than I had -to, to wear this coat you dislike so heartily. But I -had a cause,” I repeated, going back to the beginning -like a clock wound up to strike all its hours over again.</p> - -<p>“You are bitter, Dick,” she said, and now she made -no secret of her anxious sympathy. “You were always -a hot-head, ready to quarrel and fight and take -offense where none was meant. But I’ll do you the -justice to say that heretofore you’ve always made -reparation like a gentleman when your mad fit had -passed. But now this dreadful thing is beyond repair—or -is it?”</p> - -<p>I could lie joyously enough to forward the enterprise -which Mr. Hamilton had sent me on, but I could -not lie to her who was the heart of my heart, even by -implication.</p> - -<p>“No,” I said; “it is not beyond repair.”</p> - -<p>She caught eagerly at my reply.</p> - -<p>“Then you have already repented of this rashest, -most wretched passion-flight you ever made, Dick?—you -have thought of—of going back to your—to -Colonel—”</p> - -<p>I laid a finger on my lips and slipped past her to -see that the door in the passageway to the drawing-room -was fully closed.</p> - -<p>“What you are asking me to say would find me a -rope very quickly if it came to other ears,” I cautioned, -lowering my voice. Then in the same hurried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> -half-whisper, and fearing every moment lest we should -be interrupted: “What I have admitted thus far has -been the truth in every word. But you must trust me, -Beatrix; trust me in spite of everything. And you -must not ask me to tell you more.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ll promise me, Dick,—” she began.</p> - -<p>There was the sound of a gently-closing door and -steps in the passage—warnings she did not hear. Again -there came that quick shuttling of the mind that covers -all the moves of a desperate game in an eye-sweep that -can not be measured for its lightning-like swiftness. -She was a daughter of the Virginia Leighs, with a -father and three brothers in the patriot army. I was a -deserter and always to be suspected until I had actually -drawn blood in the king’s service. For any of the -Tory revelers to find us here together in cool converse.... -I saw the shadow of the gibbet hanging plainly -over me when I took her suddenly in my arms and -stopped what might have been my death-warrant with -a kiss on the sweet lips of pleading.</p> - -<p>There was a little tableau among the roses in the -glass house, with an audience of only one to see it. -While a clock might have ticked twice she lay in my -arms like some frightened wild thing. For all we had -grown up together, I had never let her see the masterful -side of me lover-wise, and I do think she was -shocked beyond speech or struggling.</p> - -<p>But shamed resistance and the strength to make it -came quickly enough when a man’s voice said, “Ah, -Captain Page, they told me you were here, but they did -not add that you had taken a fair prisoner, sir.” And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> -then, as we stood before him, Mistress Beatrix blushing -as she had a good right to, and I playing the part of a -fond lover taken in the very act, Arnold spread his -hands and made his lowest bow and said: “Your humble -and most devoted admirer, Mistress Leigh. I have -come to tell you that Margaret is asking for you. And -you, Captain, to your duty, sir. We have much -overstayed our time in this pleasant house.”</p> - -<p>Beatrix had fled before he finished, and afterward -he straightened up and looked me over with searchings -that seemed to read my inmost thoughts. But his -words belied his apparent insight.</p> - -<p>“I was troubled when they told me you were here -with Mistress Leigh,” he said slowly. “But pshaw! -I might have known how it was. You are a warm-hearted -lover, Captain, and it does you credit. And -love knows no politics, I’ll warrant you. Come, let us -be going. There is much to be done before to-morrow, -and time and tide wait for no man.”</p> - -<p>And so we took our departure from the house of -revels, and though I looked passionately everywhere -for her in the crowded assembly room, I had no other -sight of Beatrix, and had to go at last without knowing -whether she forgave me for saving my life with -that ravished kiss.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VI<br> - -<small>DARK NIGHT</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT WAS not much beyond ten o’clock when we -stepped out under the cold December stars and bade -farewell to Mr. Justice Smith’s hospitable house of -entertainment.</p> - -<p>I wondered a little at Arnold’s leaving so early, but -the wonder was appeased when he took another way -back to the seaward end of the town; a way which led -to the Loyal American barracks.</p> - -<p>Here, though I stood aside and took no part in Arnold’s -talk with a group of his officers, I overheard a -thing to shock the plotting part of me swiftly into -action. In a breath it was made plain that the time for -trapping our Judas had shrunk to a few short hours. -Early in the morning the legion was to begin embarking -for some destination as yet kept secret, and once -on shipboard, all chance of our seizing the traitor -would be at an end.</p> - -<p>This explained most clearly Arnold’s allusions of -the afternoon, and his early quitting of the house of -merrymaking. Also his saying to me that there was -much to be done before the morrow. Truly, there was -much to be done. If our business, Sergeant Champe’s -and mine, were not to burst like a pricked bubble it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -must have its beginning, its middle part, and its ending -crammed into the few hours that remained to us.</p> - -<p>So now I was set mad again upon that elusive -chase of Champe, and I had no more idea than a babe -unborn what had become of him. Now that I remembered, -it struck me like a blow that I had not seen him -at all since Arnold and I had passed him on our coming -out of the headquarters house in the lower town. -After that moment he had been a mere echoing of -footsteps in the rearward dark.</p> - -<p>Worse than this, he had not been our rearguard on -the retreat from Mr. Justice Smith’s to the barracks, -or if he had, I had not heard him. Being footloose -while Arnold was conferring with his officers about -the morning’s move to the ships, I used my liberty and -my eyes in a painstaking search, scrutinizing every -man in sight who wore a legion uniform. But the sergeant -was nowhere to be seen.</p> - -<p>This left me to climb desperately into the breach -alone—with no scaling ladder in sight; but lord! what -would this life be without its little excitements and its -apparently unsolvable problems? I was still alive, unhanged, -fit and vigorous; with my sweet lady’s kiss—I -could swear she kissed me back again, whether she -meant to or no—warm upon my lips, and with two -good hours of the night available before the tide would -turn to oppose an up-river flight.... The biggest -battles of the world had been fought and won in less -time, I reflected; and when we left the barracks, I was -planning just how I would clinch my man so he should -not have a chance to get at those flapped coat pockets -with their short-barreled pistols.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>The onward faring was made in silence, with one -of us, at least, listening anxiously for footfalls in the -rear—footfalls, which, however, stubbornly refused to -become audible. While his moody silence held, I was -afraid Arnold would dismiss me at the house door; on -which chance I should lose him altogether for the -night. But at the very moment of key-fitting he asked -me in, saying that there were certain maps of the -southern coast which he would like to have me verify -for him in the figures of the soundings.</p> - -<p>This gave me a little extension of the precious time, -at all events, and when we were above-stairs, and he -had lighted the candles, the maps were spread on the -table and I had to quibble afresh, giving him anchorage -depths in the Virginia roadways where a fishing-smack -would go aground, and otherwise discrediting -the makers of the finest set of navigation charts I had -ever seen.</p> - -<p>It encouraged me not a little that he was restless -while this map-undoing was going on, walking up and -down the room and coming now and then to bend over -the table to keep the question and answer alive. I say -it encouraged me, for the thing I feared was that he -would settle down for the night’s work and tell me to -leave him. But so long as he stayed afoot and restive -there seemed room for the hope that he might be going -out again.</p> - -<p>The hope was not unfounded, as the event proved. -Right in the midst of the map talk he broke off to ask -me if I were leg-weary, and if I would favor him by -accompanying him to the garden in the rear of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -house, where, as he said, it was his nightly custom to -walk off the perplexities and brain fatigues of the day.</p> - -<p>Anything was better than being hived up in the -house with him, I decided, and while the garden promised -little, it had the advantage of being out-of-doors -and a few paces nearer to the river which must be my -highway to success and freedom, if any highway were -to be found.</p> - -<p>So we tramped down the stair again, and I had my -first unsatisfactory sight of the garden at the back. -As well as I could make out in the starlight, it was a -long and rather narrow area, enclosed within a high -wooden fence, with a graveled walk running down the -middle of it, and with a few shrubs and stunted trees -growing in the neglected flower- and vegetable-beds; -as safe a place against any desperate kidnapping purpose -as any that could be found outside of the garrison -prison yard.</p> - -<p>Arnold was still harping upon the Virginia coast -and its anchorages when we began to pace a weary -sentry-beat side by side up and down the graveled -walk, and he kept it up with a great persistence, inquiring -minutely into the navigating particulars, and keeping -me so busy misleading him that I could not get a -moment for the consideration of any plotting plan at -all.</p> - -<p>But as for that, the whole heavens and earth and -all the universe were blankly void of suggestion. I -could think of nothing that offered the slightest chance -of success. To drop a step behind, to give him a sudden -wrestler’s back-throw and afterward to bind and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -gag him were all simple enough. My six feet of good, -sound, country-bred Virginia bone and muscle would -answer for these primitive beginnings. But having -trussed my fowl, I should be like the man who stole a -hobbled horse, which he could neither carry nor ride. -I could never hope to escape out of the high-fenced -garden with my captive, or to reach the river unhalted, -or, reaching it, to have the fairy luck of finding a boat -with oars shipped and waiting for me to pull away in.</p> - -<p>One of these difficulties—the least of them—overcame -itself as we were wheeling to make one of our -face-abouts at the lower end of the walk. A board in -the high fence paling had been displaced, and when I -touched it with my foot it fell outward with a dry -clatter and left a gap in the enclosure.</p> - -<p>“Your boundaries are tumbling down, General Arnold,” -I remarked carelessly; and he replied that it -mattered little, since they would be another’s boundaries -very shortly. After which he paid no more -attention to the gap opened by the falling board; but I -did, and every time we made the turn at the walk’s end -it tempted me. If I only knew what lay beyond: how -far it was to the river’s edge, and what one of a thousand -chances I might have of finding a boat unlocked -and with oars in it!</p> - -<p>But I did not know, could not know; and thus the -irresolute “I dare not,” waited upon the “I would,” -and I was alternately fever-hot with excitement and -shivering in depression, the thing to be desired being -so near and yet so inimitably far.</p> - -<p>It was some time after the incident of the gap-opening,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -and while we were passing a point midway -between the house and the garden end, that Arnold -stopped short in his questioning about the Portsmouth -harbor to hold up a finger for silence.</p> - -<p>“What was that?” he asked, and I saw his other -hand disappear into one of the pistol-hiding pockets.</p> - -<p>“I heard nothing,” I made answer, which was the -truth.</p> - -<p>“It was a sneeze or a cough,” he commented; “I -am certain of it.”</p> - -<p>The pause gave me time to look around more precisely -than I had been able to while he was holding me -in talk. The scrubby trees and evergreens might possibly -have sheltered an eavesdropper, but not safely. -Besides these there was nothing in the garden that -would have concealed a cat.</p> - -<p>“It was the sentry in front of Sir Henry Clinton’s -quarters,” I suggested.</p> - -<p>“No,” he objected; “it was nearer at hand. Make -a circuit of that shrubbery, Captain Page, while I -cover this side.” And I heard the click of a pistol-lock -as he pulled the weapon from his pocket.</p> - -<p>I ran around the larger clump of evergreens, sword -in hand, and found nothing—the more readily since I -was not expecting to find anything. When I came up -with him again, he appeared to be satisfied, and we -went on walking and talking as before, though now I -observed that he kept his right hand in the pocket of -the greatcoat, and I could feel rather than see that his -eyes were roving watchfully from side to side as we -paced up and down.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>It must have been nearly midnight when the long -forced march back and forth in the garden walk ended, -and with its ending all hope of carrying off the traitor -by main strength and awkwardness bade me farewell, -for that night at least. I took it hard, not knowing if -there would ever be another night more promising; -and when Arnold had put me through the house and -out at the front door, telling me to go to my inn quarters -and to be prepared for an early reveille, I hung -about in the street and made friends with the sentry at -Sir Henry Clinton’s door as if I were still on duty, -killing time for another full hour until I saw the lights -go out in the traitor’s upper room; all this on the barest -chance that he might come down again and so re-open -the book of fate.</p> - -<p>When all was over I went to my tavern, railing at -Sir Judas, at John Champe, and most of all at myself -for the futile fizzling out of a thing that looked so -simple on the face of it. Also, I had a hard word or -two for Mr. Hamilton for waiting until the clock had -fairly struck before he turned the failing failure over -to me.</p> - -<p>This is how it looked to me, sober and chilled. But -after I had got warm before the blazing fire of logs in -the tavern bar, and was the better for a hearty swig of -fresh-mulled wine, things took on a cheerfuller hue; -and when I lighted my tallow dip and went above-stairs -to the great barn-like room which had been assigned -me, I was turning over in my mind a wild plan -of how I might smuggle in a dozen of my fellows -from Baylor’s Horse, snatch the traitor out of his bed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> -and mount and ride and cut the way out to freedom. -By which it would appear that the hot wine, poured -into an empty stomach, had straightway climbed to -the upper story—a thing quite possible, even when one -is twenty-two past, a Virginian, and a well-seasoned -soldier, to boot.</p> - -<p>I had no more than struggled out of my watchcoat, -and was making ready to tumble into bed, when there -came a trampling of heavy feet up the stair and along -the corridor. Somewhere about opposite my door the -footsteps paused, and I paused, too, with my waistcoat -half off and the wine fumes clearing from my -brain as swiftly as if a cold north wind were blowing -them aside.</p> - -<p>And, in good truth, I needed to be sobered suddenly, -for the next instant the door sprang open as -from a lusty kick, and Sergeant-Major John Champe, -his saturnine face a devil-mask of furious and frenzied -rage, charged in upon me.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VII<br> - -<small>AND AN UNBLEST DAWN</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THERE was murder in Champe’s bloodshot eyes, -and for the moment I was helpless, having the -waistcoat bridged across my arms like a hangman’s -shackles. Luckily for me, he had no weapon, else it -is to be feared I should have quit this troubled scene -there and then.</p> - -<p>As it was, he flung himself upon me like a wild -beast, all claws to grip and teeth to tear, and I went -down as if I had been a ten-pin, and he a bowl twirled -by the hand of the Giant Grim. Also his clutching -fingers were at my throat before I could rip and rend -that cursed manacling waistcoat into rags; so, by the -time my arms were free, the cold dead air of the big -room was no longer mine to breathe, and this fickle -world, or what little I could see of it, was turning red -and green and black and back to red again before my -eyes which seemed to be sticking out of my head on a -pair of horns like a snail’s.</p> - -<p>But Baylor’s Horse, or any fraction of it, does not -die without a struggle. With my hands free, I got a -grip of the black-faced maniac’s wrists, held it, tightened -it until I could feel the joints crack and his big -fingers relax because there was no longer any living<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -connection between them and the pounding heart and -maddened brain.</p> - -<p>After that it was simpler, though he was the heavier -man. With a quick bending of the strangled wrists, -I rolled him off of me, holding him so until the red -lights stopped their dancing and I could get up with -some assurance that I should not be entirely helpless on -my feet. Then I loosed him, and staggered upright, -reeled across to the door and shut and barred it.</p> - -<p>“That’s for you, as well as for myself, you addle-headed -idiot!” I panted; and then I swore at him -heartily as he sat on the floor nursing his helpless hands.</p> - -<p>He was not much behind me in the cursing, his -tongue being still uncrippled. What he called me is -not in any gentleman’s word-book, but I did not lay -it up against him. “You have reason, my friend,” I -allowed him, and sat down on the bed’s edge to rest -my throat while he eased the burden of his soul.</p> - -<p>“Well, have you said it all?” I asked, after he had -sworn himself out of breath and doubled up every epithet -in the vocabulary of abuse.</p> - -<p>“Damn you for a—” he began again, taking a -fresh start; and I laughed till my strained eyes ran -over with the tears and my throat ached again. The -figure of the man, with his darkly ferocious face, sitting -hunched upon the floor, his benumbed hands -crossed upon his knees and his loose-hung jaw wagging -like a panting dog’s in a vain effort to keep pace -with the outpouring flood of vituperation, was inexpressibly -mirth-provoking to me, though another -might not have found it so.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>But there finally came an end, alike to his ravings -and to my laughter, and we arrived at some better -understanding; though not all at once, you may be -sure.</p> - -<p>“Curse you for a deserting traitor, Captain Richard -Page! I’ll kill you for this night’s work, if it’s the -last thing I ever live to do!” was his closing volley.</p> - -<p>“Just as much of a ‘deserting traitor’ as you are, -Sergeant Champe; no more and no less,” I retorted, -curbing a mighty desire to laugh at him again.</p> - -<p>“What’s that?” he growled suspiciously. “I tell -you I am a deserter; Middleton saw me come off.”</p> - -<p>“No one saw me, as it happened,” I rejoined, -“though Captain Seytoun’s watchboat chased and fired -upon me. Yet I say it again, John Champe: I am -just as good a deserter as you are, and neither better -nor worse. Moreover, I deserted for the same identical -cause that you did.”</p> - -<p>“You lie, Captain Page,” he said quite brutally; -but I forgave him.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t be above it, Champe—to an enemy, -and if there were any good end to be subserved. But -in this instance I am talking to a friend—you see I -can be generous, in spite of your having just tried to -choke the life out of me. You’ll understand when I -tell you that I know your business in New York, and -that I am here solely to help you forward it.”</p> - -<p>That was the moment when I thought he would -go chittering crazy with rage and despair. Disappointment, -mad wrath, sharp remorse, bitter curses directed -now at everything he could lay tongue to, boiled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -out of him as if he had been a pot hung above the hottest -fire that ever crackled on a housewife’s hearth.</p> - -<p>“Hell and zounds!” he foamed, when he became a -little coherent again. “All the devils in the pit fight -for that man! Listen, Captain Page: this night was -our final chance, and on this night of all others everything -was at last in readiness. Major Lee, with a -picked troop from the legion, was in hiding in the -wood across the river, and a boat from the schooner -Nancy Jane was to be hanging off and on to come -ashore and take us to the Jersey side.”</p> - -<p>“Go on,” I commanded sharply, though the sharpness -was not for poor Champe; it was for what I foresaw -was coming.</p> - -<p>“It was trimmed to the last shaving of a toothpick,” -he continued fiercely. “I knew his custom—to -walk late o’ night in the garden. I had loosened a -board in the fence, and we—the one who was to help, -and I—were to seize and bind and gag him, whip him -out through the hole in the fence, and so to the river -and the boat.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” I said; and certainly I did see—far more -than was pleasant to contemplate.</p> - -<p>“When it was told me he was going to a rout, I -thought our cursed luck had tripped us again,” Champe -went on. “Then I got the order to follow him, as a -guard of honor, I suppose, and here you thrust yourself -in, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“No,” I denied; “I was thrust in; but, like yourself, -I take it, I was not sorry to have the chance of -keeping him in view. Go on with your tale.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>“It is soon told,” he rejoined. “At the mansion -house up yonder, having no orders to wait for his -coming out, I ran back to set the trap. Two freezing -hours we lay under the cedars in that hell-fired garden, -and then we saw the lights, and a little farther on we -heard the old fox walking into the trap. But he was -not alone, as you know, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“How many of you were there?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Two: one other and myself. The third was on -the river bank, signaling the boat.”</p> - -<p>“You should have killed me out of your way, Sergeant -Champe. It was your plain duty to your country. -If we ever get out of this and back to our own -horse-ropes, I shall see you court-martialed for that -slip, my good man.”</p> - -<p>“There were but the two of us, Captain Dick,” he -said, giving me the name my own troop used.</p> - -<p>“Well? How many would you ask for, to put the -quietus on one man, and he armed only with a sword -that you did not need to let him lug out of its sheath?”</p> - -<p>His scowl, which was the natural fashion of his -forbidding face, broadened into a sardonic grin.</p> - -<p>“My fellow under the cedars might have chanced -it, since he didn’t know you. But not I, my bully captain. -I know you too well, sir. Before we could have -said ‘Jack Robinson’ you would have had one or both -of us wondering how we came there with so many -skin rents to be sewed up.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” said I. “I should have been fighting -on your side. But, of course, you couldn’t know that.”</p> - -<p>“No; we couldn’t and didn’t. You know what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> -happened afterward; how we hid and watched you two -going back and forth so near to us that any time you -passed I could have touched you. Once my fellow -sneezed, though he well-nigh burst a blood-vessel trying -to stop it. You didn’t hear it, but Arnold did. -Then I thought we should have to run the risk of your -frog-sticker, Captain Dick, whether we liked it or no.”</p> - -<p>“Were you under the evergreens?”</p> - -<p>“Sure enough. You made the circle completely -around us. But for my taking in a leg, you would -have stumbled over me.”</p> - -<p>I held up a hand for silence.</p> - -<p>“You are fluenter than I am with the soldier-curses, -Champe. Will you say over a few of the choicest -of them for me? All through those two hours -while you were freezing under the evergreens, I was -hammering my brain to invent some way by which I -could take Sir Judas with my two unaided hands. I -knew nothing of Major Lee’s dispositions, or of the -boat, or of what you had done; which is pointedly my -own fault, since I should have left everything else to -wait and hunted you out before I ventured to stick my -oar in. Certainly you missed the fool-killing chance -of a lifetime, Sergeant, when you failed to run me -through with your bayonet this night!”</p> - -<p>But at this the humaner side of the dark-faced sergeant-major -came to the fore.</p> - -<p>“No, Captain Dick,” he said quite civilly. “It was -our crooked luck again, and some of it was my fault. -I took you for what you seemed to be—this morning, -and more than ever, this afternoon and evening when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> -you had the colors on. But it’s done and over, and -there are two of us to pay the piper instead of one. -It’s the devil’s own pickle we are in, sir, with these -coats of ours to tell what we’ll have to do and where -we’ll have to go to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>I thought so, too, and for a little time could do -nothing better than to prop my face in my hands and -grill it over back and forth in all its bitterness. But -finally out of the grilling came that fuddle-headed -thought of mine builded on the fumes of the warmed -wine and concerning itself with an assault on Arnold’s -house, with men enough to make it somewhat less than -madness.</p> - -<p>Now my own men were far enough away, but, by -Champe’s tale, Major Lee was in hiding somewhere -on the Jersey shore; and I knew the mettle of the -major and of the men he commanded.</p> - -<p>“There is hope yet, Sergeant!” I cried, when the -idea had fully taken shape. “Are you hot-blooded -enough to go with me where I shall lead?”</p> - -<p>Champe wagged his hands back and forth and -stretched the fingers.</p> - -<p>“The feeling is coming back to them,” he said, and -then he got up and signified his readiness.</p> - -<p>I explained my plan to him in low tones, remembering, -at this late dealing of the cards, that Castner -had rooms somewhere on this same floor with us.</p> - -<p>“You say Major Lee has a force in hiding across -the river. Good; we’ll slip out of this, one at a time, -scud for the river, and steal a boat. When we find the -major, I shall beg him to lend me a dozen of his men.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> -If he will do it—and you know him better than I do—we’ll -steal another boat and come back.”</p> - -<p>Champe’s dark eyes were blazing.</p> - -<p>“And we’ll sack the house and take the traitor in -his bed!” he exclaimed. “Captain Dick, if you can put -that through, I’ll lie down and let you walk on me for -that neck-wringing I gave you a few minutes back.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind the choking-match, Jack Champe; -get you out of here, and wait for me in the street. -I’ll join you when I’ve pieced my clothes together on -me,” I said; and so it was settled.</p> - -<p>I found Champe waiting when I had sneaked out -of the tavern so quietly, I hoped, as to make my going -pass unnoticed. Together we sought the river bank, -and craftily dodging a sleepy sentinel, crept down to -the water’s edge. Luck was with us this time, for before -we had gone a dozen paces along the shore we -came upon a small boat riding by a long chain, and, -searching in likely hiding-places under the overhanging -bank, we found the oars. Pieces of my torn waistcoat -answered for the muffling; and in the next passing -of the sleepy sentry on the bank above, we pushed -off and rowed lustily for the opposite shore.</p> - -<p>But that one piece of good luck in finding the boat -and getting off unseen exhausted our allotment for the -night. Champe’s two confederates, the one who had -been with him in the garden, and the other who had -been standing guard at the river’s edge, had both disappeared -and we knew not where to look for them. In -due time we made a landing on the Jersey side; whereupon -we became as helpless as a pair of babes in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -wood. We had no more idea where to look for Major -Lee and his troopers than we should have had if we -had been born blind, the third man in Champe’s plot, -the river-edge watcher who was to signal to the <i>Nancy -Jane’s</i> dinghy, and who was afterward to guide the -captors, being the only one who knew.</p> - -<p>None the less, we sought and searched, as those -who have lost their all, using the time recklessly in exploring -every stretch of woodland we could locate in -the darkness, and even going so far as to inquire when -we found any one stirring at any of the isolated farm -houses.</p> - -<p>It was just before day that we got our clue. A -countryman, looking first askance at our uniforms as -his lantern showed us to him, told us that a troop of -dragoons had been all day in the wood above his -house, but that an hour or more ahead of us they had -galloped furiously away on the northward road.</p> - -<p>Champe and I exchanged discouraged glances. -That settled it for us, and when we were out of sight -and hearing of the farmer we made some hurried discussion -of what came next on our bill of fare.</p> - -<p>“You must take to the road, worn out as you are, -and make your way back to your regiment, Sergeant,” -I said, settling Champe’s course for him as if I had -been his own captain.</p> - -<p>But now his dogged courage seemed to have oozed -away. “I can never make it, Captain Dick. I’d be overhauled -as soon as daylight comes, and that would mean -dancing upon nothing for me. They wouldn’t even -give me a soldier’s death.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>“Pshaw, man!” said I, half angrily. “Being safely -out of the town and this far on the road, you have little -to fear.”</p> - -<p>But he only shook his head gloomily, and would -not be persuaded, breaking in upon me, while I was -trying to urge him, with a question as to my own designs.</p> - -<p>I laughed. “I came out to snare Sir Judas,” I told -him. “That, and nothing less, is what I shall do, John -Champe, if I follow him to the ends of the earth.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll be taken and hanged,” said Champe.</p> - -<p>“Not if I can help it, you may be sure. But come; -you must decide. I’m going back, and there is little -enough time to do it in, the Lord knows.”</p> - -<p>He hesitated yet another minute or two and then -rose up stiffly from the log on which he had been sitting. -“I’ll go back with you and see it through,” he -declared moodily.</p> - -<p>I tried once again to dissuade him, showing him -how he was likely to have miseries enough as a common -soldier in any regiment commanded by Arnold; -showed him further how he would certainly be required -to choose between death at the last and fighting -against his country in very deed and fact.</p> - -<p>But it was all to no purpose. Say what I would, -his only reply was a stubborn repetition: “I’ll go back -with you and see it through.” And when I could get -nothing more out of him, we made our way as swiftly -as possible back to our stolen boat, taking to the water -a short half-hour, I should say, before dawn-breaking.</p> - -<p>Our luck, which had left us so promptly after the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -boat-stealing, gave us a little glimpse of itself again -when we approached the New York shore. By the -merest chance, we took ground within a few feet of -the dangling boat chain, and by chance again, our -sleepy sentinel, or another in his place, was at the other -end of his beat when we climbed cautiously up the -bank.</p> - -<p>Once more safely in the town, we separated; -Champe to go to his barracks, and I to steal unobserved -into my tavern and up the stair and so to my -room with the unrumpled bed.</p> - -<p>I rumpled the bed duly, in less than two minutes -after I had dropped the door-bar, being fully nine-tenths -dead for the want of sleep and rest. But I had -scarcely pulled the covers up before there came a -mighty thundering at the door; and when I went to -answer it, I was told that my general commanded my -attendance on the moment—and he had sent a soldier -to do the summoning.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VIII<br> - -<small>A WALK UP GALLOWS HILL</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT nettles me to think that one carrying the name of -Page should be a prey to senseless terror, but the -sight of that sour-faced soldier standing, with his musket -at parade, before my door, made me ill.</p> - -<p>Weighing it evenly in a calmer moment, it was not -so greatly to be wondered at. A spy’s life always -hangs by the slenderest thread, with all the world that -touches him a den of wild beasts ready to tear him -limb from limb. Besides, I was in the last ditch of -weariness and fatigue and a tired body is next to an -empty belly for sapping the courage.</p> - -<p>But, after all, my soldier caller did not put me under -arrest when I was dressed and ready to go with -him. On the contrary, he preceded me to Arnold’s -house, and when I went in, took up his sentry stand -before the entrance, pacing in step with Sir Henry -Clinton’s man next door.</p> - -<p>When I climbed the stair and met the man whose -escapes of the night past might have been measured in -thicknesses of a hair, the unreasoning terror gripped -me again. Arnold was standing with his back to the -door when I entered, and when he turned to face me -he was scowling darkly and his first question made my -heart turn a somersault within me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>“Where did you go last night, after you left me, -Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>“Nowhere,—at once,” I asserted, meaning to stay -in the boat of truth as long as any two planks of it -would hold together. “Your thought that you heard -some one in the garden set me to thinking; so I hung -off and on here before the house until I saw your -lights go out.”</p> - -<p>“You saw nothing?—heard nothing?”</p> - -<p>“No. The town was as quiet as I dare say it used -to be when the Mynheers snored their nights away in -it.”</p> - -<p>“And afterward?”</p> - -<p>“Afterward I went to my quarters in the tavern -where Lieutenant Castner took me,” I continued, making -sure that his next question would knock my boat -of truth into splinters, leaving me floundering in a sea -of lies. And, truly, I did not feel equal to such a swimming -match with him, now, with every drop of blood -in me nudging its neighbor to keep awake.</p> - -<p>“You found all quiet at the tavern?” he demanded, -fixing me with his gaze as I have seen a cruel boy pin -a fly to the wall.</p> - -<p>“As quiet as a graveyard. The barman was only -half awake, and the waking half of him went to sleep -after he had mulled me a cup of wine.”</p> - -<p>“Strange!” he said; and then he fell to walking the -floor, and I had time to catch my breath and to get a -fresh grip on myself before he began again.</p> - -<p>“After your cup of wine, Captain Page? What -happened then?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>“I went up-stairs to the room they had given me. -But my sleep was bad.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!” said he; “now we are coming to it. What -disturbed you?”</p> - -<p>It was worse than groping in the dark; it was like -groping without the sense of touch to guide me. But -I had to go on, though I saw that my road might easily -end on Gallows Hill.</p> - -<p>“First I heard, or dreamed I heard, a noise as of -men fighting. A little later I’m sure I heard a great -deal of loud talk and some oaths, and tramplings in my -corridor and on the stair. After that, I was awake -most of the time, I think, but I heard no more of the -inn noises.”</p> - -<p>He sat down behind his writing-table and waved -me to a chair.</p> - -<p>“Sit down, Captain Page, and you shall have the -explanation of all this,” he said, and the sudden change -in his tone relaxed my strain so violently that I fairly -reeled into a chair. “I sent for you thus early to question -you before you had the news from other sources,” -he went on. “Make a note of it, Captain, and when -you wish to examine a witness, get hold of him before -his impressions have been distorted out of shape by his -confusing of them with the impressions of others. You -recall what I was saying last night about the Washington -plot against my person?”</p> - -<p>I bowed.</p> - -<p>“I think I owe my liberty, and perhaps my life, to -you, Captain Page; or at least to your presence here -up to midnight. There are suspicious circumstances<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -enough to warrant the belief that a plot was laid -against me, to be sprung last night. I was in hopes -that you might be able to add further information; but -your items only confirm the story of the inn people. -They thought, however, that the sounds of the scuffle -came from your room.”</p> - -<p>“If I had been as sound asleep as I needed to be, a -battle royal might have been fought in my room without -my knowing it,” I replied, regaining something of -my self-possession.</p> - -<p>“This squabble in the inn seems to have been an -aftermath,” he continued; “possibly”—and here I -thought he looked sharply at me again—“a meeting of -the plotters to jangle over their failure. Which points -to a traitor among us, Captain, since there are no suspicious -characters quartering at the tavern whose room -could have been used for a rendezvous. But one thing -is certain: one of the janglers was a soldier of the -Loyal American Legion in uniform. A horse-boy saw -him slip into the tavern and go up-stairs.”</p> - -<p>My heart came into my mouth, and, by the bones -of all the Pages, I had to swallow twice to get it down -again. Champe was surely skating upon the thinnest -ice that ever held the weight of a man, and if he broke -through, I should be quite as far from the shore as he.</p> - -<p>“But—but the other circumstances, sir,” I -prompted, hoping to turn him back from this aftermath -business, as he called it, in the tavern.</p> - -<p>“They are quite conclusive. All day yesterday a -troop of rebel horse was in hiding on the Jersey shore, -evidently waiting for some prearranged event to come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -off. Late in the evening the schooner <i>Nancy Jane</i> -dropped a boat, manned by a single pair of oars, and -then stood up and down the river for several hours. -The dropped boat was seen more than once by our sentries, -and it was always hanging in the tideway at the -same place.”</p> - -<p>“Surely, all this was most suspicious!” I exclaimed, -as heartily as I could.</p> - -<p>“It was; but this was only the groundwork of the -plot. You remember the loose board in the fence at -the back of my garden? That board had been removed -for a purpose. Captain. At the very moment -when you remarked it, there were men in the garden -waiting their chance to attack me. They were hidden -under the cedars, and it was one of them who coughed -or sneezed loud enough for me to hear him.”</p> - -<p>“Heavens!” I ejaculated. “What a desperately -narrow escape you have had, General Arnold!”</p> - -<p>“I think so myself,” he observed quite coolly. And -then, without a sign or a word of warning, he struck -my slowly recovering self-possession the most treacherous -back-blow it ever had. “Captain Page, I owe -you something, as I have admitted. But you must be -frank with me. The soldier who climbed the stair in -the tavern last night was Sergeant Champe, and the -door he entered was yours.”</p> - -<p>If I ever have a son, I shall pray God to endow -him with an alert brain, the choicest gift a man can -have. If I had hesitated a single instant as to the -course I should pursue, if I had winked a wink too -many or drawn a breath a thousandth part of a second<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -too long—well, there would have been a midnight -walk for me to the top of Gallows Hill to keep a tryst -with some Tory Jack Ketch, with Mistress Beatrix left -to cry her pretty eyes out, if she cared anything for -poor Dickie Page.</p> - -<p>But I did none of these fatal things. Instead, I -flushed, sought for the exact face of innocent guilt, -and said, “General Arnold, I do most humbly beg your -pardon for deceiving you, though I beg you to believe -that, as far as I went, I told you the precise truth.” -Here I let him see my eyes for long enough to drive -that nail well home. “But beyond the time of my going -to bed, I hoped you would not press me too closely. -Champe did come to my room. He had been making -a night of it with some of the other men—their last -night ashore—and his temper even when he is fully -sober, is none of the best, as you may have already -observed.”</p> - -<p>He gave me a slow nod, and I went on, gaining a -little now in the race with the hangman, I hoped.</p> - -<p>“He was most quarrelsome and abusive. He had -sought me out, it seems, because he had a drunken -notion that I was responsible for your leaving him outside -of Mr. Justice Smith’s house last night, and so exposing -him to the gibes of those horse-boys and others -of the regular line who hate our legion uniform wherever -they see it. There was more than a squabble; it -was a pitched battle, and I had to beat a little sober -sense into him before I could quiet him, and even then -he went on babbling foolishness and curses until I was -afraid he would have the house about our ears.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>“Go on, Captain Page,” said my inquisitor, most -grimly non-committal.</p> - -<p>“There is little else to tell you, General Arnold. -When I had him sobered a little, I saw him past the -tavern bar and farther in safety; and when I quitted -him I had his promise that he would go to his barracks -and behave himself. I confess I would have kept -all this from you, if I could. John Champe, sober, is -as good a soldier as ever picked a flint, and since I had -given him his beating, I thought to spare him a worse -thing. So long as your questions did not touch the -man’s loyalty—or mine—I felt warranted in holding -back this tale of his stumble into the ale-pot. Soldiers -will be soldiers, General, and that officer can get the -most out of them who first beats them and then overlooks -their little peccadilloes.”</p> - -<p>I was in cruel doubt for five age-long minutes as -to whether I had made my case or signed my death-warrant. -No man was ever better able to hide his -mind behind his face save in his sudden upblazes of -passion, than was this same Benedict Arnold; and -when he rose to walk the floor in gloomy meditation, -with his head hanging and his fingers tightly locked -behind him, I lived a dozen lifetimes and could well-nigh -feel the hemp drawing tight around my neck.</p> - -<p>But at the end he let me off with a caution and a -veiled threat.</p> - -<p>“You should have two lessons out of this, Captain -Page,” he said at length, stopping abruptly to stand -over me. “One is that it is never worth your while to -play fast and loose with me in matters of information.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -Make your mind a looking-glass for me, or better still, -a window-pane, for, sooner or later, I shall always be -at the bottom of your profoundest secret. The other -lesson is this: your adhesion to the king’s cause is but -a day old. Until it gains a little age and dignity, it -will be well for you to avoid even the appearance of -evil.”</p> - -<p>I rose, feeling as any man would who had been -given his reprieve after the black cap had been fairly -drawn down over his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I should have known better, General,” I said, -feigning the meekest humility and self-reproach. -“And now, sir, if you have orders for me—”</p> - -<p>He broke into my tender of services with the welcomest -word I had heard in many a day.</p> - -<p>“Go to your quarters, Captain Page, and finish the -sleep I interrupted. Your rest has been sufficiently -broken of late to justify some rebellion in nerve and -muscle. The embarkation begins to-day, but we shall -do well enough without you.”</p> - -<p>It was not more than ten minutes from this early-morning -tight-rope dance that I once more tumbled -into bed in the barn-like upper room at the tavern, -and I was sinking sweetly into the lap of the goddess -whose charms we never appreciate until a wakeful -night or two makes them precious, when I -started up with a cold sweat breaking out in a frost -rime all over me. In all the tight-rope business, I had -never once thought of Arnold’s questioning Champe, -or of how little any story of his would be likely to fit -in with mine!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>If my stripping for bed had been swift, the reversal -of the process left the disrobing as far behind as if it -were a tortoise racing the fleetest hound that ever gave -tongue on fox’s scent. In frantic haste I dressed and -left the inn and made my way to the legion barracks. -The embarkation had already begun, they told me, and -when I mentioned Champe’s company, it was added -that it had gone aboard among the first.</p> - -<p>On the face of it, this seemed as if it might be a -danger past, but I thought it best to make assurance -doubly sure and to that end dragged my weary legs -down to the boat-landing where the lighters were putting -off to the ships.</p> - -<p>It was well indeed that I took this final precaution. -Not a stone’s throw from the landing I met Champe, -that minute come ashore in one of the returning boats -on a peremptory summons from Arnold. Beckoning -him aside, I told him hurriedly what was before him, -and drilled him upon the story I had invented till he -begged for mercy and swore he could say it backward.</p> - -<p>That was all very well, but I have learned that a -cat killed is a cat safely dead only after it is well -buried, with the earth tramped down solidly upon it. -So, when I had kept sight of Champe until Arnold’s -door opened to swallow him, I found a spying place -and watched—and had no trouble in keeping awake, -either, I promise you—until I saw him come out again.</p> - -<p>He gave me the countersign in passing, as he was -on his way back to his ship. It was only a single -word, “Hoodwinked,” but it lifted a load from my -shoulders that was all but crushing me; lifted the load<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> -and let me, for the third time that morning, seek the -bed that seemed to have a spiteful grudge against a -weary soldier of fortune.</p> - -<p>This time there were no cold-sweat alarms to -snatch me from the brink, and when next I opened my -eyes, the room was dark, and I knew not what day or -night of the week it was.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IX<br> - -<small>IN WHICH I PAY A DUTY CALL</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">CASTNER was at the supper-table in the tavern -common-room when I went up-stairs, and I found -that I had slept the clock only once around. To my -surprise, the lieutenant was wearing a uniform to -match my own, and I saw now why he had been so -sore at my pointless joke. He was to accompany the -Arnold expedition; and I was not long in divining the -reason when he told me sourly that he had been detailed -to act as aide to General Arnold. For all he had -paid good king’s gold and a commission in the king’s -army for his prize traitor, Sir Henry Clinton was -afraid to trust him, and my friend Castner was going -along as a sort of amiable spy in Arnold’s military -household.</p> - -<p>“You don’t seem to take your promotion very joyfully,” -I laughed, drawing a chair opposite and sitting -down to help him with the cold roast.</p> - -<p>“It’s a dirty business,” he blurted out; and then -he shut his mouth on his meat and I was left to guess -whether he meant his own sending, or the proposed -descent of an armed force upon a defenseless coast.</p> - -<p>A little later three or four other officers came in -for their suppers, among them Major Simcoe, who had -commanded the Queen’s Rangers at Germantown.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -Their talk, which comfortably ignored me either as a -deserter and as beneath their notice, or as an untried -recruit, turned upon the ship expedition and the secret -of its destination, which latter seemed to have been -well guarded, inasmuch as none of those present appeared -to know where the fleet would cast anchor.</p> - -<p>I surmised that Major Simcoe’s ignorance was assumed, -however. He was deep in the counsels of Sir -Henry Clinton, and was a well-trusted officer. I noticed -that he kept his face pretty well in his plate and -joined in the conversation only as he had to, letting -the younger men keep the ball rolling.</p> - -<p>From this table talk I learned that the work of -putting the troops and stores aboard the ships had -been going on all day, and was likely to dig deep into -the night, though when the actual sailing order was to -be given, did not appear. I was concerned about this -on only one point, namely, the hope that there might -be time for a visit, hurried or otherwise, to the house -where I had seen Margaret Shippen’s face at the door -and Beatrix Leigh’s at the upper window.</p> - -<p>What excuse I should have for intruding into a -house whose owner’s name, even, was still unknown to -me, I could not imagine. But that the thing must be -compassed admitted of no question. After what I had -done in Mr. Justice Smith’s glass-roofed rose-house, I -should be either a knave or a coward to run away in -silence. Moreover, I had not learned why Mistress -Beatrix was in New York, or how long she meant to -stay, or any of the hundred things her presence at the -Smith mansion had put question-marks after.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>From what I heard at the supper-table, I judged -my time was short. It was Major Simcoe who said -that when the troops were all embarked, the officers -would have shore leave only until the ebb tide would -serve to let the ships drop down the bay. It was here -that I ventured to ask about the wind, and if it were -favorable; and the major said it was not, but that the -fleet would come to anchor in the lower bay to wait -for it.</p> - -<p>It was while we were still at table that an orderly -came with a summons for me. I was to report to Arnold -at my earliest convenience,—I marked the word -and took courage from it,—and I might delay so long -as would be necessary to make all my preparations for -going aboard beforehand, to the end that I should not -be obliged to return to the tavern later on if time -pressed.</p> - -<p>I showed Arnold’s note to Castner, and the lieutenant -very kindly offered to expedite my affair by looking -after my impedimenta; which was light enough, -since I had only the clothes I stood in, the civilian’s -suit I had bought of the Dutch Jew, and my patriot -homespun. I was the more willing to turn Castner -loose in my room for the packing up, because there -were no papers, plans of fortifications or any other -spy’s death-sentences for him to stumble on, and it lent -a fine air of sincerity to my new pledge to give him my -keys and to tell him to take or leave what he chose.</p> - -<p>This left me free to accompany the orderly who -had brought Arnold’s note, and the young man, a fine -young gentleman who was a son of that Colonel Hetheridge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -who was killed at the battle of Monmouth, -walked with me to the door of Arnold’s quarters.</p> - -<p>I found the traitor busily writing, as he seemed always -to be at my entrances. And, as on a former -occasion, he waved me to a chair and went on pushing -the quill like a regimental clerk who had got behind -in his records. When he had folded, sealed and superscribed -his letter, he turned to me, and I saw that Sergeant-Major -Champe had not failed either himself or -me in the cross-questioning of the early morning.</p> - -<p>“You are quite refreshed, Captain Page?” he began -most kindly; and again I caught myself wishing -that he would not so persistently show me the likeable -side of him. “You are fortunate in having no family -ties to break when we turn our backs upon New -York. Will you take it as an older man’s weakness if -I say that I shall leave my heart behind me when we -sail, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>I said that his sentiment did him honor; adding -that I had once had the pleasure of meeting Mistress -Arnold while she was yet Mistress Margaret Shippen -in Philadelphia.</p> - -<p>“A dear lady, with a heart of pure gold,” he said -half musingly. And then more pointedly to me: “She -remembers you, Captain—which is the chief reason -why I am going to let you be the bearer of this farewell -note of mine. You can find the house again?”</p> - -<p>“Surely,” I replied; and for the instant I forgot my -sworn purpose in sudden gratitude to him for putting -me so easily and naturally on the way to a fulfilment -of my own desires.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>“She will see you—as she might not wish to see -another,” he continued. “Tell her only cheerful things, -Captain Page. Though she does not know our destination -or our purposes, she is weighed down with a -presentiment of evil to come. That is why I am writing -and sending you. There are limits to the sternest -fortitude, and I—”</p> - -<p>He broke off abruptly, and I could have sworn there -were honest tears in his eyes. But by this time I was -clinging blindly to the kidnapping purpose that was -my only reason for the present hazards, telling myself -if that should fail I should see another side of him soon -enough, when he should be leading his ravages against -my home land. At twenty-two I had yet to learn that no -man, however despicable he may be, is all villain; that -there will be some meliorating drop of blood in the -worst criminal that was ever righteously hanged for -his sins.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding, some inkling of this was beginning -to dawn on me, and like a voice out of the air -Colonel Hamilton’s words came back to me “—But to -go as you must go, and use guile and subterfuge ... -truly, Captain Page, you must sort this out for yourself; -to determine how far in such a cause an officer -and a man of honor may go. I lay no commands upon -you.” I was thinking hard, trying to do as Mr. Hamilton -had given me leave to do: to determine how far a -decent sense of honor would let me go, when Arnold’s -voice broke into my reverie.</p> - -<p>“You will go with the letter, and take your own -time—so much time as she shall require of you,” he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -directed, giving me the sealed packet. “If you should -not find me on your return, Lieutenant Castner will -meet you at the shipping wharf and assign you to your -vessel.”</p> - -<p>This was my dismissal, and I took it gladly for -more than one reason. I hoped I should never see this -man again until I could more honestly hate him as he -deserved—another wish for which I was to pray God’s -forgiveness in the time to come.</p> - -<p>The streets were quiet as I took my solitary way -through them, and over the fort the sky was reddened -as if a bonfire were burning on the parade ground. -Passing the green I saw the pedestal upon which the -lead-gilt equestrian statue of King George had stood, -the statue that the men of ’76 had pulled down in their -jubilation over the promulgation of the Declaration of -Independence, and which had afterward been melted -into bullets to be fired at this same Third George’s -soldiery.</p> - -<p>My way also led past the gloomy sugar-house -prison where, in the frightful summer of ’77, so many -patriots were confined that not a third of them could -get breathing space at the deep port-hole windows; -where our brave fellows stayed and rotted and died a -dozen in the day rather than purchase their freedom by -enrolling themselves in the king’s army, as they were -given leave to do.</p> - -<p>The sight of the grim, fortress-like stone building, -and the thought of the torments for which it stood as a -reminder, put me in a sterner frame of mind toward our -enemies and went far toward excusing the double-faced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> -part I found myself compelled to play. Yet I -tried to hold myself sufficiently aloof so that I should -not visit the sins of the husband, and of those men who -had suborned him, upon the sorrowful woman I was -going to see.</p> - -<p>Having been twice over the route in daytime, and -twice at night, I had no difficulty in finding the house -which sheltered Arnold’s wife and child. A negro -house-servant opened to my knock, and upon my asking -for Mistress Arnold, admitted me, though not too -willingly I fancied. Once indoors, I was shown to a -richly furnished room opening off the hall, and was -told to warm myself at the fire while the lady was -making ready to see me.</p> - -<p>I meant to have my duty over with first, and then -to see Beatrix afterward, if anything short of force -would secure me a sight of her. But as to that, it -seemed only fair to borrow a little of the probabilities. -If I could make my standing good with Mistress Margaret -Shippen, I might be able to persuade her to act -as my intercessor.</p> - -<p>The lady, whose name was on the letter I carried, -did not keep me waiting long: and coming, she entered -the room so quietly that she surprised me sprawling -like a mannerless trooper before the fire; for which I -quickly begged her pardon when I found my feet and -made my best bow. Whereupon she was good enough -to give me her hand like an old acquaintance, and to -say that we poor soldiers had little enough comfort to -be denied the ease a cheerful fire afforded.</p> - -<p>At this I handed her the letter and she sat down to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> -read it. I gave her all the privacy there was, staring -so hard into the heart of the blazing logs, and thinking -so pointedly of my own love-affair that I did not know -when she finished.</p> - -<p>“This is your night for sailing, Captain Page?” -she asked gently, and her low voice called me back suddenly -from the love-dream backgrounded by the mellowing -fire.</p> - -<p>I said it was; and after that she sat for a long time -gazing with me into the glowing embers. When she -began to speak again, I knew why she had hesitated.</p> - -<p>“Your place is to be near General Arnold, isn’t it, -Mr. Page?” she asked, saying it as one who feels the -way carefully.</p> - -<p>“I hope so,” I replied, hating myself for saying the -double-meaning words for her ears. Then I added: -“I am still detached; I have no command; and Mr.—-the -general—is having me serve as his aide while we -are here in New York.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said quietly. “He promised me you -should be near him.” And then I knew who was the -“unimpeachable authority” and that she had vouched -for me, and was straightway humbled and made horribly -ashamed and remorseful.</p> - -<p>“You spoke for me? You should not have done -that, dear lady,” I said quickly. So much, at least, I -owed to common manhood, I thought.</p> - -<p>“And why not, pray? If you could know, Mr. -Page, how it comforts me to have the assurance that -General Arnold has at least one honorable gentleman -near him—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>“Good heavens, madam!” I ejaculated, forgetting -all prudence in the smarting of her unconscious stab; -“you take a frightful risk in recommending any one in -these uncertain times, and especially one who is himself -a forsworn—” I stopped in mid-career, remembering -that I was treading upon doubly dangerous ground -in thus pointing out my own unfitness to the woman -who was the wife of the chief forswearer of his age.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you are modest, Mr. Page,” she said, being so -good and gentle herself as to be unable to see guile in -others. And then she added: “You must not try to -draw me into the King-and-Congress of it. I used to -think I could know and take sides; but now I leave -those things to others, and try to rise above them. -When this bitter war is over and become a thing of the -past, we shall see more clearly than we do now.”</p> - -<p>“I would to God it were over at this moment,” I -rejoined gloomily.</p> - -<p>“I can credit you in that wish: though you are -young and eager and a soldier, Mr. Page. War is a -very terrible thing, full of peril and danger to those we -love; full of weary heart-strainings for us poor women -who can only stand and wait. You will serve the general -well, will you not, Captain Page?”—this most -wistfully.</p> - -<p>This time I could have cried out with the pain it -gave me to deceive this dear lady. Here was a thing I -had never bargained for, even in my wildest imaginings -of the crookings and turnings of the way into -which I had set my feet. And now, again, Mr. Hamilton’s -qualifying words came back to me. How much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -farther could I go and have any semblance of honor -left? But Mistress Margaret was waiting for her answer, -and I am glad she can never know what it cost -me to give it.</p> - -<p>“I shall not serve the general any the less faithfully -for any word you have spoken, be assured, dear -madam,” I said, descending once more, and still more -reluctantly, to the despicable double meanings.</p> - -<p>“I shall sleep the easier for that assurance,” she -said warmly, flaying me afresh; and then continuing -with the sweet archness of the Margaret Shippen I -had met in her father’s home: “I know you, Captain, -better than you know me—having Beatrix Leigh for a -fellow guest under this same roof.”</p> - -<p>“Mistress Beatrix would never say a word for me,” -I blurted out.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; certainly not for you in person,” was the -half-quizzical retort. “But for your family. One -would think, to hear her talk, that the Pages,—always -excepting yourself, of course, Mr. Richard,—were the -lords of the manor and the first gentlemen of Virginia. -I promise you, she has given you a name to live up to.”</p> - -<p>Now was my time, and I did not let the opportunity -slip.</p> - -<p>“I wish she might be prevailed upon to give me a -little sight of herself—for my leave-taking—Mistress -Arnold. Could you—would you—”</p> - -<p>She was shaking her head in despair—mock or -real, I could not tell which.</p> - -<p>“You are a most blundering lover, Captain,” she -protested. “After I had plotted and planned to persuade<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> -her to show herself at Mr. Justice Smith’s last -night—she didn’t want to, I assure you; she is such a -spiteful little patriot—after all that, and my telling the -general he must bring you; then you go and say or do -something that sends her to me in a perfect passion, -telling me one moment that she hates you, and the -next that she will die of shame and misery. What did -you do, Mr. Page? I am curious to know.”</p> - -<p>“What did I do? Why, Mistress Margaret, I—that -is, I—I asked her how she did, and—” I was as -tongue-tied as a schoolboy trying to say his first piece.</p> - -<p>“I think you must have,” she said, demurely. -“Beatrix is just the person to fly into a rage because -you asked her how she did.”</p> - -<p>I went dumb at this, but my desire was just as -clamorous none the less. So, after we had looked the -fire out of countenance for another minute or two, I -essayed again. “Think of it, Mistress Margaret; it is -desperate hard for me to be this near to her—and on -the verge of going to I know not what fate—and not -to have a chance to—to—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you young lovers!” she smiled. “Here you -are writhing and prickling to have me go, Mr. Richard -Page—to be quit of me—and yet you are in a terrible -fright lest I should go without promising to send -Beatrix to you. Well, I’ll go; but I shan’t promise -you she will come—even for a farewell sight of your -handsome face and soldierly figure. Stay where you -are for ten minutes by the clock. If she does not come -by that time, you will have to think on your sins, whatever -they may be, and go without your leave-taking.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>I said I would wait, and thanked her, and felt, -when she gave me her hand again for her own leave-taking, -as if I were twice the hypocritical villain her -husband had ever dared to be.</p> - -<p>When she was gone, and I had walked the floor of -that pretty room a full half-hour, as it seemed to me, -I fell to wondering how her mere mention of the time -could make the tall clock in the corner go on wagging -its pendulum in sly malice while its hands made hours -of the minutes. We speak of killing time: I could -have wrecked that lying time-piece more than once, -and was, I think, standing before it and shaking my -fist in its brazen face, when I first heard the hesitant -opening of the door.</p> - -<p>No, it was not Mistress Margaret, coming back to -tell me she had failed. It was Beatrix, and she had -waited thus long so that she might curve her lip and -train her eyes to flash and look me down, as I had -seen her go and hide herself to do many a time when -we were children together and had quarreled, as children -will.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she said, much as she had said it the night -before, when she had come into the glass rose-house -to make me think she despised me.</p> - -<p>“I have come to bid you good-by,” I told her, picking -out the most inane word that came to hand. And -she would not let even that poor word stand.</p> - -<p>“No,” she contradicted; “you came to bring a letter -for Margaret. You came to fetch and carry for -that dreadful man—as his lackey!”—and here the -beautiful eyes burnt me, they were so indignant hot.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>“I should have come anyhow,” I asserted. “But I -was glad to bring Mistress Margaret her letter: that -was a service to her rather than to Mr. Arnold.”</p> - -<p>“Call him ‘General,’ Mr. Page; he is your general, -isn’t he?” she scoffed.</p> - -<p>“So he says, and so he thinks, and so I call him, -when I have to. But you must not think, because I -am wearing this coat, that I am over-proud of it, or of -my service in what we have lately been calling the -‘Traitors’ Legion,’ on the other side of the Neutral -Ground.”</p> - -<p>“Then, why are you in it?” she demanded. “Why, -why, <i>why</i>?”</p> - -<p>“It is a long story,” I stammered, “and there is -less time for telling it now than there was last night. -But tell me; how is it that you are here in New York, -when I thought you were safe in Virginia?”</p> - -<p>“It is a long story,” she mimicked, “and there is -less time for telling it now than there was last night, -Mr. Richard Page.”</p> - -<p>“But I shall stay until I have heard it,” I retorted -hardily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, if I must ask Mistress Vandeventer to give -you the guest-room otherwise, you may know; there -is no such mighty mystery about <i>my</i> goings and comings,” -she said, with a toss of the pretty head. “There -was a ship-load of the Leigh tobacco snapped up by one -of the British ships and brought here as a prize. But -word came to us at Sevenoaks through good Mr.—no, -on second thought, I won’t tell you our friend’s name—through -a gentleman of Philadelphia, that it could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -be ransomed if any Leigh were bold enough to venture -for it. There was no one else to venture, so I came. -And I have got my prize redeemed, and I am going -home again in a few days, or as soon as Cousin -Julianna Pettus comes from Philadelphia to sail with -me. There now—make the most of it, Mr. Turncoat -British-officer Page! Or will you turn traitor to me, -too, and have my father’s tobacco seized again?”</p> - -<p>It was all very hard; doubly hard now, because my -mission, which only a day earlier had held out hopes -of a speedy despatching, now stretched out into an indefinite -future, and was by so much the more unspeakable -to her or to any living soul. But I set her mind at -rest about the retrieved tobacco; if, indeed, she -thought so small of me as to suspect for a moment that, -even as a turncoat, I would turn informer.</p> - -<p>“I am no exciseman, whatever else you have written -against me in your black books,” I said, and if half -the gloom I felt was in the words, she should have -pitied me.</p> - -<p>Perhaps she did, for from standing, she took the -chair lately occupied by Margaret Shippen, and -nodded me airily to my own.</p> - -<p>“I must not forget my manners, even if Mr. Page -does sometimes forget his,” was her wording of the -permission to sit beside her.</p> - -<p>Now that ravished kiss of the night before sat -lightly on my heart, but not so easily on my conscience. -God knows, my love for her was big enough to excuse -the loving violence ten times over; but it stuck in my -throat that, but for my imminent peril, I might not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> -have had the courage to do it. Confession was the -thing; but how could I confess enough without confessing -too much?</p> - -<p>“I came here to-night to beg your forgiveness, Beatrix,” -I began, plunging into the middle of the thing -because there was no guide-post to show me any beaten -highway leading up to it.</p> - -<p>She did not pretend to misunderstand.</p> - -<p>“Oh; so you are properly ashamed, are you? I -think you should be, Richard Page!”</p> - -<p>“No, not ashamed: but I shall be sore-hearted if I -have to go away and leave you angry at me. But are -you angry, Beatrix?”</p> - -<p>“Desperately.”</p> - -<p>“Would anything I could say—”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Not if I tell you that—” I paused on the brink -of the horridest chasm that ever opened before a halting -lover in this world of lovers’ pitfalls. If I confessed -that the kiss saved my life—as well it may have—how -could I make her understand—but I could -never make her understand. She would hold me as -the paltriest coward that ever breathed if I should so -much as hint at the thing which had given me the kissing -courage at that perilous moment.</p> - -<p>“What could you tell me, if you were so disposed, -Mr. Page?” she asked, and now I thought the sarcasm -was only half-hearted.</p> - -<p>“I could tell you what I have told you a hundred -times before, Beatrix; that I love you: that I am never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -near you without having to fight most desperately for -even decent self-control.”</p> - -<p>“But I do not love you, Dick Page.”</p> - -<p>I jerked my chair around to face her.</p> - -<p>“Is it because you do love Seytoun?” I demanded, -full of jealous wrath in an instant.</p> - -<p>“Foolish boy! Do you say that because I won’t -let you quarrel with Captain Seytoun? There may be -better reasons why I wish you to keep the peace in that -quarter, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Yet you say you do not love me?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t, Mr. Richard Page—not in the coat you -are wearing.”</p> - -<p>My arms went out to her, and she moved her chair -well out of my reach before she went on.</p> - -<p>“No; don’t assume that the coat is a little thing, -lightly to be ignored. It is not, for a Leigh. I shall -gladly die a spinster before I’ll ever wed it, I do assure -you, Dick.”</p> - -<p>All this time she was looking steadily into the fire, -and I was wondering where her heart-broken sorrow -of the night before had gone. But it came, even while -I was seeking for words in which to hint that my -present Judas-coat might not always stand between us; -the trembling of the sweet lips, the welling up of the -tears.</p> - -<p>“Oh, what madness possessed you, Dick?” she -wailed; “you, who were the bravest, the most devoted, -the most cheerful when all was darkest!”</p> - -<p>I rose and settled my sword-belt. There was more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> -love-violence ahead if I should stay; that, and the certain -breaking of my promise to Mr. Hamilton.</p> - -<p>“I have greatly overstayed my time; I must go, -Beatrix, dear,” I said, and I scarcely knew the sound -of my own voice. And when she rose, I caught her in -my arms before she could escape. “Kiss me, sweetheart, -and bid me God-speed,” I begged.</p> - -<p>“For a boon, I will, Captain Page,” she said quickly, -holding herself at arm’s length; and now, though -her eyes were still wet, she was not weeping. “Tell -me where this expedition of yours will land!”</p> - -<p>Now that was something I could and would tell her -gladly. But when my mouth was open to let the words -out, she came close and put her hand over my lips, and -hid her face against that cursed coat of double-dealing, -saying with a half sob: “Oh, no, no! I would have -made you turn traitor again! Kiss me, Dick, and go—go -quickly. I—”</p> - -<p>She was faint and dizzy—my strong one!—when I -led her gently to a cushioned settee and made her lie -down with a pillow at her head. Then I sent the -negro hallman up for Margaret Shippen; and when -Mistress Arnold came hurriedly, I went away, softly, -and with a heart that was strangely light and tender. -For now I knew that I need not kill Captain Seytoun -for any chance he stood to take my darling from me.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">X<br> - -<small>IN WHICH A WALL HAS EARS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE red bonfire glow tinting the sky over the -parade ground of Fort George had faded into the -night when I won back to the lower town. Passing -the sentries on the outer scarp of the fort I made my -way down to the water-front to look for Castner, and -to get my embarking directions.</p> - -<p>At the landing-stage, which was lighted by a pair -of cresset torches flaring gustily on stakes thrust into -the ground, I found the lieutenant. He was forwarding -the last few boat-loads of stragglers, and while he -busied himself with orders to the ensigns in command -of the ships’ boats, I had speech with the quartermaster -of the fort garrison, who told me that the -greater part of the expeditionary fleet was already -standing down the bay.</p> - -<p>But Castner had other news for me when he was -free to impart it; news which set me aflame with fresh -invention fires.</p> - -<p>“Good evening to you again, Captain Page,” he -said, when he lounged up from the despatching of the -last of the boats. “Did you come by the headquarters -on your way?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said I. “I went on a mission for General<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -Arnold in the town and was told to come directly -here.”</p> - -<p>“We are delayed,” he announced, not very regretfully -I thought. “At the last moment orders came -from Sir Henry Clinton detaching our convoy frigate -and two of the sloops of war for temporary service -elsewhere. The troop fleet is to wait in the lower bay -for the return of the three men-of-war, and all officers -not on service duty have shore leave during the interval. -How does that set with you?”</p> - -<p>It was the part of prudence to let the news appear -to be a matter of indifference to me, and I answered -accordingly.</p> - -<p>“A soldier should be prepared for anything; and -I’ll dare say the tavern is a fairly good inn—far better -than the cabin of an ill-smelling fishing schooner. I -thank heaven I have no active command to send me -down the bay with the musket men.”</p> - -<p>Castner grinned. “I’ve been picking some comfort -out of that in my own case,” he admitted. “Do -you go back to Mr. Ar—to the general’s quarters?”</p> - -<p>I told him I should not, if he would be good -enough to report me: that I should go across to the -tavern to retake my room, where I might be found -if there were any further orders for me. And so we -parted at the northwestern angle of the fort, and I was -glad to be alone. For now the book of the kidnapping -possibilities was suddenly reopened, and my brain was -busy with a thousand desperate plots all weaving themselves -upon this most opportune delaying of the expedition.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>Wanting nothing so much as a chance to let my -mind shuttle connectedly among the plot threads, I -shunned the tavern and kept on around the northern -and eastern escarpment of the fort until I found myself -once more approaching the waterside and the -landing-place with its two smoky torches still flaring -in the wind. The spot was deserted, though it was so -close under the guns of the fort that I could hear the -tread of the sentinel as he paced back and forth behind -the screen of the outer ravelin.</p> - -<p>Hearing my footsteps, the sentry stopped and -would have challenged me, I suppose, if his attention -had not been drawn at the same minute to a ship’s -small boat which was approaching the landing. His -challenge went for that, instead, and when I heard the -answer I stood quickly aside and waited for what -should follow. For, by all the good luck that ever fell -upon a perplexed and half-desperate plotter, the man -who stepped from the stern-sheets of the small boat -and made answer to the challenging sentry was none -other than my fellow conspirator, Sergeant Champe.</p> - -<p>“A courier from the fleet, with letters for General -Arnold,” was his reply to the fort’s watch-dog; and -when he had taken the few strides necessary to carry -him out of earshot from the ravelin and from the two -sailors in his boat, I waylaid him, telling him in twenty -words how fortune—and Sir Henry Clinton—had -given us one more chance to retrieve ourselves.</p> - -<p>“Plot for it, then,” was his gloomy response. “I -see nothing beyond my going back to the ships presently -with the answer to the letter I’m carrying.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>“That you shall not do,” I replied hastily. “We -must think up some excuse to keep you ashore. Leave -that to me and go on your errand. I’ll wait for you -here and have my plan ready against your return.”</p> - -<p>The plan, decided on in a half-hour’s chilly marching -back and forth across the green while I waited for -Champe to come back, was not very complicated. -When the sergeant made his appearance I took the -despatches and sent him over to the tavern to reengage -my room for me, telling him to pose as my soldier-servant -therein. Meanwhile, I told him, I would take his -place as Arnold’s courier, and it would go hard with -me if I should not account for his detention on shore -when I could have speech with those on shipboard who -had sent him.</p> - -<p>Passing on to the landing-place in my new character -of despatch carrier, I found the sailors willing -enough to exchange the sergeant they had brought -ashore for a captain; and at my order to give way, -they pulled off to one of the rear-guard vessels of the -fleet, where, to my dismay, I found I had to deal with -Major Simcoe, whose letters to Arnold had been the -despatches carried ashore by Champe.</p> - -<p>Quite naturally, the major’s first question was for -his messenger, and I was glad that the light of the -ship’s lantern was so poor that he could not see my -involuntary recoil when I saw who it was with whom -I had to fence.</p> - -<p>“I am General Arnold’s aide,” I replied guardedly. -“Were you expecting some one else, Major Simcoe?”</p> - -<p>“I sent a man from the Loyal American detail on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -board, a sergeant named Champe,” he explained. -“Did he return with you, Captain?”</p> - -<p>“No. Possibly the general made other use of -him,” I suggested.</p> - -<p>“Possibly,” said the major, eying me shrewdly -from beneath his bushy brows. “But in that case he -must have changed his mind after this letter was sent. -You will see that it is superscribed to me ‘By the hands -of Sergeant Champe,’” and he held the letter so that -I might read the writing on the back.</p> - -<p>There was no help save in a stout lie quickly told; -and even this might have disastrous after-consequences -if the major should come ashore later on and follow it -up.</p> - -<p>“General Arnold is my superior officer, and I do -not presume to question his reasons for writing another -man’s name on the letter which he gives me to -deliver, Major Simcoe,” I said boldly, adding, with -even greater impudence: “If you do not wish to receive -the general’s despatches at my hands, let me have -them again and I’ll so report to General Arnold.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there is no need for any heat about it, Captain -Page,” was his even-toned retort. “Only, when you -go ashore, I shall be glad if you will look up my sergeant -and send him off to me. You shall have the -boat’s crew as long as may be necessary.”</p> - -<p>Now this was not satisfactory, either, since it made -me responsible for the boat’s crew, and, indirectly, for -Champe’s return. So I took the high-and-mighty -stand again.</p> - -<p>“Egad, Major Simcoe,” I protested, “I’m afraid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -you will have to hold me excused. General Arnold -would not be greatly pleased to have one of his aides -detailed by you to bring in your stragglers.”</p> - -<p>At this the doughty major came close and looked -me in the eyes as the poor light would let him.</p> - -<p>“Hark you, Captain Page,” he said, speaking so -those who stood about should not hear; “you seem -bent on quarreling with me when there is no need for -it. That is your privilege, sir, and if you were a king’s -officer I should be the last man in the army to deny -you. As it is—well, a polite word or two may go far -with a gentleman in your situation, and I wonder you -are so slow in perceiving it. Now, sir, will you report -to the general in command that I am short a sergeant, -and that I shall be greatly pleased to have the -proper steps taken to find and send him off to me?”</p> - -<p>If there is one good quality above another in the -Page make-up it is the instant knowledge of the precise -moment when the trumpet should sound the retreat. -I saw now that I had taken the wrong tack -with the tart major, and that I must butter him well if -I wished to come off without loss.</p> - -<p>“Saying nothing of your allusions, Major Simcoe,—which -we may well take up at some other time and -place,—I beg your pardon on the sergeant’s account,” -I said, with no more than the proper touch of offended -dignity. “You put me upon my mettle, seeming to -question my right to bring you a letter—which you -may take as the reason why I did not tell you plainly -in the beginning that Champe was sent upon another -errand after your letter had been written and superscribed.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -I am sure you do not question the commanding -general’s right to use a warrant officer of his own -legion as he sees fit.”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Captain Page,” said the major -crisply. “I am a soldier, sir, and I was thinking only -of the man’s possible disobedience. Of course, if Mr. -Ar—if the general required him, I have nothing more -to say,” and he drew aside and read his letter.</p> - -<p>Now I had another twinge or two to suffer while I -waited, for fear Arnold might possibly have made -some mention of Champe in the letter. But in a minute -or two the major turned and gave me my dismissal -quite courteously, telling me that there was no answer -other than to convey his duty to the commanding officer, -and to say, if it came in my way, that he, Major -Simcoe, would report at the headquarters sometime -during the following day—a thing I prayed my good -angel to prevent, if it could be done without setting the -entire cosmic plan of the universe ajee.</p> - -<p>Having thus been given leave to vanish, I made -good use of it before any other untoward thing should -happen; and with a coin apiece for my two sailor oarsmen -at the landing, I answered the sentry challenge -from the fort and made my way swiftly to the tavern.</p> - -<p>Here I learned that my portmanteau had not been -taken away, and that a soldier, calling himself my servant, -was waiting for me in the room above. Meaning -to give the Royalist barman no chance to think that I -cared a rap about any common soldier who might be -sitting up for me, I ordered a cup of wine and a pipe -of tobacco, and sat quietly before the fire in the supper-room,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -sipping the one and smoking the other for -a full half-hour before paying my score and going -above-stairs.</p> - -<p>In the barn-like room Champe was improving the -interval soldier-wise; which is to say that he had taken -the covers from my bed, rolled himself in them, and -was sound asleep on the floor. He roused at my incoming, -however, and was broad awake by the time I -had thrown a log on the smoldering fire he had made.</p> - -<p>“Well, and how did you carry it off with the -major?” he asked when he had rubbed the sleep out of -his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Not so handsomely as I should have, had you told -me it was Major Simcoe I should have to hoodwink,” -I retorted. “But you are safe for the time being—which -means until Major Simcoe and Arnold meet -each other and fall to comparing notes.”</p> - -<p>“And then?” queried my sergeant.</p> - -<p>“Then Simcoe will learn that I have lied to him, -and Arnold may not be able to remember that he sent -you on an errand that prevented your return to the -ship with his letter to the major,” I rejoined shortly.</p> - -<p>“Which means that we have purchased—how -many hours, Captain Dick?”</p> - -<p>“God knows; and I do not. But we must make the -most of what time we have. No one seems to know -where our convoy ships of war have gone, or when -they are to return. But with the fleet waiting in the -lower bay, the interval can not be long. What we do, -we must do quickly.”</p> - -<p>“Aye,” said Champe; “and what will that be?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>I had been culling the plots out patiently ever since -Castner’s announcement of the delay had set them -weaving, and now there was but one that offered any -promise of success—and that a desperate one. With -the uncertain time-factor we had to count on, it was -useless to think of trying to get word to Major Lee in -the camp at Tappan. What we did must be done without -help from the outside; and upon this hard-and-fast -pivot the temerarious enterprise must be made to turn.</p> - -<p>“What we thought we might accomplish with a -corporal’s guard of Major Lee’s men to help us, we -must still do, and do it with our hands, John Champe,” -I said.</p> - -<p>“Take him forcibly in his house, you mean?”</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>“I’m with you, Captain Dick,” was the stout sergeant’s -rejoinder. “But afterward?”</p> - -<p>“That is what it may take us all the time we have, -and maybe more, to provide for. The river is our only -way out, and we must have a boat, the lightest and -swiftest we can find. Do you pull an oar, Sergeant?”</p> - -<p>“No so comfortably as I do a bridle rein. But I -shall make out when it comes to that. What is your -plan?—or have you drawn any picture of it in your -mind?”</p> - -<p>“It is as simple as knocking a beef yearling in the -head with a stone,” I admitted, nettled that I could -contrive nothing subtler. “We find our boat, beg, buy -or steal it, and place it as near at hand as may be convenient. -That done, we lay hands on Sir Judas, sleeping -or waking, and then for the river and a long pull<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -with the tide or against it, as fortune chances to smile -or frown upon us in fixing the hour.”</p> - -<p>“Aye,” said Champe, quite without enthusiasm, -“it’s surely simple enough, Captain Dick.”</p> - -<p>“Think of a better, then,” I snapped curtly.</p> - -<p>The sergeant let me have another sight of his ferocious -grin.</p> - -<p>“I’ve had my turn of thinking, and it’s you for it -now,” he retorted. “I might say that you put your -foot squarely into my think-trap and stopped it from -going off, but I shan’t. You’ll give the order, Captain -Dick, and I’ll obey it, if it tells me to cut Mr. -Benedict Iscariot’s throat while he is asleep.”</p> - -<p>After that we were silent for a time, both of us -weighing and measuring the hazards of the desperate -game, I think. Champe still kept his place on the floor, -sitting jack-knifed with his hands locked over his -knees and his wide-opened eyes staring at nothing. -Suddenly, as I was opening my mouth to ask where we -were likely to find our boat, he laid a hand on my knee -and shook his head.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” I asked, but only with my eyes.</p> - -<p>“There is some one stirring in the room beyond,” -he said in a half-whisper. “Who is your neighbor, -Captain Dick?”</p> - -<p>Matching his tone, I said that I knew none of my -fellow lodgers save Lieutenant Castner, and that I did -not know the placing of the lieutenant’s room.</p> - -<p>“We were full careless,” said my companion. And -then he got upon his feet with no more noise than a -cat would have made and suddenly extinguished the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -candle. The firelight still flung long shadows about -the room, and in the shelter of the broadest of them -Champe glided away to the wall of suspicion and examined -it foot by foot with scrutinizing eyes and -gently gliding finger-tips. When he crept back to me -he was holding out a forefinger the end of which was -whitened with powdered lime.</p> - -<p>“That tells the tale,” he whispered. “There’s a -whiff of this dust on the floor, and above it, at the -height of a man’s head, a peep-hole the size of a goose-quill. -We must know who is in that room, Captain -Dick.”</p> - -<p>Here was a crude peril at the very outset of things; -but what the sergeant said was very true. We must -know who our spy was at all costs. Taking off our -shoes we passed silently into the corridor and found -the neighboring door by feeling cautiously for it in -the dark. It was on the latch, and after listening -breathlessly for a full minute we opened the door by -slow inchings and listened again. Still there was no -sound, and now we entered the room, groping blindly, -first for impeding obstacles and then for the bed where -our spy might be feigning sleep.</p> - -<p>In this noiseless circuiting Champe went to the -right and I to the left, and we met in the far corner -where the high, four-posted bed filled a sort of alcove -built to contain it. Then I think we both drew breath -of relief, for the bed was empty.</p> - -<p>“Wait for me,” whispered my companion; and -when he returned a little later he had relighted our -candle and was carrying it high above his head.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>But the candle told us nothing more than our gropings -had. The room was unoccupied; was bare of any -lodger’s belongings; had evidently been undisturbed -since its daytime redding by the chamber-maid. But -in the partition wall between it and my room we found -the peep-hole which, on the principle of locking the -stable after the horse had been most successfully stolen, -we carefully plugged.</p> - -<p>When we were before my fire again we were little -wiser than when we had left it. Our danger turned -upon a question of time. When was the hole bored -through the partition wall? There was no way of determining -this: but Champe was sure he had heard -footsteps in the adjoining room at the moment when -he had called my attention.</p> - -<p>“Take it whatever way you please,” he said; -“there’s somebody in this house who suspects you. -What we have talked here to-night would hang a whole -regiment, and it’s my notion that our spy has heard -all he needs to hear and has gone for help to take us.”</p> - -<p>“In that case,” said I, “since we can die but once, -I for my part choose to die fighting rather than at the -rope’s end.” So I got up and barred the door.</p> - -<p>“Right you are, my Captain,” Champe agreed most -heartily; and then we took stock of our weapons.</p> - -<p>Fortunately we were provided with the tools we -both knew best how to use. My trooper sword, which -I had brought off in the boat escape from Nyack, was -with my portmanteau; and this I gave to Champe. -For myself there was the captain’s rapier that went -with my rank as Arnold’s aide; a good serviceable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -Scottish blade which I had carefully selected from a -dozen or more in the barracks armory for its hang and -balance. I thought we should be able to give a pretty -good account of ourselves when the time came, and so -much I said to Champe.</p> - -<p>“Aye,” he replied. “They’ll take the muskets to us -before they get us, and then I’ll pray only that they’ll -shoot straight. Also, I’ll pray that they do not keep -us waiting over-long; I’m fair dead for sleep.”</p> - -<p>At this I remembered that the sergeant had lost the -whole of the preceding night, as I had, and that he -had not had my chance of sleeping out the day in -recompense. So, when a full half-hour had passed -with no signs or sounds of the expected arresting -party, I told Champe to roll himself once more in the -bed-covers, leaving me to keep watch. The lack of a -boat put any action out of the question for the night; -and, deplore it as we might, another day must elapse -before we could flog our simple garroting plot into -shape.</p> - -<p>It was a fruitful vigil that I kept, sitting through -the quiet hours before the smoldering fire on the -hearth; fruitful because it gave me time to pass in -orderly review the exciting events which had been -crowded into the short space of two days and nights. -I could scarcely realize that the day before the quickly -changing scenes of the yesterday, I had been pulling a -small boat idly down the river from Teller’s Point, -intent upon nothing more pressing than the spending -of my few hours’ furlough in Dirck van Ditteraick’s -tap-room with Jack Pettus for a boon companion.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>This side of that, I had quarreled with Seytoun, -taken a huge slice of responsibility in the talk with -Mr. Hamilton, made my stirring escape from the -patriot camp, changed flags, made my standing good -with Sir Henry Clinton and with Arnold, and had -lived a fairly busy lifetime in a strenuous day and a -still more strenuous night. Moreover, I had discovered -Mistress Beatrix Leigh in a place where I had -least expected to find her, had stirred her anger and -contempt, and—I hoped—in some small measure, at -least, her love for me; and had involved myself in a -tangle of deceit and double-dealing that might well -lead me shortly to a British prison and the gallows.</p> - -<p>And, last of all, three days away from our quiet -camp in the Hudson hills, I was sitting here in an upper -room in the tavern, waiting minute by minute for -the summons to a struggle which, if it should come, -would, for Champe’s sake and mine, much better end -in the swiftest snuffing-out for both of us.</p> - -<p>I yawned sleepily. Our spy-takers were a long -time making up their minds, I concluded, and I had a -hearty wish that they would hurry. No man fights the -better for having to sit for hours on end with his bared -sword across his knees, straining his ears for the first -sounds of the battle signal.</p> - -<p>Hence, it was with some dull prickings of disappointment -that I roused Champe an hour before dawn, -and flung myself upon the bed for a little wooing of -forgetfulness to precede the forthbringings of another -day. For if there had come a thundering at the door -and a shouted command to open in the king’s name,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> -we should at least have confronted a peril known and -measurable. But now the darkness was full of mysterious -eyes, as the silence told of whispering voices; -and no step we should henceforth take would be lacking -its hidden snare or pitfall.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XI<br> - -<small>OUT OF THE NETTLE, DANGER</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">CHAMPE let me sleep until day-dawn was fully -come and the inn was stirring, calling me then, as -he explained, only because he was fearful that some -orderly from Arnold’s quarters would be up and asking -for me, and so raise a wonder at my holding him, -Champe, in my room over night.</p> - -<p>Being confronted by the perils of the new day, we -were first concerned with the problem of keeping the -sergeant out of the way, and out of sight of any curious -eyes. It was asking too much of the hazards to -make the tavern a rendezvous for him, and while he -might possibly venture to show himself in the town, -trusting to a nimble lie to account for his absence from -his regiment and the fleet, it said itself that he must -keep well out of sight of Arnold, Major Simcoe, or -any shore-keeping officer of the Loyal Americans.</p> - -<p>Breakfast was the earliest consideration, however, -and I made shift to answer for that, going down to -the common-room when the meal was called, and later -bribing the cook to give me a tray of dainties for a -brother officer, who, as I said, had been forced to -share my room with me for the want of sober sense to -find his quarters.</p> - -<p>How much this tale imposed upon the cook, a fat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -Dutchman big enough to make three common men in -any fair division of flesh, I do not know. But he gave -my “brother officer” the credit of a well man’s appetite, -and was discreet enough to discard the tray, making -the provisions into a paper-wrapped bundle which -I might take to my room without exciting remark.</p> - -<p>His breakfast despatched, Champe next wished to -know how he was to get out of the tavern unhalted to -go upon the boat-seeking quest; and here the contents -of my portmanteau came into play. In a little time we -had him out of his Loyal American regimentals and -into the civilian’s clothes I had purchased to replace my -patriot homespun. He made a better-looking gentleman -of elegance than I had hoped he would, and when -he was well-muffled in the cloak that went with the -outfitting, I thought he might pass without curious -question.</p> - -<p>He was eager to make the attempt, as I was to have -him. Any minute a messenger might come from Arnold -requiring my attendance, and the wonder we had -been trying all the morning to avert would be raised -with a vengeance. So, after agreeing upon a low sailors’ -groggery beyond the burned district on the eastern -water-front as our meeting point for the evening, -where either of us who chanced to be the first comer -would await the arrival of the other, we parted, -Champe going boldly down the inn stair in his new -toggery and carrying himself as little like a soldier as -any young man of fashion in New York.</p> - -<p>Now I took it afterward as a piece of sheer good -fortune that the idea came into my head to follow the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> -sergeant down, two steps behind him; and assuredly -the event proved the timeliness of the prompting. For -in the tap-room, at a little table drawn up before the -fire, sat Lieutenant Castner as large as life, breakfasting -at his leisure; and if I had not steered Champe -aside with a muttered exclamation, the sergeant would -have brushed Castner’s elbow in passing. As it was, I -had time to thrust myself between; and when the door -clanged behind the outgoing Champe, I was making -my greetings to the lieutenant and asking him if I -might share his table for a dish of tea.</p> - -<p>He gave me the invitation cordially enough, but -there was a look in his mild eyes that I could not -fathom. And I was scarcely facing him across the -table before he had me skating on the thinnest ice.</p> - -<p>“Who was your double, Captain Page?” he asked, -with a jerk of his head toward the door which had let -Champe out to freedom.</p> - -<p>I saw it all instantly. Castner had been with me -two days before and had helped me to select the very -clothes Champe was now wearing. It was a thrust -that called for the deftest parrying, and I was not at -my best—I never am in the mornings.</p> - -<p>“The man who went out as I came down?” I said, -sparring to gain time. “Do you think he favored me?”</p> - -<p>“As to his face I could not say,” was the cool reply. -“I think he must have the toothache, to judge from -his mufflings. But I spoke of his clothes. Hadn’t you -noticed that he was wearing a copy of the suit I helped -you buy of the little Dutch Jew day before yesterday, -Captain?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>I said I had not noticed it, having other things to -think of, but the nonchalant reply did not banish the -queer look from Castner’s eyes. And when I sought -to drag him away from the dangerous subject by asking -if he had learned anything new about the movements -of the fleet, he answered my question briefly -and went back in a word to my perilous skating pond.</p> - -<p>“I wonder that you didn’t remark the gentleman’s -clothes,” he said musingly. “I don’t think there is another -cloak like that in all New York. You say you -don’t know him?”</p> - -<p>“How should I know him?” I demanded with a -good show of impatience. “I merely saw that some -one walked ahead of me down the stair and out of the -door.”</p> - -<p>“Strange,” he said, in the same half-musing tone. -“Do you know, Captain Page, I could have sworn that -you spoke to him less than a second before you—rather -rudely, I fancied—pushed him aside to shake -hands with me?”</p> - -<p>I thought it was all up with me now, but I set my -teeth on a grim resolve to die fighting.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you could even tell me what I said to this -gentleman who, at the moment, was nothing more to -me than a stumbling-block in my way,” I said, laughing -ironically.</p> - -<p>“I can,” he rejoined quite evenly. “You gave him -the soldier’s word of command: ‘File right!’ you said, -and I almost looked to see you follow it up with an -oath.”</p> - -<p>He had me fairly at a standstill. He had quoted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> -my word of warning to Champe precisely, and I doubt -not the tone in which it was given suggested the oath -which might have capped it. Having nothing more to -say, I held my peace, and when the lieutenant had -given his rejoinder time to sink in, he came at me -again, this time very gravely.</p> - -<p>“You are not altogether transparent, Captain Page, -nor have you been since the hour you landed in New -York. I don’t want to think ill of you, because ill-thinking -of a man in your situation could have but one -meaning. Now I shall ask you a fair question, and -you shall answer it as you choose. Do you—”</p> - -<p>I held up my hand.</p> - -<p>“First tell me frankly what you know, Mr. Castner, -and then I shall be equally frank with you,” I interposed; -adding: “at least, as frank as I can be without -involving a gentleman who, I am sure, wishes to -be charitably unknown in this little controversy of -ours.”</p> - -<p>His smile was shrewdly triumphant, but it comforted -me beyond measure. Whatever he knew, it -was not enough to hang me—yet.</p> - -<p>“You had a fellow guest in your room last night, -Captain; so much any one who passed through the corridor -and heard you talking might know. That you -kept this guest all night is quite apparent from the -fact that he wore your clothes when he went out just -now. It may be a very simple little mystery and easily -explained; but, as I said before, mysteries are dangerous -things, Captain—for you.”</p> - -<p>Now I knew who had bored the hole in the wall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> -of the unoccupied room next to mine and why it had -been bored. Castner had wished to see the face of the -man whom I was keeping over night. Remembering -how hard it would be to see anything definite through -a quill-sized hole in a thick partition wall, I took a -chance that Castner was still in doubt as to my roommate’s -identity. And so long as I could keep this in -the dark, there was hope.</p> - -<p>“There is no great mystery about it, Mr. Castner, -and nothing to conceal save the gentleman’s name and -standing. Before I attempt to explain, may I ask if -you know anything of General Arnold’s domestic affairs?”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“As little as may be, and I might say that I don’t -care to know more.”</p> - -<p>“Then my task is the easier,” I said. “I had the -honor of knowing the general’s wife when she was -Mistress Margaret Shippen, of Philadelphia. I may -tell you, without breaching her confidence, or the general’s, -that I was entrusted with a message for her last -night. She gave me no answer at the time; but later, -learning, possibly, of the change in the sailing orders, -it is not beyond belief that she would wish to communicate -again with her husband, is it?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose not,” he agreed. “But are you trying -to tell me that Mistress Arnold’s messenger came -naked, and had to borrow your clothes to return in?”</p> - -<p>I laughed heartily at this.</p> - -<p>“Were you ever drunk and disorderly, Lieutenant -Castner?” I asked. “If so, you may have had to borrow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> -a suit of clothes yourself before now. And possibly -the loan of a friend’s room to sober up in. And -after such an experience, I dare say you would not -care to be recognized by your friend’s friend in the -morning when you were making your escape.”</p> - -<p>“Then they were your clothes?” persisted Castner, -laughing now with me.</p> - -<p>“You asked me if he came naked: he did not, but -he might have gone that way, but for my generosity. -Are you quite satisfied, Mr. Castner?”</p> - -<p>“I am obliged to be,” he said musingly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” I said. “You may go up to my room -and see the gentleman’s castoff clothes, if you wish—though -they are not over-pretty to look at. In fact -you may have everything but his name, which I feel in -duty bound not to disclose. If I hint that he is a near -relative of—”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” said the lieutenant, almost -shamefacedly, I thought; and then I took my turn at -him. It is always well, when you have your enemy on -the run, to press him closely lest he turn on you like -the Parthians of old.</p> - -<p>“How close were you behind us last night, when -we came in, Lieutenant?—and how long did you have -to listen at my door to have your suspicions aroused?”</p> - -<p>He pushed his chair back, and tried to laugh it off, -but I would not let him go.</p> - -<p>“No, you must not laugh,” I said soberly. “I am -not over-quarrelsome, I think, nor do I make too little -of your many kindnesses to me. But you can add -greatly to my obligations, Mr. Castner, if you will remember<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -that there are gentlemen in Virginia as well -as in the king’s army.”</p> - -<p>By this time he was apologizing in good earnest, -and when he had gone far enough to be quite out of -sight and hearing of the danger point, I forgave him -most magnanimously, and drew my first real breath of -assurance.</p> - -<p>His breakfast finished, Castner would not stay to -smoke a pipe with me before the fire. His reason for -haste added nothing to my comfort. He told me that -Major Simcoe was expected from the fleet, and that he -must go to the landing-place to meet him on Sir Henry -Clinton’s behalf.</p> - -<p>This set me to thinking of how I might best throw -up a hasty shelter against the storm the major’s coming -would doubtless raise in my quarter of the -heavens. By all the military canons I should presently -have to go and present my duty to Arnold, and I -thought it would be well to do this before Major Simcoe -could precede me. Though as for this, I was like -a hound in leash, with only so far to run before the -cord should choke me, anyway.</p> - -<p>Hitherto, I had always gone willingly enough into -the den of the wild beast we were seeking to entrap, -but now I had a curious chilling of reluctance. What -if Major Simcoe had already come ashore? What if -he had sent another boat, after I had left him, with a -second message to the expedition commander? What -if—but there was no end to the list of things that -might have happened, and the only way to die was to -do it quickly and have it over with.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>So, packing my qualms into the smallest corner of -my soul, I crossed swiftly to the house of threatenings, -only to learn that Arnold had gone to an early conference -with Sir Henry Clinton. Following him to -the house next door, I was told by an orderly that he -was closeted with the commander-in-chief, and was -asked if I were the bearer of despatches.</p> - -<p>I said I was not, and lingered upon the door-step to -wait for my interview. When it was over-long in -coming, I left word with Arnold’s orderly that I would -return later, and went to make a brisk circuit around -the fort by way of walking off the cold chill of apprehension -that seemed to be freezing the very blood in -my veins.</p> - -<p>This walk brought me, in due time, to the water’s -edge, and turning eastward I was led into that search -for a boat which must precede all else in the plot we -had devised. Some little distance up the shore, and -well within range of the fort’s heavier ordnance, I -placed the sailors’ groggery where Champe and I were -to meet at the day’s end. It was a mere hovel on the -hillside; a den where I thought a man would do well -to go armed after nightfall. It was kept by a shock-headed -Irishman, with foxy eyes and a fist like a rail-splitter’s. -He served me with a can of grog, and when -I asked him if he knew of any one who had a boat to -sell, he gave me a cunning leer, and said the “other -gentleman” was ahead of me. This told me that -Champe had been before me; and thinking I might -only direct suspicion toward him or myself, I paid for -my drink and went back to see if Arnold had returned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>This time I did not have to wait. Arnold was in -his office-room above-stairs, and when I reported to -him, he told me briefly that I was at liberty for the -forenoon. Whereupon I was going away with a lighter -heart, and should have carried the same out at the -street door if I had not just been in time to meet -Major Simcoe entering.</p> - -<p>There was clearly nothing to be done. The major -was going up-stairs, and I did not see how I could stop -him. If by any chance my shifty exploit of the night -before should come in for mention, my race was run.</p> - -<p>“One moment, Major,” I said hurriedly, halting -him when his foot was on the first step of the stair; -“have you seen Lieutenant Castner?”</p> - -<p>He turned and said he had not, by which I inferred -that he had not yet been to Sir Henry Clinton’s quarters.</p> - -<p>“He left me a little while ago, saying that he was -going to the landing-place to meet you, or failing that, -to send a boat off for you,” I went on calmly.</p> - -<p>I was almost without the hope that it would turn -him back, but it did—from the very threshold of my -peril. He took it precisely as I had hoped he might; -as a notice that Sir Henry wished to see him without -delay. No sooner was he gone into the house next -door than I ran up-stairs to present myself again to -Arnold. As before, he was preoccupied with his work, -but gave me his attention when I stood deferentially -aside and waited.</p> - -<p>“There was a little matter which I meant to mention -and forgot, General,” I began, trying my best to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -be routine-like. “It has come in my way once to -stand sponsor for a rascally fellow-colonist of mine, -named Champe, and I’m sorry to have to do it again, -or rather to report him. Last night you entrusted -him with despatches for Major Simcoe, and I regret -to say that I found him some time afterward in a condition -totally unfit to be responsible for his duty. You -will understand when I say that he had gone so far as -to show his despatches and to boast of his errand. I -promptly put him under guard, took your letter and -delivered it myself to the major.”</p> - -<p>“That was right,” he said approvingly; and then -he asked the question I had hoped he would ask. -“What did Major Simcoe say, when he saw you in -Champe’s place?”</p> - -<p>Here was my opportunity, and I seized it immediately.</p> - -<p>“Major Simcoe was not over-courteous to me. For -some reason or other he, and many of his fellow officers -in the king’s service, seems very ready to put a -slight upon us of the Loyal Americans, General, and -when he began to question me dictatorially about -Champe, I—well, for the honor of the legion I felt -constrained to put him off, asking him in effect, if -it were any of his business if you chose to send a sergeant -of your own regiment on another errand.”</p> - -<p>I saw before I was through that I was touching the -proper chord. It was the gossip of the town that Arnold -was practically ostracized by the officers of the -regular army, and it was equally common talk that this -was our traitor’s sorest point. So I was quite prepared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -to have him approve my course, as he did with his -eyes glooming, and the furrows deepening in his brow.</p> - -<p>“You did quite right, Captain Page,” he said, -“though I doubt not you were too easy with the -drunken sergeant. Have you Champe still under lock -and key?”</p> - -<p>“No,” I admitted; “he was so penitent this morning, -and so anxious to get away before the story of his -misbehavior should come to your ears, that I let him -go to seek a boat in which he could return to his company. -He can be disciplined later, if you so direct; -though, as a fellow Virginian, I hope you will see how -good a soldier he can be on the battle-field before you -do it.”</p> - -<p>He was looking past me before I had finished, -with that absent gaze I was coming to associate with -his milder moods, and when I had made an end he -waved his hand and said: “You are a merciful man, -Captain Page; which is rather to your credit if you do -not carry it too far. If Major Simcoe complains to -me, I shall know what to say to him.”</p> - -<p>Now was my time to vanish, but as I was turning -away, he broke in again: “I gave you leave for the -forenoon, Captain, but I am tempted to ask you to do -me a small personal favor, if you will. Mistress Arnold -does not yet know of the delay in our departure, -and if you can make it convenient to see her and to say -to her that I shall be engaged until after midday—”</p> - -<p>I bowed and said I should be only too glad to carry -his message, which, for once in a way, was the truth -in fact as well as in intention.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>Being free to go, I went hastily, and before Major -Simcoe could return to catch me in this business of -pipe-laying. Not to have Arnold’s errand on my -mind, I made it my first care to discharge it quickly. -It was Mistress Margaret herself who met me at the -door of the Vandeventer house, and it hurt me to see -how glad she was at the news I brought; hurt me because -if our plans should succeed, the delay would -mean nothing but agony and life-long sorrow for her.</p> - -<p>I did not go in, though she asked me very kindly -if I would, but when I hung upon my leave-taking, she -divined the cause and said: “Mistress Beatrix is quite -well this morning, thank you, Captain Page, and I -know she will be overjoyed to hear that you asked for -her.”</p> - -<p>It was surely a needed pin-prick, and I responded -to it.</p> - -<p>“It is truly wonderful, Mistress Margaret, how -you are able to read a man’s inmost thoughts, and to -set them in the words he is trying to find. Later in -the day I trust the general may make me his letter carrier -again, and if he does, may I hope—”</p> - -<p>“Your privilege is always to hope, Captain Page, -and I think I should be the last person in the world to -rob you of it,” she said; then she gave me a loving -message to her husband, and truly I felt more and -more the despicable villain the deeper I was drawn into -this playing of the go-between for husband and wife.</p> - -<p>On my return to the lower end of the town, I -made a détour to the western waterside with a view to -familiarizing myself with the situation which would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -confront us when we should not have daylight to show -us what we needed to see. The riverside was well -guarded to a point far beyond the town, and the river -itself was patrolled by small craft. I saw no rowing -boats at all on that bank. It came to me now, that our -greatest difficulty would lie in this finding of a suitable -boat. Unless I could use my authority as an officer -in seizing one, I fancied that we should look long -before obtaining one in any other way. This would -be an extra hazard, to be sure, but we were already so -deep in hazards, that the addition of another could -make little difference.</p> - -<p>I had turned inland, and was passing the sugar-house -prison in the corner of the churchyard, when I -met Major Simcoe again; and this time it was he who -halted me.</p> - -<p>“Your fellow-countryman, the sergeant, seems to -have got himself into trouble, Captain Page. Had you -heard of it?”</p> - -<p>My heart turned to lead at his words, but I was -careful to keep the weight of it out of my face and -voice.</p> - -<p>“Our sergeant seems to trouble you much more -than he does me, Major,” I said, trying to say it as -lightly as I could. “What has he been doing now?”</p> - -<p>The major laughed.</p> - -<p>“That remains to be determined. He was found -prowling about the waterside in citizen’s clothes a little -while ago, and since he could give no reasonable -account of himself to the officer of the guard, he was -clapped into a cell.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>I was burning to ask if the news of this climaxing -disaster had been carried to Arnold, but I dared -not. So I escaped from the major as I could, and hurried -down to Fort George, passing the door of Arnold’s -house on the way, as one might take a morning’s -saunter in front of a cannon loaded, and with the -slow-match burning.</p> - -<p>At the fort the commandant, a British officer of -the bulldog type, was exceedingly brusk with me, paying -his backhanded compliment to the uniform I wore, -and at first would give me no satisfaction whatever.</p> - -<p>“The man was first a deserter from the rebels, and -now he has shed his regimentals, and was trying to -desert from us,” he said sharply. “Of course, Mr. Arnold -will do what he pleases with him, but if the matter -lay with me, he would stretch a cord very promptly, -Captain.”</p> - -<p>“Fortunately, the matter does not lie with you,” I -retorted, matching his sharpness. “You have blundered, -as some of you gentlemen in the king’s service -seem quite prone to do. Sergeant Champe was on -duty when you arrested him, and that duty required -that he should not appear in his regimentals, as it also -required secrecy on his part, even under the questioning -of so great a man as you are, Mr. Commandant. -I’ll trouble you to set the sergeant at liberty, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Upon order, certainly, Captain,” said my bulldog -stubbornly.</p> - -<p>“You have your order, sir,” I retorted, bristling -back at him.</p> - -<p>“I have not seen it,” he remarked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>“By heaven, sir, you are hearing it!” I cried. “Do -you require me to go back to Sir Henry Clinton and -General Arnold, with the information that you decline -to take the word of the general’s aide?”</p> - -<p>Now there are bullies who can not be bullied, but -happily the commandant was not one of them. When -I was turning upon my heel, as if in a passion, he -called me back.</p> - -<p>“I know you are Mr. Arnold’s aide, Captain,” he -said, rather less truculently, “but duty is duty, and—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, very well,” I said, “it is but a matter of walking -up to Sir Henry’s house and telling him that your -meddlesome interference has doubtless spoiled the service -upon which the sergeant was engaged.”</p> - -<p>That shot brought him down, and now he seemed -as eager to give me my sergeant, and to be quit of us -both, as, a moment before, he was reluctant. Champe -was fetched from some dungeon underneath the battlements, -and he was shrewd enough not to make much -of seeing me with the commandant, who now followed -me to the sally-port, with protestations of his guiltlessness -in Champe’s arrest, and begging me not to make -too much of it with Sir Henry Clinton. I set his mind -at rest on this point, telling him that if he did not report -the <i>faux pas</i>, I should not; a statement which was -well within the bounds of truth.</p> - -<p>Once free of the fort with my derelict, I hurried -him around to the tavern and up to my room.</p> - -<p>“Out of that masquerade and into your uniform -quickly!” I commanded; and I would not let him tell -his morning adventures until he had made the change.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>When he was once more, in outward appearance, a -soldier of the Loyal American Legion, he set his back -against the wall and said:</p> - -<p>“Well, Captain Dick, I’ve found the boat for us, -though I don’t know but what I’ve had to kill a man -to quiet our title to it.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XII<br> - -<small>HOW THE HOOK WAS BAITED</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">CHAMPE’S calm announcement that he had purchased -a boat at the price of a man’s life was -startling enough; but before I could ask for the particulars -he had pushed the dreadful deed and all -thought of it into the background with an ominous -hint and a still more ominous query.</p> - -<p>“The boat business isn’t the worst of it, by the -value, much or little, of another man’s life,” he affirmed -soberly. Then the query: “Is your standing -still good over yonder, Captain Dick?” with a jerk of -his thumb toward Sir Henry Clinton’s and Arnold’s -headquarters.</p> - -<p>“My standing was as sound as ever, up to an hour -or two ago; though it had a pretty narrow margin -when Major Simcoe came ashore and went within an -ace of spilling all our fat into the fire. But why? Has -anything happened that promises to make a breach in -it?”</p> - -<p>Champe took his back from the wall and sat down, -locking his hands over one knee.</p> - -<p>“Let me ask you first: did they tell you what I -was doing when they put me under arrest?—but of -course they didn’t; they couldn’t have guessed it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>“They told me nothing save that you were a soldier -out of uniform, that you were a skulker from the fleet, -and that you were making for a boat with a pair of -oars on your shoulder—preparing to run away, they -supposed.”</p> - -<p>“They got it all straight, as far as they went,” he -responded, nodding his head sagely. “Only they -didn’t go half far enough. I was doing my prettiest to -make a chance to put the quietus on a second man; and -I would have compassed it within the next quarter-hour, -if the guard officer hadn’t clapped his good eye -on me.”</p> - -<p>“Heavens!” I exclaimed. “You surely missed your -calling, Sergeant Champe. You should be the public -hangman in some county where the court sits once a -month.”</p> - -<p>Champe’s grin was appreciative rather than reproachful.</p> - -<p>“They do say some callings run in the blood, Captain -Dick,” he allowed. “My father was the High -Sheriff of Loudoun County before the war took him -off—as his gaffer was before him. But that’s neither -here nor there: wait and you shall say for yourself -whether this man I speak of does not need a little -wholesome killing.”</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said I. “The present moment is ours, -and that is all the luckiest soul alive can lay claim to. -None the less, if any special danger is threatening—”</p> - -<p>“It is either past the threatening point, or else it -will not reach it while I’m telling you,” said the sergeant, -with a return of his stolid indifference. “If<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> -that cursed guard officer had given me but the thinnest -shaving of time: five minutes more was all I -asked.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, get on with your story!” I cut in impatiently.</p> - -<p>“I’m coming to it, Captain Dick; rein your nag -down and go easy on the spur: then you’ll get all the -speed with all the bottom. But, as I was saying: after -I had found the only boat that was to be had on all -this waste of river front, and had put the owner of it -well choked and gagged and bound into the cellar of -his own house, with half the bricks of his Dutch oven -piled on the trap-door to keep him safe—”</p> - -<p>“You said nothing of all this,” I interrupted, “but -no matter—let’s have the nib of it.”</p> - -<p>“There you go again, Captain, tripping me up just -as I’m taking the gallop. Where was I?—oh, yes; -piling the good half of the Dutch oven on the trap-door -to make all safe. Well, that done, I must needs -go back a ways to buy the silence of the carrot-headed -Irish grog-ladler who had put me in the way of finding -the hidden boat. After I had let him rob me to -the tune of three guineas where he had offered for -two, I thought it might be well to take a round along -the shore to that Dutch schnapps house where I had -been meeting Mr. Baldwin, Major Lee’s letter carrier -from the camp at Tappan.”</p> - -<p>“A good thought,” I broke in. “I had forgotten -that we may still have a line of communication open -in that direction.”</p> - -<p>“It was a lucky thought,” Champe went on. “When -I found the Mynheer, I was told that Mr. Baldwin had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -been seeking me since daybreak, and while I was talking -to the Dutchman, in Mr. Baldwin pops again, to -give me a letter fresh from Major Lee.”</p> - -<p>“Let me see it,” said I, holding out my hand; but -the sergeant only laughed at me.</p> - -<p>“Do you think I should have got through that fort -guard-room yonder with the letter in my pocket, Captain -Dick? No, no; I took no such risks, I promise -you. The paper was well chewed and swallowed before -it ever saw outdoor daylight. But I can tell you -well enough what it said. We’re outflanked, foot, -horse, and dragoons. There was a spy in the camp at -Tappan the night you got your marching orders from -Mr. Hamilton. You’ll know what that spells out for -us?”</p> - -<p>“I can guess; let’s have the worst of it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m coming to that, too. This spy was caught, -<i>fragranty delictum</i>, a few hours after you left the -camp. Handily invited, with the turn of a cord around -his two thumbs, he told what he could pick out of Mr. -Hamilton’s talk to you heard from his hiding-place -under Mr. Hamilton’s bed in the next room. He had -it all down pat; your name and rank and mine, and the -whole story of my plot and your cutting in to help me. -But he protested to the last gasp that his knowledge -was all of the ear; that he saw nothing—being under -the bed—and wouldn’t know either of us by sight.”</p> - -<p>“To the last gasp, you say—then they hanged -him?” I said, feeling a great burden lifted.</p> - -<p>“Unluckily, they didn’t. He had his drumhead -trial, and was to stretch a cord at daybreak. Two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -hours before dawn they changed guard at the hut -where he was in keeping, and the relief found the hut -empty. The man was gone.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, good lord!” I exclaimed. “We are not the -only ones to tangle our feet and fall down over them, -it seems. He’ll be here on top of us, next, I take it.”</p> - -<p>“He is here,” said Champe impressively. “But to -take things as they come: Major Lee’s first care, of -course, was to send a warning to us. By good fortune, -Mr. Baldwin chanced to be in Tappan, so the major -had his letter carrier at hand. So down comes our -warning, with a peremptory order at the tail of it. If -the letter finds us still alive and at large, we are to -throw down the tools and quit the job, evacuate the -works, burn the baggage wagons—in other words, we -are to save our necks if we can.”</p> - -<p>“Humph!” said I. “If I’m guessing straight at -the hinder end of your tale, Major Lee’s very excellent -advice comes a good few hours too late, doesn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Right you are, Captain Dick,” asserted my news-bringer. -“The spy is here in New York, and he has -enough powder in his noddle to blow us both safely to -Heaven if we had as many lives as the cat. Mr. Baldwin, -who knows him, saw the man at his trial, and -happily Mr. Baldwin is a good enough friend of ours -to want to save our bacon. So, from the time when -he crossed the river last night, he kept a sharp eye out -for this Mr. James Askew, which is the name our man -goes by.”</p> - -<p>“Good! And he found him?”</p> - -<p>“Found him early this morning, and followed him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> -to his dodging-hole, which was the tavern of the Three -Larks on the east shore road. His next care was to -deliver the major’s letter to me, and, having done that, -he put himself at our disposal in any helpful way that -offered.”</p> - -<p>I nodded. “Mr. Baldwin is trying fair to earn his -fee of two hundred guineas, five hundred acres of -land and three negroes, which, as Mr. Hamilton told -me, was to be his reward for the letter carrying,” I -said. “Did you retain him?”</p> - -<p>“On the spot,” said Champe. “First I had him tell -me all he knew about Askew. The man is not a Britisher; -he is a free-lance, picking up information where -he can and selling it in the best market. This gave me -my lead. Such a man would be carrying his life in his -hands in either camp, and he could never go boldly to -either headquarters with his wares. With half a -chance, I thought I might scare him off for a day or -two, at any rate; and here Mr. Baldwin helped me -again. We went to the Three Larks together, found -our man, and Mr. Baldwin introduced me as a gentleman -in the same line of business.”</p> - -<p>“Excellent! You are a man in a thousand, Sergeant -Champe.”</p> - -<p>“We got on well enough after Mr. Baldwin left -us. With my knowledge of things on our side of the -Neutral Ground, I soon convinced Askew that I was -an honest spy, like himself, and then, with a pot of ale -or so to moisten the ropes, I began to pull gently on -the dragnet. Askew’s a shy fish, and no gudgeon, but -he finally let out that he had a piece of news he hoped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -would bring a good price. The sticking point was the -risk he ran in delivering it, he said, by which I knew -that he had been playing two games at the same time.”</p> - -<p>“And you helped his fears to grow?” I put in.</p> - -<p>“To the queen’s taste,” laughed the sergeant. “And -at the trigger-pulling moment I made him a proposal. -‘How if we should go together to Sir Henry Clinton, -and stand by each other?’ says I; and when I added -that I had a bit of influence in that quarter, he took the -bait at a gulp.”</p> - -<p>“It is very clear that I am not the only daredevil in -this company,” I remarked. “But you did not mean -to do any such mad thing as that, did you?”</p> - -<p>“Not to-day, Captain Dick; it is not my day for visiting -Sir Henry Clinton; nor did I mean that it should -be Mr. James Askew’s, either. But by this time I saw -that I could not frighten him entirely off; he was too -shrewd and too eager for the gold. So the only thing -was to carry out Major Lee’s court-martial sentence -on the body of the prisoner. He was as good as dead, -anyway.”</p> - -<p>“Surely, Sergeant Champe, if you escape the gallows -here it will be only so that you may live to carry -out your hereditary destiny of hanging other people,” -I commented. “But go on: he consented to your -plan?”</p> - -<p>“Something cautiously, though he was now in the -middle of his third cup of strong waters. Sifting him -carefully again, I found that he was afraid to pass -through the town in daylight, and here he played into -my hands. I told him we might take a boat and pull<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -around the water-front to the fort landing-place and -so dodge all the curious eyes in the town.”</p> - -<p>“But how would that help us?” I queried. I confess -I was a little dull that morning.</p> - -<p>Champe’s face lightened with his diabolical grin -when he explained his purpose. When they were safely -in the boat—a cockle-shell belonging to the Three -Larks—he meant to upset it and drown the spy.</p> - -<p>“It was all but done,” he went on regretfully. “I -had bargained for the hiring of the boat, and we were -on our way to the waterside with the oars when the -guard relief came along. The one chance in a thousand -rose up and kicked me. The guard officer was -a line corporal I had quarreled with over a game of -cards while the Loyal Americans were in barracks.”</p> - -<p>“And he knew you—recognized you?”</p> - -<p>“In two quacks of a duck. I had barely time to tip -Askew the wink to sheer off, before the redcoat was -calling me by my right name, and demanding to know -why I was out of the fleet and masquerading ashore -in citizen’s clothes. I had no answer ready for all this, -so Askew and I were like the two women grinding at -the mill—one was taken and the other left. The rest -of the tale you know as well or better than I, Captain -Dick.”</p> - -<p>“I know that we are both no better than dead men -if we can not lay hands on this spy of yours before -he has screwed up courage to name his price to Sir -Henry Clinton or Arnold,” I said gravely. “But -doubtless he has already done so.”</p> - -<p>Champe shook his head.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>“I’m hoping not. He was well frightened by the -fierceness with which the guard corporal bullied me; -and when I had my last glimpse of him he was making -off up the shore and evidently wishing with all his -heart he dared break into a run.”</p> - -<p>“Yet he will come to it,” I asserted. “The gold-greed -will drive him, and his news is too big to keep. -I’d give the best field of the Page tobacco lands to -know if we are still in time to stop him.”</p> - -<p>The sergeant rose and stretched his long arms over -his head. Then he felt of his neck tenderly, saying -with a touch of grim humor: “The cord isn’t knotted -around it yet. Pass your orders, Captain Dick. What -do we do?”</p> - -<p>“Nay,” said I; “you’ve proved that your head is as -good or better than mine. What do you say?”</p> - -<p>“Being footloose, and having my regimentals on, I -might go and have another look for Mr. James Askew. -Then, if I could get him and my bully guard-relief corporal -in the same crazy wherry—”</p> - -<p>“You’d drown them both, I suppose,” I laughed. -“Never mind the corporal; he’s harmless enough, while -this man Askew holds your life in one hand and mine -in the other. What will you do with him if you find -him?—or when you find him?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll keep him from spreading his sails to Sir Henry -Clinton’s golden breeze, at all events,” said the sergeant -meaningly. Then: “You don’t happen to have -a bit of poison of any kind in your kit, do you?”</p> - -<p>“Bah!” said I. “Do it soldierly, at least, Sergeant -Champe.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>“So I will, then,” he agreed. After which he -asked me if I would stay where I was and pray for his -success.</p> - -<p>“I’ll do better than that—being somewhat out of -practice on my knees,” I told him. “It lies in my mind -that I’ll go yonder to Sir Henry’s door and be at hand -to stop our man if he should slip through your fingers -and decide to ask an audience of Sir Henry Clinton -without your help. Can you describe him so I would -know him?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes,” said the sergeant, scratching his head -with a meditative finger. “You’ll place him in the hollow -half of a minute. He’s much like other men, -neither very big nor very little; less tall than the tallest, -and by no means as short as the shortest. You -can’t well miss him.”</p> - -<p>Sharp as our peril was, I had to laugh at Champe’s -notion of a description. But time was pressing.</p> - -<p>“Try it again, Sergeant,” I encouraged. “This -time I’ll help you. Just answer my questions one at a -time and we’ll have him. First, how old would you -take him to be?”</p> - -<p>Champe knitted his brows thoughtfully. “By -grabs, Captain Dick, I never thought to ask him!”</p> - -<p>“No, no; of course you couldn’t ask him. But fire -a guess at it. Is he a young man?”</p> - -<p>“No; I wouldn’t call him young; say thirty, or forty, -or maybe fifty, or so.”</p> - -<p>“Great Marlborough!” I raged. “Can’t you come -any nearer to it than that? How about his eyes—what -color are they?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>“Hum—his eyes; well, now, there you have me -again, Captain. They are devilish sharp little eyes; I -can tell you that. But lord! I couldn’t name you their -color in a month of Sundays.”</p> - -<p>“By all the blind pipers that ever twiddled a horn-pipe—I -don’t believe you looked at him at all!” I broke -out, annoyed beyond measure at this unexpected development -of the sergeant’s weak point. “Is it any -use to ask you how he was dressed?”</p> - -<p>Champe’s face lightened now, and the frown of -perplexity smoothed itself out.</p> - -<p>“Surely; I can tell you that to the dotting of an -‘i.’ I remember noticing particularly that he was -dressed quite like other folk—buckle-shoes, breeches, -waistcoat, coat and hat. There you have him from -head to foot.”</p> - -<p>“Heavens and earth, man!” I exclaimed. “How -in the devil’s name am I to help in this if you can’t -give me the first living idea of the fellow I’m to look -for? Think, Sergeant—think hard. Surely there -must have been some noticeable thing about him that -would serve to place him for me.”</p> - -<p>Champe put his head in his hands and appeared to -be making the mental effort of a lifetime. After a -long minute he looked up to say: “I’ve got it, Captain -Dick, I’ve got it. Come to think of it, I’m almost sure -he wore a scratch-wig like a farmer’s.”</p> - -<p>I shook my head in despair. Half the men in -America wore scratch-wigs. Yet the edge of the -necessity was in no wise dulled by Champe’s inability -to visualize the spy for me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>“Try it again, Sergeant,” I entreated; and now he -got up and began to walk the floor, cracking the joints -of his big fingers and scowling ferociously in the -throes of recollection. I venture to say he walked a -full quarter-mile up and down the long room before he -stopped to make his final dash at the impregnable barrier.</p> - -<p>“I have it now,” he said, pleased as a child over the -finding of a long-sought-for plaything. “His waistcoat -was gray, Captain Dick; and he wore a black -stock—aye, it was black, sure enough. But”—smiting -fist into palm with a mighty thwack to make the climax—“the -thing I noticed hardest was his watch-fob; -a bunch of seals hanging at the end of a leather thong, -and he twiddles them, so”—suiting the action to the -word—“all the time as he talks or walks. Never tell -me, Captain, that I haven’t got him down to the very -parting of the hair for you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you have,” I said ironically; “indeed you -have. I could doubtless recognize Mr. James Askew -in the dark, and with my eyes shut; or that way as -well as any other. But the twiddling of the watch-fob -seals may do. Now to the work. When you’ve succeeded—or -failed—come back here and put a corner -of your neckerchief in the window for a signal; right-hand -if you’ve hit the mark, left-hand if you’ve -missed.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll be within call?” he asked, as I was unbarring -the door.</p> - -<p>“I shall be patrolling before Sir Henry Clinton’s -door, ready to nip Mr. James Askew if he turns up on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> -my beat—always providing that he twiddles his watch-seals -at the proper instant.”</p> - -<p>“One more word,” said the sergeant, when my -hand was on the latch. “Major Lee’s order is to drop -the hitch-rope and run for it. You’ve said nothing as -to that, yet, Captain Dick.”</p> - -<p>“And I say nothing now, save that Major Lee is -not my commanding officer. He is yours, however—which -may make a difference in your case. Does it?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said shrewdly; and we went out through -the tap-room one at a time, and each to his own separate -pool to fish for James Askew.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIII<br> - -<small>HOW A FISH WAS HOOKED AND LOST</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE talk in my tavern room with Champe had -used up so much time that it was midday and -beyond when I joined the group of orderlies and unattached -officers lounging before Sir Henry’s door, -and had a welcome in strict accordance with the freezing -December weather and the uniform I was wearing—cool -and contemptuous.</p> - -<p>Now this was grateful to me, in a way, and in another -way it made me spitefully savage. It was comforting -to know that our nobler enemies detested Arnold’s -treachery, carrying their aversion to the extent -of despising any one who wore his regimental colors. -But, on the other hand, the slight had to pass through -me on its way to hit the mark, and I was never good -at paying penalties for another’s sins.</p> - -<p>So, when there were covert sneers and back-turnings -enough to make a man sick, I began to strut and -sneer in self-defense, twitting a lieutenant of Hetheridge’s -whose line was the first to break at Monmouth, -and a captain of Knyphausen’s whose Hessian devils -had cut a troop of our horse to pieces at Tappan after -it had surrendered.</p> - -<p>This was all very hot-headed and rash, and would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> -doubtless have involved me in trouble enough if a -diversion had not come in the shape of Mr. Justice -Smith’s new London-made hackney coach drawn by -four horses which, for their postilions and trappings, -might have been taken out of a crack artillery troop.</p> - -<p>The coach came to a stand before Arnold’s door, -and, as may be imagined, I left the quarreling Hessian -captain without ceremony when I saw the faces of -Margaret Shippen and Mistress Beatrix Leigh behind -the window-panes.</p> - -<p>“I have come to see the general, Captain Page,” -said Mistress Arnold, when I had opened the coach -door. “Will you be my <i>avant coureur</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Most gladly,” I replied. And when I had found -Arnold at his writing-table, and had his command to -fetch his wife up to him, I went back to show Mistress -Margaret the way.</p> - -<p>“You will undertake to keep Beatrix from stagnating -for the few minutes I shall need, Captain -Page?” said this dear lady, when I was leaving her at -Arnold’s office door; and I said I would try, and was -thanking her when she bade me hasten before some of -the other officers had cut me out.</p> - -<p>I was minded to hasten fast enough, though not -specially for the reason given by Mistress Margaret. -I thought it would be a much more inclement day than -this seventeenth day of December, Anno Domini, -1780, when I could not hold my own against a handful -of redcoat popinjays who picked flaws in a man because -he did not happen to be wearing a shoulder-knot -to their liking.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>But alas! pride goes before a fall and a haughty -spirit before destruction. When I reached the street -here was my lady Beatrix laughing and chatting most -amiably with the little ensign who had been one of -her partners at Mr. Justice Smith’s rout, and there -were only a cool little nod and a blank smile for my -hasty return. All of which put me on my mettle so -that I stayed at the ensign’s elbow, and trod on his -toes, and apologized therefor, and was pleasantly rude -and insulting until he finally gave me, though not -without black looks and a smothered curse or two, my -place at the open door of the hackney coach.</p> - -<p>“Pray where did you learn your new boorishness, -Captain Page; in the Dutch Highlands?” queried my -lady, in the gentle tone she used when the lightning is -about to flash.</p> - -<p>“I learned to fight for my rights in Old Virginia,” -I retorted gaily; “and I shall not soon forget the lessons -you have taught me touching them.”</p> - -<p>“I decline to be your sponsor—in that or in anything -else, Captain Page,” she declared, regarding me -critically.</p> - -<p>Now here was a pretty change of climate, I -thought. The night before, when she believed I was -going off to the wars with Arnold, there were sympathy -and anxiety and tenderness, and even a little -love, perhaps. And now, merely because I had not -gone quite so suddenly as the program called for, the -wan December sunshine could not have held itself -more chillingly aloof.</p> - -<p>“What have I done to-day that I had not done before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -last night, Beatrix?” I asked, shifting my position -at the coach step so that I could keep one eye on Sir -Henry Clinton’s door—for the possible coming of the -twiddler of watch-seals was sorely dividing my attention, -or diverting it.</p> - -<p>“You are wearing a coat that I do not like,” she -announced, going back to the original cause of quarrel.</p> - -<p>“It is as good a coat as the one Ensign Brewster is -wearing,” I ventured.</p> - -<p>“It is not!” she retorted. “He is wearing the coat -of his king and country, and in his case it fits honestly.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then; this is the same coat I wore last -night,” I urged, presuming rashly where I should have -had more sense.</p> - -<p>“Last night is not to-day: and I have lived half a -lifetime since last night.”</p> - -<p>“Then you think more of a cause than you do of a -man?” I asked; and I would never have said such a -thing to her if I had not been hag-ridden by my responsibility -for one James Askew.</p> - -<p>“You are quibbling!” she returned. “The cause is -much—God knows how much it is to our stricken -country: but truth and faith and loyalty are more. I -could honor you in spite of your colors, Dick, if you -fought under them as honestly as Ensign Brewster -does.”</p> - -<p>“I may be fighting more honestly than you think,” -I broke out, pushed to the wall, as I was likely to be -in any controversy with her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>She took me up so quickly that I had no breathing -space.</p> - -<p>“You have hinted before that you could explain if -you would, Dick,” she said with low-toned eagerness. -Then, looking past me to see if any of the others were -within earshot: “Tell me—is it a mask? Are you—”</p> - -<p>I made a swift gesture for silence. There are times -when the very stones in the pavement must not be -trusted.</p> - -<p>“You must not forget that you are speaking to a -captain in Benedict Arnold’s Legion, or”—here I lowered -my voice to mate it with her eager half-whisper—“that -a word of what you have just hinted would hang -that same captain higher than Haman!”</p> - -<p>“But you do not deny—you do not deny!” she -fluttered. “Oh, Dick! give me one little thread to -cling to—one look to tell me that you are—”</p> - -<p>I knew her bosom was heaving; that the quick -tears had risen to quench the righteous indignation in -the beautiful eyes. And yet I could not speak to her; -could not even look at her. For here was Arnold coming -down the house steps with Mistress Margaret on -his arm; and, not fifty feet away, a smallish man in -sober gray was standing before Sir Henry Clinton’s -door, looking curiously up at the higher windows and -absently toying with a great bunch of seals at his -watch-fob as he stared.</p> - -<p>There was no time to say a word to Beatrix, if I -ever hoped to have time for any future word with her—time -and the breath to say it with. The smallish -man in gray, gazing in abstracted indecision at Sir<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -Henry’s upper windows, was twiddling my life and -Sergeant Champe’s at his fingers’ ends. Let him take -but a single step within the door he was facing, and -we two would be as water spilt on the ground, which -can not be gathered up again.</p> - -<p>I scarcely know how I left her; how, for one brief -instant, I made way deferentially for Arnold and his -wife, and in the next had come within gripping distance -of the man in Quaker gray. But the thing was -done in some fashion, and after this frenzied taking -of the first step, the next came easily.</p> - -<p>“Your name is Askew—James Askew?” I whispered -in the spy’s ear; and if I had put the point of a -knife between his ribs he could not have winced more -palpably.</p> - -<p>“No, no, Lieutenant—er—Captain, I should say; -you are quite mistaken, sir. Duvall is my name; Harrison -Duvall, of—of Pennsylvania.”</p> - -<p>“One of your names, perhaps,” I qualified, smiling -down on him meaningly, and now I noted the shifting -ferrety eyes whose color Champe could not recall—the -eyes, the black stock and the scratch-wig.</p> - -<p>“We need not quarrel over a little matter of names, -Mr. Askew,” I went on rapidly. “Let it be sufficient -that I know you and know your business here. You -are in great danger—as great as, or greater than, that -which you were confronting in Mr. Washington’s -camp at Tappan no longer ago than yesterday morning.”</p> - -<p>If there had been any doubt as to the man’s double-dealing -past, his carrying of water on both shoulders,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -his appearance now would have removed it. His -colorless face became tallowy, and fine little beads of -sweat were starting from his forehead. I followed up -my advantage like a swordman who dares not give his -antagonist time to gather and parry.</p> - -<p>“We know a thing or two about you here,” I continued, -speaking softly and edging between him and -the group of officers at Clinton’s door. “Sir Henry -would be most happy to lay eyes on you—happier than -you would be, a few hours later. I say your danger is -greater here than it was at Tappan: our prisoners do -not break jail so easily as Mr. Washington’s do.”</p> - -<p>His face was like parchment now, and he had to -wet his lips before he could speak.</p> - -<p>“I—I can make my standing good with Sir -Henry,” he faltered. “There was a mistake about that -affair of Major André’s. It was not I who told Paulding -and Williams where they were to lie in wait for -the major—I did not!”</p> - -<p>Now I thought I had him! Paulding and Williams -were two of the three men who had arrested -Major André, and it was common talk in the patriot -camps that some one had first told them where to look -for André, though these two, as well as Isaac Van -Wart, the third man, stoutly denied it.</p> - -<p>“You will have trouble in proving that mistake, -Mr. Askew,” I said; “great trouble, I fear. But that -is for the future; your present risk is in standing here, -where some one who knows you as well or better than -I, may chance to come along.”</p> - -<p>He had been casting furtive glances over his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -shoulder, as if picking out the way to run; but now -that I had him at bay, the time was ripe for an escape -from the dangerous neighborhood of the general headquarters.</p> - -<p>“Come with me,” I commanded hurriedly, linking -an arm in one of his. “You have a piece of news to -tell—but not to Sir Henry Clinton. There is a better -market, and a much safer one.”</p> - -<p>He yielded, reluctantly, only because he had good -reason to be afraid of every one. I could feel the fear -tremor shaking him all the way to the tavern to which -I led him, and a great contempt for the paltry villain -made my gorge rise and the touch of his arm seem like -pollution. He was silent and furtively watchful till -I got him into the inn and up the stair. But on the -threshold of my room he hung back and showed his -teeth in a snarl.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know who you are, or where you are taking -me!” he burst out; and then he tried to twist his -arm free, developing sudden and unlooked-for -strength in the momentary struggle.</p> - -<p>“Quiet, you dog!” I ordered, and then I thrust him -in ahead of me and followed to shut and bar the door.</p> - -<p>He stood where I had pushed him, in the middle of -the floor, and made no resistance when I felt him over -for weapons and found two dueling pistols and a keen-edged -flesher’s knife hidden under his waistcoat. For -a man so well provided, he was surely the abjectest -craven I ever saw.</p> - -<p>“Now you can go a little more comfortably into -that matter I spoke of,” I remarked, breaking the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> -blade of the knife over an andiron, and shaking the -powder primings out of the pans of the pistols. “You -were saying that you had news to sell—”</p> - -<p>“I said nothing of the kind,” he flashed back. “Let -me out of this, or I—I swear I’ll raise the house on -you!”</p> - -<p>“No, you won’t,” I replied coolly. “Nothing is -farther from your present intentions, Mr. James Askew, -and the fact that I know this is your best assurance -of safety.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know you,” he raged. “What have you -got me here for?”</p> - -<p>“That is better,” I said, pushing him into a chair -and drawing up another for myself. “First, I brought -you here to tell you that your news outran you. I can -repeat to you, word for word, the information you -were going to try to sell to Sir Henry Clinton.”</p> - -<p>I saw, the moment the words were uttered, that I -had made the rashest blunder. This spy was no ordinary -tale-bearer to be hoodwinked or bullied out of -his cunning. The lines of his face grew more hatchet-like -and the sharp little eyes dwindled to pin-points.</p> - -<p>“Ha!” he said, with a shrill indrawing of his -breath. “I thought your voice seemed familiar, -though I couldn’t place it at once. You had a much -better reason than the one you gave me for getting me -to come away from the headquarters, Captain Richard -Page.”</p> - -<p>His naming of me was enough, and my stomach -rebelled at the thought that I would have to turn -butcher and kill him, even as Champe had planned to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -kill him. Yet I resolved to give him the benefit of -the doubt, if indeed, there were any doubt.</p> - -<p>“Tell me plainly what you think you know,” I -said, looking away from him.</p> - -<p>“I know that two men, a captain in Baylor’s Horse -and a sergeant of the Continental Army, are here in -New York for the purpose of seizing Benedict Arnold -and carrying him back to Tappan. The sergeant I met -this morning, thanks to a two-faced gentleman who -shall pay dearly for his meddling; and the captain—”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said I; “and the captain?”</p> - -<p>His eyes lighted with a blaze of triumphant cunning.</p> - -<p>“You are a good actor, Captain Page, but not quite -good enough. Will you unbar the door and let me go? -Or shall I call for help?”</p> - -<p>“Neither,” I rejoined briefly, drawing my sword -and laying it across my knees. “A movement out of -your chair, or a tone louder than you have been using, -and you are a dead man, Mr. James Askew.”</p> - -<p>The threat quelled him, or rather I should say, it -put him the keener upon his wits. I saw nothing for it -now but a bloody murder, and was trying to nerve myself -to it when he spoke again, smoothly insinuating.</p> - -<p>“We seem to have arrived at what our friends the -French would call an <i>impasse</i>, Captain Page,” he said -quietly. “I can hang you; therefore you dare not let -me go. The alternative is for you to pass that shining -slip of steel through me two or three times; and that, -too, has its drawbacks. You don’t come of murdering -stock, Captain Page, though I don’t doubt you have -killed your antagonist often enough in hot blood.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>“I was thinking more of what I should do with -your carcass after the fact,” I objected bluntly.</p> - -<p>“Ah; that is another drawback—one which I overlooked -at the moment. It would be inconvenient to -have a dead man in your room, with no way of getting -rid of the <i>corpus delicti</i>. But if I might offer a -suggestion; the river is not far away, and under cover -of night you and your sergeant might compass the funeral—though -not without a possible risk.”</p> - -<p>His coolness, now that the real pinch had come, -was amazing. I could hardly believe this was the same -man whom I had frightened into teeth chatterings before -Sir Henry Clinton’s door but a few minutes ago.</p> - -<p>“No,” he went on, in the same even tone, “the disposition -of my poor body is not what deters you. It is -that other thing I mentioned—your reluctance to premeditated -blood-shedding. Now that is purely conventional, -if I may say so. To kill is to take life; and -the mere manner of its taking can make but little difference -to the slayer, and none at all to the victim. -Yet the traditions are strong; and I am relying quite -confidently upon them, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“You seem to be,” I muttered grimly. “But there -is a point beyond which the traditions do not run. -Setting aside the instinct of self-preservation—which -is stronger than any blood or breeding—your life is -justly forfeit. If you had your deserts, you would be -lying in some shallow grave beside Major André at -this present hour. If I am what you say I am, it is -neither more nor less than my duty to carry out the -sentence of the court-martial which condemned you -to hang as a spy.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>“But if you put that sentence into execution, Captain -Page, you have still failed to recapture your escaped -secret,” he said.</p> - -<p>“How is that? Who else besides yourself knows -it?”</p> - -<p>“The officer in the camp at Tappan who connived -at my escape. I gave it to him as the price of his -help.”</p> - -<p>“Which is all the more reason why I should kill -you, here and now, Mr. Askew,” I insisted.</p> - -<p>“True; very true,” he rejoined musingly. “Yet -you will not do it, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“Why won’t I?” I demanded.</p> - -<p>“Chiefly because of the traditions we speak of. I -am an unarmed man—ah, my dear sir, you rashly lost -a point in your own favor when you took my poor -weapons away from me—I am unarmed, as I say, -and can offer no more resistance to a man of your -youth and weight than a harmless, necessary cat. No, -you will not break with the time-honored code of your -order—not even to save your life.”</p> - -<p>Slowly it was borne in upon me that the man was -coolly braving me; nay, more, he was daring me, -taunting me. Yet all that he was saying was most -bitingly true.</p> - -<p>“What are you leading up to?” I asked shortly; -and he spread his hands in polite deprecation.</p> - -<p>“Did I not say that we were at the impassable -point, Mr. Page?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but you did not believe it. You are not -talking to hear the sound of your own voice.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>“No; nor am I talking to gain time, though it may -appear so to you. Indeed, I fancy there is more safety -in haste. If your black-faced sergeant should happen -in.... Now there is your chance, Captain Page. -Sit quietly where you are, with your bare sword to -keep me where I am, until your man comes back. Then -you can shirk all responsibility and the sergeant—lacking -a gentleman’s traditions—will do the rest.”</p> - -<p>I thought this was the subtlest thrust of all; to -point out delicately that I should be responsible for -what Champe might do. But there was no escaping -the conclusion.</p> - -<p>“Come to the point of your bargaining, Mr. Askew,” -I commanded. “You see a way out, and I don’t—other -than the bloody one.”</p> - -<p>“Ah; now we are coming upon some more habitable -ground. Outwardly, you are a Loyalist, Mr. -Page, and inwardly, I doubt not, a true patriot. I -am neither. I had thought of asking a hundred guineas -for this news I carry—it is not too much, you -would say?—and it doesn’t matter a boddle to me -whose money it is. In other words, your gold will -have as true a ring in my ears as Sir Henry Clinton’s, -or even Mr. Arnold’s.”</p> - -<p>“Bah!” I said; “you would take my money one -minute and sell me to the highest bidder the next.”</p> - -<p>He nodded slowly. “You have pointed out a risk—a -certain risk to yourself. I might not keep faith -with you. Still, the chances are somewhat in your -favor. The matter you touched upon while we were -together in the street—the calumny connecting me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -with Major André’s misfortune—would have its -weight. Having sold you your timely lump of silence -and pocketed my price—”</p> - -<p>“You might be willing to let well enough alone -and not try to double on me? I think that is most unlikely, -Mr. Askew. Don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“It is a nice point,” he said, as if deliberating on -it. “On the one hand, I have my hundred guineas -without the risk. On the other, since I was willing to -take the risk to earn them from Clinton or Arnold, -why should I hesitate to try the doubling? Ah, I have -it! You have heard the saying that money is always -cowardly, Mr. Page? With your hundred guineas in -my pocket, each cowardly guinea of them will be persuading -me to save its life—and yours.”</p> - -<p>I laughed. The thing had risen to the plane of -humor. Here was a man whose life lay in my hand, -and he was trying, not to bribe me to spare him, but to -persuade me to give him a handsome present for the -privilege of sparing him!</p> - -<p>But when the laugh was over, the dilemma still -remained, with its horns as sharp as before. If I could -not kill this scoundrel in cold blood, neither could I -turn him loose, with or without a golden bid for his -silence. I thought it out calmly and saw no middle -way. The man must die, but I would give him an honester -man’s chance to die fighting.</p> - -<p>My saber was standing in the chimney corner -where Champe had left it the night before. I drew it -from the sheath and laid it on the table, with the hilt -to my spy’s hand.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>“Take it and do your best,” I said. “We have -spent too many words and too much time.”</p> - -<p>But he merely shook his head soberly and locked -his hands over one knee.</p> - -<p>“I should be a greater ninny than I hoped you took -me for, to give you so good an excuse for pinking me, -Captain Page. I am no swashbuckling horse-soldier, -to tangle my legs in a sword, or to know how to use -one.”</p> - -<p>Here was the <i>impasse</i> again, with no way to circumvent -it, that I could see. What was I to do? With -the long Scots’ rapier for a walking-staff I began to -pace the floor, cudgeling my brain to think of some -expedient that would secure our safety, Champe’s and -mine, without sinking one or both of us to the level -of remorseless assassins. I had not dreamed it would -be so hard. Thumbing it over with Champe, the one -desirable thing seemed to be to get hold of this scoundrel -before he could leak the news that would efface us. -But now he was secured, the whole thing was to know -what to do with him.</p> - -<p>Askew never moved a muscle as I strode back and -forth behind his chair. He sat perfectly still, staring -into the blackened fireplace as if its soot-covered interior -had fascinated him. A dozen times I passed -him, and at each facing about he seemed to be staring -the harder, with the thin fingers more tightly interlocked -over the suspended knee. Then—</p> - -<p>I do not know how it came about, or why I spun -on my heel and threw the rapier up to guard my head. -It was not for any warning either to eye or ear that he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -gave me, certainly. But when I wheeled, the heavy -trooper’s sword was flashing in the air and my instinctive -parry served only to break the force of the blow—to -turn it flat-bladed when it was meant to be a cleaver-cut -such as a butcher would aim at the meat on his -block. Then the half-lighted dusk of the long room -burst into a thousand scintillating stars, and I knew -no more until I came back to life with John Champe -kneeling beside me and sopping my head with icy -water from the hand-basin.</p> - -<p>“The man—Askew?” I gasped, when I could find -the words. “Is he gone?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see him anywhere,” said the sergeant, -making believe to peer into the gathering shadows. -Then he chuckled. “So it was Askew who gave you -this goose-egg on your skull, was it? But rest you -easy, Captain Dick; he has had time to swim the Hudson -corner-wise before this. The blood was dried in -your hair when I found you lying here—and that was -a good quarter-hour ago.”</p> - -<p>I sat up on the floor, and the stars began to twinkle -again.</p> - -<p>“Help me,” I muttered. “We must get out of this—now—this -minute! That double-faced fiend will be -back again, with a file of soldiers at his heels. Stir -yourself, man, for heaven’s sake! I tell you he knows -us both—<i>and knows us for what we really are</i>!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIV<br> - -<small>A CASK OF BITTERS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">EXPECTING nothing less than the spy’s return at -the head of an arresting party, we lost no time -getting out of the tavern, Champe going first, and I -following when he gave the prearranged signal that -the coast was clear.</p> - -<p>Being safely out-of-doors, our next care was to -put distance between us and the threatening trap from -which we had escaped. Taking the readiest way that -offered we hurried eastward through the burned district, -avoiding the barracks on one hand and the water-front -on the other, having no particular destination in -view at first, and no plan other than the simple one of -losing ourselves as completely and speedily as possible.</p> - -<p>In this dodging flight, on which we ran as the -wicked do,—with no man pursuing,—the sergeant was -the file-leader. Having been in the town for near -two months, he knew its byways, and though the short -winter day was drawing on to its early dusk, he -seemed never to be at fault in our various windings -and turnings.</p> - -<p>We were a good distance from the fort, and had -borne eastward and northward until the houses were -growing far apart and scattering, when Champe led<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -the way to the right and we pressed on until we could -hear the waters of the East River lapping coldly on -the shingle. By this time the stars were coming out, -and a thin sickle of a moon in its first quarter hung in -the western sky. In the chill, gray half-light a house, -isolated by its situation, and still farther set apart from -its neighbors by a high-fenced garden, loomed darkly -before us, its windows shuttered and its chimney -smokeless.</p> - -<p>“Here is our burrow,” announced the sergeant, -opening the garden gate to admit us. Then, as I -reeled rather than walked into the enclosure: “Is Mr. -Askew’s love pat still fretting you, Captain?”</p> - -<p>I said it was, and made light of it, though my head -was buzzing like a hive of angry bees. I had no notion -of where Champe was taking me; and, what with the -pain and the desire to be warmed and at ease, I was -not curious enough to inquire.</p> - -<p>Quite as if he were the owner of the house, Champe -strode to the door, fitted a key in the lock, clicked it -and bade me enter. But since the room to which the -door gave ingress was as dark as a pocket, I let him -show me the way. The interior was cold and discomforting, -with the dead chill which goes with closed -doors and windows and long-extinguished fires; and -when the sergeant had shut and locked the door we -were in darkness thick enough to be cut with a knife.</p> - -<p>“Hold hard for a minute until I make a light, Captain -Dick,” said the voice of my companion, muffled, -as it seemed to me, by the tangible darkness. Then -came the snicking of flint upon steel, a spark, a dull<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -glow in the tinder, and, a little later, a flame for a -candle which, when it was lighted, showed us a scantily -furnished living-room in some disorder, a table -with dishes and the remainder of a meal standing in -the middle of the floor, and a hearth cold, but with the -kindlings laid ready for lighting.</p> - -<p>Champe thrust the candle flame among the dry -pine splinters, and when the blaze began to murmur in -the chimney, he filled a kettle from the water bucket -bracketed on the wall and hung it on the crane. At -this juncture my curiosity came to life.</p> - -<p>“Give it a Dutch name, Champe; whose house is -this you’re making so free with?” I demanded, drawing -a chair up to the table and sitting down to hold -my buzzing head in my hands.</p> - -<p>“You’ve guessed it at the first word,” chuckled the -sergeant. “It’s the Dutch boat-builder’s house, sure -enough—or it was before I buried him in the cellar -and took possession in the name of General Washington -and the Continental Congress. That’s my dinner -you’re looking at—or what remains of it. And there’s -more where that came from—such as it is.”</p> - -<p>“But the man?” I exclaimed in honest horror. -“You didn’t murder him, Champe?”</p> - -<p>“That’s as it may be. I wrapped him up in some -of his own boat cordage, with a knotted turn of it between -his teeth for quietness’ sake, and lowered him -into the hold. Alive or dead, he’ll be there now, if -the rats haven’t eaten him.”</p> - -<p>“This won’t do at all, Sergeant!” I protested in -shocked deprecation. “The fact that the man happened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -to own a boat which we needed is no reason why we -should turn rawhead-and-bloody-bones pirates. Bring -the candle and show me where you have put him.”</p> - -<p>“Going to have him up for our supper guest, Captain -Dick? He’ll be most awkwardly in the way, -won’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Never mind; bring the candle and show me the -way. Why, good heavens, man! what has the poor -devil done that we should treat him as if we were red -Indians? He may be one of our friends, for aught we -know!”</p> - -<p>“He’s a Dutchman, and he builds small-boats for -the king’s ships,” growled Champe stubbornly; but he -took up the candle and piloted the way to a room in -the rear, a bare shed of a place, with fire-wood stacked -along two sides of it, a dismantled baking oven buttressing -the chimney of the fore-room, and a great pile -of the bricks heaped upon a huge square trap-door -leading to the cellar. From a ceiling beam above the -trap a stout iron hook depended, as if the cellar had -been a ship’s hold to be filled and emptied with a block -and tackle.</p> - -<p>Champe put his candle on the oven ruins and addressed -himself to the task of removing the door -weightings. The uncovering revealed a ring sunk in -the planking of the trap, and when the door was lifted, -an ill-smelling black cavern, with rude steps leading -down into it, came into view.</p> - -<p>The sergeant swung into the dank pit and held up -his hand for the candle.</p> - -<p>“Give me the glim and I’ll fetch him out,” he said.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -“There’s no need for two of us.” And when the yellow -glow of the candle disappeared in the liquor-smelling -depths I was left in the dark.</p> - -<p>It seemed a long time before the glow reddened -again in the darkness below as Champe made his way -back to the stair-head.</p> - -<p>“Come down, Captain Dick, if your head’s steady -enough,” he called. “I’m fairly stuck.”</p> - -<p>I promptly lowered myself into the hole, with the -sergeant lighting the way for me. The cellar was a -curiously spacious underground store-room for so -small a house, wide and to the full as high as the rooms -above, and the liquor odor was amply accounted for -by a double row of great casks, ranked against the -walls. Then I saw the meaning of the trap-door’s size, -and of the hook set in the beam above it.</p> - -<p>“Your Dutchman is something both more and less -than a boat-builder, Sergeant,” I commented. “This -is a smuggler’s store-house. But where is he?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’d like to know,” said my companion -in a mystified tone; and presently he was showing me -the cords with which the man had been bound—enough -of them to have swathed the captive from neck -to ankles.</p> - -<p>The knots had been untied, not cut, and the ropes -had evidently been tossed aside in haste. But there -was no man entangled in their meshes, and nothing to -point out his way of escape from the cellar.</p> - -<p>We looked everywhere, as we thought, and carefully, -for with this man at large there was an added -danger to be faced. How he could have escaped from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -the cellar was a mystery which was still unsolved after -we had examined as we thought, every foot of exposed -wall surface for another outlet and had found none.</p> - -<p>“We have missed it somehow,” I insisted, when we -had made a second circuit of the place, peering behind -the casks of liquor and probing, as we imagined, every -nook and corner that would have hidden a cat. “There -is a secret way out of here, somewhere, and your man -has taken it. Let us hope he will stay away until we -have borrowed what we need of food and shelter and -transport.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll drink to that hope,” said my sergeant, who -had found an earthen pot and a cask up-ended with a -spigot piercing it near its lower chime.</p> - -<p>I told him to drink heartily and give the house a -good name, but at the first mouthful he strangled and -spat and spilled the potful of the liquor in the straw.</p> - -<p>“Faugh!” he grimaced. “I thought I knew all the -flavors that can come out of a barrel, but this is sure -the major-general of them all for nastiness! <i>Whoosh!</i> -it tastes as if all the old boots of the British Army had -been steeped in it for a month!”</p> - -<p>“And yet some other man would no doubt choose -it before good, sound old Madeira,” I returned, climbing -the steps to the cleaner air of the room above. And -when Champe was up: “Shut the trap, Sergeant, so we -may eat our suppers without the reminders. It would -make a drunkard sick to stay within nose distance of -that foul hole.”</p> - -<p>Back at our fireplace in the fore-room, we found -the kettle boiling merrily. Champe discovered a tea-chest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> -among the boat-builder’s provisions, and a hot -cup of tea, made strong enough to float an egg, speedily -cleared my head of the bee-tangles, and let me -punish, with as good an appetite as the sergeant’s, the -black bread and cheesy butter, greased down with cuts -from the haunch of boiled ham that Champe had -spared from his midday meal.</p> - -<p>Not to miss any of the comforts afterward, we -rummaged a bit of tobacco out of the Dutchman’s -closet, together with a couple of the long-stemmed -china-bowled pipes of the Netherlands; and, could we -have been assured that we should remain undisturbed -for the hour or two that must elapse before it would -be safe to take the to-be-borrowed boat out of the -Dutchman’s shop at the river-end of the garden, and -in it seek fresh adventures, there would have been -nothing left to wish for.</p> - -<p>But there are no assurances in this world of chance-takings. -We did not know what moment our boat-builder -might turn up, with a gang of smugglers or -others at his elbow, and with a just cause of quarrel -big enough to warrant anything he might do to us. -Moreover, there was Mr. James Askew, also at large, -and doubtless seeking for us as the woman of Scripture, -who lit her candle and swept her house diligently -until she found her lost piece of money. Moreover, -again, there was the Irish grog-seller, whose silence, -bought and paid for though it was, was worth little -more than a perjurer’s oath.</p> - -<p>“Well, let’s be doing,” I said, when we had -wrought through a pipeful or two of the boat-builder’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> -tobacco, and the weight of the various “moreovers” -was beginning to grow oppressive. “Will your Dutchman -happen to have such a thing as a lantern about his -house?”</p> - -<p>The sergeant went to rummage in the outer room, -coming back almost immediately to ask if I had heard -a noise.</p> - -<p>“Nothing but the wind in the chimney,” I said.</p> - -<p>“I did,” said Champe, listening attentively. “It -was like the soft slamming of a door, and I thought -it was in here.”</p> - -<p>“Not here, certainly. There is no door but the -front one, and that is locked as you left it.”</p> - -<p>“All right; then I didn’t hear it,” he contradicted, -and went out again to continue the lantern hunt.</p> - -<p>The next time it was I who heard the noise, which -sounded like a blow struck upon an empty cask. Tip-toeing -out, I laid a finger on Champe’s shoulder, and -his nervous start was a measure of the pitch to which -we were both keyed.</p> - -<p>“Hist!” I whispered; “your Dutchman has come -back to his cellar!”</p> - -<p>The sergeant cocked an ear and we both listened -intently. There were no more alarms, and the silence -of the grave seemed to have settled on the lonesome -house.</p> - -<p>“What did you hear?” queried my companion, -when the silence had become unendurable.</p> - -<p>“Some one kicking an empty cask. Lift that trap -again while I hold the light for you.”</p> - -<p>Champe stooped and raised the heavy door, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> -again the rank smell of the liquor, more overpowering -than before, rose into the room. None the less, -Champe dropped into the vault, skipping the first half-dozen -steps of the ladder-like stair; and when he was -down I gave him the candle and followed.</p> - -<p>To all appearances the spacious cellar was as we -had left it an hour before, though I could not rid myself -of the notion that the smell of the liquor was vastly -stronger. We passed again between the rows of casks, -the sergeant with the flaring candle held high. In the -farthest corner the bunch of tangled cords still lay -where the boat-builder, escaping from his bonds, had -flung it down.</p> - -<p>“Nothing different,” was Champe’s remark; and -then some devil of suggestion put the idea into his -head which was like to cost us more than we knew -how to pay. “Sound the casks,” he said. “Maybe -some of them are empty.”</p> - -<p>I began it on my side with my sword-hilt, and the -first resounding thwack brought the catastrophe. As -if the blow had touched a hidden spring, the head flew -out of the up-ended cask near the trap, and a dripping, -reeking little man climbed agilely out of it and darted -up the steep stair, with Champe and me knocking each -other down in the effort to overtake him. Followed -swiftly the crash of the trap-door falling into place, -and intermittent thunder as of a brick wall tumbling -into sections upon the floor above—thunder eloquent -of the fact that the fugitive was taking a leaf out of -Champe’s own book and weighting the trap for us as -the sergeant had weighted it for him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>The wind, or the shock of the falling door, had extinguished -our candle, and we were in total darkness. -But Champe had his flint and steel and tinder box, -and the tallow dip, for what small good it might do us, -was soon flaring again.</p> - -<p>“That was a master bright idea of yours, Sergeant -Champe,” I commented grimly, when the noise overhead -had ceased, and we were left to silence and our -own thoughts. “If you had only added that we should -begin with the cask which was most likely to hold our -Jack-in-the-box—but it came wrong end foremost, like -everything else in this wretched mission of ours!”</p> - -<p>Champe was smacking his lips reminiscently and -paying scant attention to my irony.</p> - -<p>“Never say I can’t tell soaked boots when I taste -them,” he broke out triumphantly. Then the disgust -of it suddenly overcame him and he spat again. “Yah! -when next I lay hands on that Dutchman, I’ll make -him drink every drop of it he has left behind.”</p> - -<p>“‘First catch your hare,’” I quoted. “As matters -stand now, we are the trapped ones, and it was very -neatly done. I think we are likely to stay here until -this boat-builder can go and find some of his smuggler -friends to help him collect his bill for damages. And it -will be a pretty long score, too, wouldn’t you say?”</p> - -<p>“Long enough,” was the reply; “though I didn’t -mishandle him any more than I had to, to make sure -of the boat for to-night. A boat we must have, says -you; and orders are orders, for Jack Champe. But -let’s try a push on that trap—until we find out if he’s -piled the whole oven a-top of us.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>The lift from the steps was clearly impossible. Only -one of us could stand to shoulder the door at once, -and when we had both tried and failed, we rolled a -cask under the opening and so got the double heave.</p> - -<p>“Lift, Captain!” grunted Champe; “lift till your -eyes hang out!” and so I did, and so did he; but the -loaded door never stirred. The Dutchman had done -his work faithfully and well.</p> - -<p>The sergeant came down from the steps with the -veins in his forehead swelled to great whipcords.</p> - -<p>“I’ve put three hundred pounds of tobacco to the -height of my shoulder with less wind-cutting,” he -panted, scraping the sweat from his face with a -crooked forefinger. And then: “I’ll never trap a rat -again while I live, Captain Dick. I know now how it -feels.”</p> - -<p>“We won’t give up yet,” I cut in. “There must be -some way out of this hole. If it were a common house-cellar, -there would be no need; but as a store-house for -smugglers ... they’d never leave themselves without a -back door for emergencies. Take that side first, and -we’ll sound every stone in the walls, if need be.”</p> - -<p>This time we were made to know how carelessly -we had searched in the former instance. Behind a -tier of casks, which were ranked so closely against the -wall as completely to conceal it, was a low arched opening -closed by a stout door with neither lock nor hinges. -With no tools heavier than our swords, we could not -force it; and when we drummed upon it, it gave back -the blows solidly, as if it were backed by a bank of -earth or another wall.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>“That is why our Dutchman hid in the cask and -waited for his chance,” said Champe, when the low -door had baffled us completely. “He couldn’t open -this dodge-way, himself.”</p> - -<p>After that, we left nothing untried for the time we -had at our disposal. The walls were carefully sounded, -stone by stone, the straw on the floor was swept aside -and the flagging received the same unsparing scrutiny. -Failing all else, we meant to try digging out the mortar -joints around a stone in that part of the wall which -Champe remembered as the highest above ground on -the outside—this with our swords’ points. But we put -that off until the last for the best of reasons. It was -not unlikely that we should need the weapons for another -purpose before long, and it would be an ill thing -to have either of them broken or dulled.</p> - -<p>We were facing this last resort in silence, with the -misshapen candle guttering down to its final two -inches, when the suspense ended in the crash of a -rudely opened door in the room overhead, the trampling -of many feet and a hoarse murmur of voices. Our -devil of a boat-builder had returned, bringing other -devils with him. I held my watch to the flickering -light.</p> - -<p>“Ten o’clock, Sergeant; and we have only two -hours before midnight,” said I. “How long will it -take us to pull the boat you speak of around to Arnold’s -garden, if so be we are lucky enough to have a -chance to man the oars?”</p> - -<p>“An hour, maybe, if we don’t have to go too far -a-sea to dodge the guard boats.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>“Good. Then we have something less than an -hour in which to claw or fight our way out of this -and get afloat. Work your brain with that end in -view, John Champe: our lives are but a means to an -end, which is to drag the greatest villain of his time -back to justice. Don’t lose sight of that if we have to -fight for it; but we’ll not fight if we can help it. Back -to that dodge-door again, and we’ll see if we can’t hit -upon some way to force it.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XV<br> - -<small>IN THE FOG</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">CHAMPE nodded and we passed together behind -the row of casks concealing the low arched -doorway. Wedging the candle in a niche of the stone -wall we made another examination of the mysteriously -fastened door. Common sense cried aloud that it must -be openable in some way from the inside; that no door -save that of a jail was ever built otherwise.</p> - -<p>“Maybe it will be one of these jamb stones that -will unlock it,” Champe suggested; so we laid hold and -pushed and pulled on first one and then another of the -stones framing the opening. At the third trial we -found one that seemed slightly loose and gave a little, -and after that, stuck fast and gave no more. But -when we put our united strength to it again, it yielded -slowly, leaving an angled opening to some dark space -beyond, in which Champe was presently thrusting an -exploring arm.</p> - -<p>“I have it,” he declared. There was a sound as of -wooden bolts leaving their sockets, and the door swung -open to my shoulder-push, heavily because of a weighting -of sand-bags with which it was hung, doubtless to -deaden sounds from within or without, we did not -know which.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>“’Tis plain as a pikestaff now why the pickled -Dutchman stayed till we came,” was Champe’s muttered -comment. “He hadn’t the gizzard in him to -move that stone by himself.”</p> - -<p>We had crawled safely through the archway, and -into a roomy underground passage beyond it, before -we heard a squeaking of pulleys betokening a lifting of -the kitchen trap-door by means of a block and tackle. -Champe was for hurrying, having an outdoor man’s -horror of being forced to fight in an underground burrow, -but while I shared this reluctance with him to the -full, I delayed long enough to close the weighted door -for the halt it might impose upon our pursuers. When -he saw what I was about, Champe quickly lent a hand, -and what was still more to the purpose, his mechanical -head. Slipping one of the wooden bar-bolts from its -sockets, he braced it angle-wise against the door so -that nothing short of a battering-ram could force an -opening from the cellar-side.</p> - -<p>Our chasers, whoever they were, were down the -stair and at the barrier wall by this time, and a bolt-sliding -hand was reaching through the jamb-stone -hole while we were hammering our brace into place. -Champe grinned ferociously and held the candle flame -for a single instant to the back of the groping hand, -grinning again at the snatched withdrawal and the -yell of pain that went with it; whereupon we fled, -praying that the underground tunnel might lead us to -the boat-house at the foot of the garden, or if not -there, at least to the water side.</p> - -<p>It did end, as we hoped it might, in the boat-builder’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> -shop at the water’s edge, and now there was little -question but that the boat-house and the cellar served -the purpose of a gang of smugglers. Our craft, the -light ship’s tender for the acquiring of which we had -like to have paid the price of our lives, lay on the -launching ways. A stroke of Champe’s sword severed -the painter, and with the fresh sea air to wash the -vile fumes of the cellar from our lungs, we set our -shoulders to the bows, running with the light boat to -give it momentum, and flinging ourselves in on either -side at the water-taking plunge.</p> - -<p>The shapely little craft shot well out from the -shore, clearing the beach by a long pistol-shot before it -lost headway. For some minute or so we lay motionless -and kept silence. There was a light in the house -out of which we had just burrowed, but we heard no -sounds of a fresh alarm. The sergeant chuckled as if -he had just come from a merrymaking.</p> - -<p>“I think they’ll be all muddle-headed Dutchmen in -that smuggling brotherhood, Captain Dick!” he -scoffed gently. “To think they wouldn’t leave a few -stout fellows to guard the boat-shop when they knew -that rabbit-burrow would take us straight to it!”</p> - -<p>“We’ll not quarrel with any muddle-headedness of -that sort,” I said; and thereupon we shipped the oars -noiselessly and pulled softly away from the shore, -turning the boat’s head southward and westward only -when we felt sure we had gained an offing which -would carry us outside of the line of guard ships.</p> - -<p>Our guess was good this time. We had pulled -cautiously for full half the distance we had to go, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> -had safely passed three of the coast-guarding vessels, -dim bulks lying between us and the shore, when a fog -came creeping up from the lower bay. Champe saw it -first and pointed out the hazard it would bring.</p> - -<p>“We must pull smarter for it, Captain Dick,” he -whispered over his shoulder. “We’ll be no better than -blind men in a strange town if that floating cloud -catches up with us.”</p> - -<p>So he said, and so I thought, and so it presently -proved when the fog closed in about us. We had no -compass, and could only hold on as nearly as we could -guess in the direction we thought we ought to go. -Once we made sure we heard the tramp of the sentry -on the battlements of the fort, and the low-voiced challenge -of guard-relieving,—which would make the time -eleven o’clock,—but before we could be certain of -these sounds we were tangled again as to our directions, -and the next sounds that came to us were the -bumping of our boat’s bows against the side of a ship, -and a hoarse voice shouting, “Avast there, you lubbers! -Unship your oars and lie still or I’ll fire into -you!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVI<br> - -<small>THE CUP OF TANTALUS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">TAKING it all in all, it seems that we should have -come promptly to the conclusion that, on this raw -night of the seventeenth of December, the stars in -their courses were fighting against us; that our own -lucky star, if we had any, was a million miles below -the horizon.</p> - -<p>At the gruff hail from the ship we had collided -with, there was nothing for it but to lie on our oars, -and to take what was coming to us. I expected a peremptory -command to come aboard; but instead, a boat-hook -was reached down to hold us as we were, a lantern -was lowered in our direction, and the officer of -the watch demanded to know who we were and what -we were doing.</p> - -<p>Here was a chance for the exercising of my most -promising gift, and I improved it instantly.</p> - -<p>“If this is a king’s ship, we are wearing his majesty’s -colors. If not, you may go to the devil with -your questions,” I made answer, with all the coolness -I could muster.</p> - -<p>“Your names, your business, and the night password!” -roared our questioner, losing patience, as I -thought he would.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>“We don’t yield any of the three to every jack-in-a-box -ensign who bobs up to ask them,” I retorted -blandly. “Go and call your captain, my friend.”</p> - -<p>Judging by the choking and spluttering going on -in the upper dimnesses I thought our officer, a little -man with bullet eyes and a turned-up nose, would have -a fit. When he had sworn himself into some atmosphere -of coherence he commanded us to tumble aboard, -or by all the sea-gods he would keelhaul us first and -hang us at the yard-arm afterward. Whereupon I -laughed pleasantly, and told him we should do well -enough as we were if he would let us have a compass -by which to find our way ashore.</p> - -<p>That brought him down to us, hand-under-hand on -the first rope he could lay hold of; and when he -dropped into our cockle-shell we had much ado to keep -him from swamping it or himself.</p> - -<p>“Up the side, the pair of you!” he blustered, lugging -out a huge pistol; and then the light of the lantern -showed him our Loyal American facings and my -captain’s shoulder-knot, and he changed countenance.</p> - -<p>“Sit down, Ensign,” said I, “and be at ease. You’ll -spill us if you’re not careful.” And when Champe had -slyly rocked the boat to emphasize the invitation: -“Now, perhaps, you will be good enough to tell us -which way to steer to make the landing at Fort -George.”</p> - -<p>“Your pardon, Captain,” he said, the bluster all -gone out of him. “You are but a cable’s length from -the fort. But the orders are strict. You have the -password?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>I gave it.</p> - -<p>“And your rank and standing?”</p> - -<p>“Captain in the Loyal American Legion, and acting -aide to General Arnold, detailed for this night on -special duty. And my companion is a sergeant in the -same service, pulling an oar for me. Is there anything -else you would like to know, Ensign?”</p> - -<p>“H’m,” he said reflectively. “A lieutenant and a -sergeant was what they said to be on the lookout for, -but that may have been a mistake.” And then, with -a furtive glance at the priming of his great pistol: -“I’m sorry to insist, Captain, but I shall have to ask -you to come aboard with me. Orders are orders, and -they must be obeyed.”</p> - -<p>“But why?” I protested. “If you detain me it is -at your own risk. My affair is General Arnold’s, and -it does not admit of delay.”</p> - -<p>“If you are really General Arnold’s aide, you will -know more than I can tell you,” he made answer. “It -is rumored that two men, an officer and a soldier from -Mr. Washington’s army, are here for the purpose of -abducting Benedict Arnold, and the rumor says that -they came as deserters from the rebels and enlisted in -Mr. Arnold’s legion. Be that as it may, two men of -the Loyal Americans, a lieutenant and a sergeant, are -reported missing, and we have orders to look out for -them. You see the situation, Captain?”</p> - -<p>Truly, I did; and it was a very sorry situation, indeed. -There could be but one explanation. James -Askew had sold his news to Clinton or Arnold, and -the orders were out to apprehend us. It was but a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> -slip that the missing “captain” figured as a lieutenant -on the lips of our ensign; and the sergeant’s rank was -correctly stated. So far as I knew, we two, Champe -and I, were the only stragglers from the legion; -Champe was known to have left his transport ship, -and neither of us knew what had transpired after mid-afternoon, -when I had left Arnold putting his wife -into the hackney coach with Beatrix, and had gone to -sink my hook into Mr. Askew’s gills.</p> - -<p>As far as I could see, we were fairly netted. Once -aboard the schooner under whose counter we were lying, -and it was but a step to Fort George and its dungeons, -and another, and still shorter one, from the -prison to the gallows.</p> - -<p>The red-faced little ensign had dropped into the -stern-sheets of our boat, and so he sat facing us. I -guessed now that he had no captain; that he was the -ranking officer of the small guard-ship. Otherwise, -his superior would have been on deck long before this, -hurling questions at us. If we could but win the red-faced -one—</p> - -<p>I could not see Champe, who was behind me on the -forward thwart. But when the ensign stood up and -called to the boat-hook man to haul us amidships, I -felt the grim sergeant’s determination in the thrill of -the light craft under me. Catching the one fortuitous -moment when the ensign was extending a hand to -fend us off from the schooner’s side, Champe entangled -his oar between the boat and the ship’s bilge, -made an awkward effort to disengage it, and clumsily -lost his balance, careening the boat with such a sudden<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> -jerk that the red-faced little officer went overboard in -a clean, sharp headlong plunge.</p> - -<p>Whether it was Champe’s intention to drown the -officer, offhand, or merely to make a diversion out of -which something might grow to our benefit, I never -knew. But the diversion was a fact accomplished, beyond -doubt. With lusty sailor shouts, the man with -the boat-hook gave the alarm, and to the watch on -deck was added the watch below, which came tumbling -up at the cry of “Man overboard!” Naturally, -with no lights, and with the fog thickening on every -fresh breath of the sea wind, the men on the schooner -did nothing but get in one another’s way; and the ensign -who, like many another sailor, could swim no -more than a stone, would have drowned a dozen times -before they got their tender down from the davits at -the stern.</p> - -<p>But now I had my small inspiration, and with a -quick word to Champe to secure his intelligent help, it -was put into effect. It was a simple expedient, namely, -to keep our boat within easy snatching distance of -the drowning officer, and then to haul him aboard -when he was too well soaked and frozen to remember -his orders—all of which we did in the proper -sequence, and with the desired result.</p> - -<p>The pug-nosed little man was no longer red-faced -when we passed him up the side of the schooner and -into the hands of his excited crew, and no one said us -nay when we sheered off silently into the fog afterward, -and diligently lost ourselves once more.</p> - -<p>That was no joke. We did lose ourselves beautifully<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -this second time, and when, after what figured to -us as two or three of the longest hours ever measured -by falling sand grains, our boat took ground with a -sidelong lurch, we had no more idea than a pair of -innocents what land it might be.</p> - -<p>Here came our first disagreement. Champe was -for sheering off again and waiting for the fog to lift: -I said no; that the fog might not lift until dawn, and, -in any event, we must land somewhere, sometime. The -sergeant gave way, finally, but not without many misgivings -openly expressed. Luck was not with us, he -said, and it would be our unblest, crooked hap to walk -straight into the arms of some of those who were looking -for us.</p> - -<p>In divided counsels, therefore, we took our stiffened -limbs out of their boat crampings, and stamped -and beat our arms and got the sluggish blood in motion -before we dragged our craft high and dry, and set -out to scramble up the steep bank fronting our landing-place. -At the top, to our astonishment, we were -above the thin skim of fog that lay like a veil on the -surface of the water, and could see dimly the surrounding -objects.</p> - -<p>The first of these was a man, walking slowly and -with measured steps toward us on the bank’s edge.</p> - -<p>“A sentry,” muttered the sergeant, and we flattened -ourselves silently where we were till the soldier -passed us, creeping swiftly forward to cross the line a -minute later.</p> - -<p>Not above a stone’s throw from the waterside we -were brought to a stand by a barrier of some sort<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -which, to the sense of touch, proclaimed itself to be a -high wooden fence. It was here that Champe gripped -my arm and drew me down beside him.</p> - -<p>“The luck’s turned, Captain Dick!” he whispered -excitedly. “Of all the thousand places where we might -have landed, we’ve drifted blindly to the one we were -aiming for! This is our garden, and here is the board -you kicked loose when you were walking with Sir -Judas night before last!”</p> - -<p>It was as true as it was blankly incredible. The -board pointed out by Champe lay just as it had fallen, -and peering through the gap it had left, we could see -the dark bulk of Arnold’s house, with Sir Henry Clinton’s -shouldering it on the right.</p> - -<p>There were no lights in any of the windows, and -the garden, when we had entered it through the gap in -the fence, was silent and deserted, as might be expected -at such an hour. We were in the shadow of the -house itself when I bade Champe strike a spark into -his tinder box to let us tell the time. It was past two -o’clock, though how much past I could not tell, since I -had forgotten to wind my watch and it had stopped -exactly on the hour.</p> - -<p>Determining this, we held a whispered consultation. -It was terribly late to press our plan to its conclusion, -and Champe urged this, arguing most sensibly -that, if we had all good fortune from this on, we could -not hope to row far on the way to Tappan before the -daylight would show us to all who cared to see; that -with the tide against us we would not be past the British -boat patrols by sunrise.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>On the other hand, I contended that it might very -well be now or never.</p> - -<p>“You heard what the guard-ship ensign said: if -daylight finds us in New York, this day’s sun will be -the last we’ll ever see, for they tell me they hang their -caught spies at midnight. Our alternative is to take to -the boat again and try to escape as we can. But if we -try to do this, we may as well take Arnold with us. -If we are caught, we hang, anyway, and none the less -certainly if we are caught empty-handed.”</p> - -<p>Champe saw the force of this, as I was sure he -would; and if his teeth were chattering when we set -about breaking into the house, why so were mine for -that matter, and I protest it was from the raw chill -of the morning and not from fear.</p> - -<p>Our breaking and entering was easily accomplished. -A window in a rear room gave to the cautious -prying of Champe’s saber point; and from that -room, which, as I knew, was used for stores, to the -lower corridor, or entrance hall, we came by forcing -the lock of the communicating door.</p> - -<p>I half expected to find an aide or an orderly sleeping -in this lower hall, if, indeed, there should not be a -sentry, awake and on guard. But there was neither -nor none of these. The hall was deserted and silent; -and when we drew the curtains of the side-lights at -the front, there was no sentry outside, save the one -whose footfalls we could faintly hear as he marched -back and forth before Sir Henry Clinton’s quarters.</p> - -<p>Here again, then, fortune appeared to be favoring -us most astoundingly. It was almost unbelievable that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -the man we meant to seize and carry off was sleeping -quietly, and wholly at our mercy, in the room above. -But, unless his guard was in the room with him, -there was none in the house; of this we made sure as -a condition precedent to our creeping silently up the -stairs.</p> - -<p>Before the closed door of the office-bedroom I -gave the sergeant final whispered instructions; this -after we had softly tried the door and found, to our -greater astonishment, that it was unlocked.</p> - -<p>“When we are in, you will follow me, Sergeant; I -know the placing of the furniture and where the bed -stands. The word is silence, absolute; once awakened, -Arnold will fight—no man more desperately. But -you know this as well as I. At the bedside you will -fall upon him and bind him, trusting to me to keep -him quiet with the rapier point. Do your work quickly -and thoroughly, and use this door-key in your knotted -handkerchief for a gag. Are you ready?”</p> - -<p>“Ready and waiting, Captain Dick,” was the muttered -reply; and we swung the door slowly on its -hinges.</p> - -<p>Though there were ample windows in both ends -of it, the long room was dark. But now our eyes had -become somewhat accustomed to these inner glooms, -and we could make out the dim shapes of the furnishings -nearest to us; the writing-table, the chairs, the -clumsy, cushioned settle drawn out before the cold -hearth.</p> - -<p>Groping our way by slow inchings along the opposite -wall, we finally came to the alcove holding the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -bed, a high, canopied contrivance of the older fashion, -with heavy curtains to shut it in. I could have sworn -I heard the traitor’s gentle breathing when I laid a -cautious hand on the curtains to draw them aside. -“Now!” I whispered; and as the curtains parted, -Champe sprang like a tiger through the opening and -I felt quickly for the man’s face on the pillows to guide -the rapier’s point for the silencing.</p> - -<p>There was no face on the pillows; no human figure -outlined beneath the covers; which were drawn up -smoothly as the traitor’s chamber-man, or -woman, -had left them. We had struck our blow and it had -missed!</p> - -<p>Champe sat up on the edge of the bed, and I heard -his low chuckling laugh.</p> - -<p>“Shall I bind and gag the pillow, Captain Dick?” -he asked sardonically; and then he burst out in a soft-voiced -torrent of the most fearsome curses. “The -devil takes choice care of his own,” he gritted, at the -far end of the outburst. “Four times have I had this -Judas fairly in my hands, and four times he has -whipped out of them! Not once before in all these -two months has he slept away from here, Captain Dick—I’d -swear it! And now, on this one night of all the -sixty-odd.... Well, shall we go down to the fort and -turn ourselves over to the provost-guard?”</p> - -<p>For the moment it seemed as reasonable as anything -else that remained for us to do. But youth -dies hard; and youth with the Page blood jumping in -its veins the hardest of all.</p> - -<p>“They call me a daredevil, at home, John Champe,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> -I said evenly, “and Mr. Hamilton named me so -when he asked me to go to help you. I have a mind -to do the maddest thing you ever dreamed of, which -has its one chance in a million of saving our necks only -because it is mad. Do you try it with me?”</p> - -<p>“Lord, yes,” said the sergeant wearily, “even if it’s -to crawl in here between Arnold’s blankets and let him -find us so when he comes.”</p> - -<p>“You may say it is quite as sure a road to Gallows -Hill as that would be,” I assented. “But come on: -first we must leave the bed and this house exactly as -we found them. Can you straighten and smooth the -covers without a light?”</p> - -<p>He said he could, and when he was through we -drew the curtains, and took our route in reverse, misplacing -nothing, and even staying to put the forced -store-room lock back as we had found it. Once more -in the garden, we kept to the graveled walk to show -no tell-tale foot-prints; and at the fence we were careful -to place the fallen board precisely as it had lain before -we had kicked it aside to gain our entrance.</p> - -<p>Five minutes later, we had dodged the sentry -again, and had lowered ourselves cautiously to the -river brink, where our boat was drawn out. Watching -our chance against the pacing sentry, we floated -the little craft silently, loaded it with stones enough to -kill its buoyancy, and filled it almost to the gunwale -with water. Then we made the painter fast to a rock -at the river’s edge, pushed the boat out into deep -water, and sank it with a quick jerk on the rope.</p> - -<p>“I should have sent it adrift, and no more said,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> -commented the sergeant. “And I don’t see yet why -you didn’t, Captain Dick,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Never mind,” I rejoined. “You’re calling yourself -a dead man, now, and so you needn’t worry with -the ‘whys’—though I don’t mind explaining the present -one. We’ve been at a good bit of trouble getting -hold of that boat, and if we can make shift to keep -the breath in our bodies for a few hours longer, we -may need it again. That’s all. Now come with me, -and obey your orders to the letter.”</p> - -<p>Once again we scrambled up the bank, dodged the -sleepy sentinel, passed to the street by a détour, and -so came boldly to the front of the house we had broken -into. Then I told Champe what we were to do.</p> - -<p>“Make a complete soldier of yourself, now, Sergeant, -and follow two steps behind me. We shall pace -a sentry-beat up and down before the house from this -on, until Arnold returns and finds us here. When he -comes, you will salute and stand at parade, and look as -weary as you can to back what I shall say to him. -Mark time—march!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVII<br> - -<small>MASKED BATTERIES</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WITHOUT a word, Champe fell in two paces to -the rear and caught the step, and thus began -the weariest and I do think the most forlorn-hope vigil -that was ever kept. For its patient keeping the sergeant -deserves the greater credit, for I at least knew -how I meant to try a desperate cast to bring us out of -our looped gallows ropes, but Champe knew nothing -save that I had formed a peg of some sort to hang a -hope upon.</p> - -<p>Tired and hungry, cold and cramped from our long -confinement in the small boat as we were, the disappointment -of the empty bed and bedroom had crushed -and benumbed us. It was a dead wall from which -courage refused to rebound; a pit to swallow the bravest -resolution; a clog for our feet and shackles for our -wrists. I do not speak for Champe; but for myself, if -the meanest soldier in the British garrison had come -to tell me I was his prisoner, I think his bare word -would have made me tag along after him like a cowed -spaniel.</p> - -<p>And the dreadful length of it! While we were -fighting our way up the ladder of the hours, with midnight -and the accomplishment of our purpose for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> -goal, time passed us on the wing. But now the minutes -dragged leaden-footed. It seemed as though the -dawn would never come. Fort George, looming grim -and forbidding in the darkness no more than a musket-shot -from the seaward end of our pacing sentry-beat, -might have been a citadel of the dead; a huge mausoleum -with never a living soul to tenant it. Even the -tavern, where you would suppose some one would be -stirring at any hour in the twenty-four, was silent and -dark and apparently deserted.</p> - -<p>It was an ill time for good thoughts, and, conversely, -the very pick and choice of times for the tormenting -kind. What masked batteries, trained to -blow us into eternity, would the rising sun reveal? We -had the little red-nosed navy ensign’s word for it that -we had been missed and that the hue and cry had been -raised; that the hunt headed, no doubt, by the spy -Askew, was already up. Would we be taken before I -could try the last brazen-faced throw of the dice? Just -here, before this door we were making a mock of -guarding, I had parted from my loved one with the -heart of gold only a few short hours ago: should I -ever see Beatrix Leigh again?—or the men about our -own troop fires in the Hudson hills?—or the old home -in tidewater Virginia? It seemed altogether unlikely.</p> - -<p>And Beatrix; what would she say and do when she -should hear the news and realize that, while I was no -such despicable traitor as she had believed me to be, -I was, none the less, to die a traitor’s death with a -cord around my neck? Or, rather, was it not most -unlikely that she would ever hear of it at all until after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> -the eternal gulf had opened its abysmal chasm between -us?</p> - -<p>Over and again I tried to break away from these -thought-furies; to set calm reason on her seat, and to -gather resolution for the impending battle of the wits -upon the outcome of which our two lives depended. -Never had I striven so hard for calmness and self-control; -never was the need greater, and never did the -attainment seem more blankly impossible. I was unutterably -fagged and exhausted; our antagonist would -be fresh from a night’s rest, clear-eyed, with every -faculty sharpened and alert. I must fight defensively -on the slippery ground of deceit and dissimulation, -while my opponent had all the advantages of the -attack.</p> - -<p>By some strange good fortune I had been able -hitherto to deceive Arnold, by nature the most wary -and suspicious of men; but sooner or later there must -come a turn in the longest road, and I was racked and -tormented by the fear that we were now approaching -it. Conned over in its details, the expedient I had hit -on seemed foolhardy to a degree and most pitifully unconvincing. -Yet it was the only one, and I must try -it at all hazards. And as often as I came into collision -with the stern necessity, the despairing cry rose up out -of the underdepths, “Oh, that the morning would come -and let us be at the end of this!”</p> - -<p>Champe never spoke to me once in all that doleful -marching back and forth, nor I to him. I mistrusted -that he had his own personal kettle of fish to fry, and -that his cooking fire was smoldering evilly or blazing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> -too high as often as mine. But he was not a man to -vocalize his soul-wrestlings; and, besides, he had a -soldier’s choicest gift—complete reliance on his commanding -officer, and a blind confidence that the brain -which was paid to do the thinking would somehow -contrive to think to some good purpose.</p> - -<p>I shall always remember with reminiscent thrillings -how welcome were the first signs of approaching -day; the lifting of the fog over the river, and beyond -that, its graying and thinning to transparency; the -long roll of the drums sounding the reveille in the fort; -the slamming open of shutters as the houses awoke; -the cheerful clatter of Hetheridge’s horse as the young -orderly rode up to Sir Henry’s door and dismounted.</p> - -<p>After a little the fog soared aloft to transform itself -into wisp-like clouds high overhead, and the eastern -sky reddened, and a horse-boy, whistling André’s -<i>Cow Chase</i> lately set to music, came out in front of the -tavern and began to take down the shutters. Then a -housemaid, with her bucket of steaming water and -cloths and brushes, opened the door and knelt to scrub -the steps. And still the sergeant and I tramped heavily -to and fro and waited; and still the man who had -slept away from his house did not return.</p> - -<p>It was now that the delay began to eat like acid -into our very bones. Preparation, a stout bracing for -the plunge, is all well enough in its way; but too much -of it will curdle the blood in the bravest veins and -make a trembling coward of the biggest hero that ever -wore laurel. Champe never knew or suspected it, I -hope, but for me there were moments after that dawn-breaking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> -when a desire to fly to any sand heap big -enough to dig me a burrow in, was almost overpowering.</p> - -<p>The suspense came to an end at length, as all things -in a world of meetings and partings must. I saw Arnold -first. He was coming down the street, walking -soberly with his head down and his hands behind him; -a habit dating, they said, from the day when he had -put it forever out of his power to hold his head up -among honest men. So walking, he was almost up to -us before he saw us; and I could feel Champe’s eyes -fairly boring into the back of my neck for fear I should -be giving him his cue and he would miss it.</p> - -<p>I gave the cue at the instant when Arnold looked -up and saw us. As one man, we both halted, faced -right, and made the formal salute. Then, throwing -every faculty of my exhausted soul into the effort to -appear the living mirror of shocked surprise, I exclaimed: -“Why, General!—Good heavens, sir! You—you -did not sleep at home?”</p> - -<p>There was a look in his gloomy eyes that made me -shiver when he confronted me calmly and said, “No, -Captain Page; I did not sleep at home.”</p> - -<p>“Then—then we have been standing our long -guard over an empty house?” I faltered; and the faltering -was no more than half insincere, if it were that.</p> - -<p>“Why should you stand guard at all, Captain -Page?” he asked, never relaxing the accusing eye-grip.</p> - -<p>“Surely you must have heard?” I protested. “You -might well say that no man holding his commission -from you could do less than to try to guard your person -at such a time as this, General Arnold!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>“Ah? And what have <i>you</i> heard?”</p> - -<p>“Only what all the town is whispering: that two of -Washington’s emissaries, masking as deserters from -the rebel army, are here for the purpose of abducting -you, sir; that these men—the better to cover their designs—are -enlisted in the Loyal Americans; and that -these two, a rank and a warrant officer, are missing.”</p> - -<p>“You heard all this?” he queried slowly. “And in -the face of it you come here to stand a night guard -over my house?”</p> - -<p>“Surely, sir; and why not? It seemed a moment -when loyalty might do well to assert itself; the more -since some suspicious occurrences—”</p> - -<p>“You are either a very brave and true man, or a -very rash one, Captain Page,” he said, breaking in -upon me. “Did they not whisper you the names of -these two suspected men?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>He frowned and looked away.</p> - -<p>“I could almost find it in my heart to wish they -had,” he said, half to himself, I thought. And then, -more pointedly to me: “There is an order out for the -arrest of these men—an order issued last night by Sir -Henry Clinton, himself. It specifies the names:—Captain -Richard Page and Sergeant John Champe.”</p> - -<p>Now that the worst had come, the burden tumbled -suddenly from my shoulders and I became a man -again.</p> - -<p>“That is indeed most unfortunate, General Arnold,” -I said calmly; “not for us, but for you.”</p> - -<p>“Ah? Possibly you will tell me why.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>“Because justice, in pursuing us, may perchance be -even a little blinder than she is usually portrayed; and -while we are getting our trial and acquittance, the real -criminals will go free. But that is neither here nor -there. Will you take our swords, General? or shall -we go and surrender them to the commandant at Fort -George?”</p> - -<p>He nailed me up again with the sifting, probing -eyes, and I could almost fancy I saw a lurking smile in -their farthest underdepths.</p> - -<p>“Are you really the true man that Mistress—ah—the -person who vouches for you—insists that you are? -Or are you the shiftiest, hardiest daredevil villain that -ever lived, Captain Page? I confess I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“The court-martial may or may not answer that -question for you, General Arnold,” I said coldly. “For -myself it matters little, so long as I have the consciousness -of duty well done, or well attempted; and I think -Sergeant Champe would say the same. Have we your -permission to go and surrender ourselves?”</p> - -<p>He stopped and paced a step or two, his frown -deepening. When he spoke, he took a new tack and a -little ray of hope began to glimmer in the murk of -doom.</p> - -<p>“I have been officiously ignored in this matter, as -in many others,” he complained, in the manner of one -who lets his inner thought slip into speech. “The -hearsay word of some spy, whom I have never been -permitted to see and question, is taken, and an order -goes out to apprehend two of my own men—men who -are responsible to me for their actions, and to no one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> -else. Tell me, Captain Page, have you ever given -Lieutenant Castner special reason to dislike you?”</p> - -<p>“Never to my knowledge,” said I, wondering what -was coming.</p> - -<p>“He is at the bottom of all this,” snapped Arnold -harshly. “It was he who saw the spy; it was he who -carried the story to Sir Henry Clinton and procured -the order for your arrest. By heaven, sir! for this one -time I shall show them that I am at least the colonel -in command of my own regiment! Get you into the -house—you and the sergeant—and we shall see if their -order for your arrest runs this far.”</p> - -<p>Surely, this was mirth for the gods; that the man -who should have been most eager to see us hanged -was interposing his own authority against Sir Henry -Clinton’s to balk the hangman! It was like robbing a -blind man to take such a gross advantage of his vanity -and pride, but there was no alternative. Now that -he had told us what we had to fear, there was no other -hand or house in all New York that could shield us.</p> - -<p>So we followed him through the door of the house -which we had lately broken into, and were told curtly -to rest ourselves as we could in the orderly-room; and -that Arnold’s man would later bring us our breakfast. -At the last, when he was leaving us, I ventured to cast -a small anchor to windward.</p> - -<p>“One word, General Arnold, before you go. I -spoke, a few moments since, of certain suspicious occurrences -of the night. If, as I have good cause to -fear, you shall find yourself overruled in this matter—if -you are compelled to turn us over to our accusers—I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> -beg you will not do it until you have heard what -we have to tell you of last night’s doings in the town.”</p> - -<p>“You shall have your hearing, never fear,” he asserted, -frowning again at the hint that he would be -forced to yield us up, whether he wanted to or not; -and so he left us.</p> - -<p>“Pull yourself together once more, Sergeant,” I -commanded, shaking Champe awake when we were -alone together. “We are no more than fairly across -the threshold of the peril. We shall doubtless be questioned -separately, and God help us if we are not letter-perfect -able to tell the same tale! Listen, now, and get -your lesson by heart.”</p> - -<p>At this I gave him the meat and marrow of the -story I meant to tell Arnold on my cross-examination, -drilling him patiently until every nerve of him save the -receptive was fast asleep. Yet I think he had it all -line by line before Arnold’s serving man came with the -breakfast, though he afterward went to sleep in his -chair with the gulping of his third dish of tea; a good -example which I presently followed with the chimney-corner -settle for a bed.</p> - -<p>Something to my surprise, for I had fancied our -business would scarcely wait so long, the day was half -spent when an orderly—a new little man I had never -seen before—came to rout me out and tell me that -General Arnold commanded my presence in the room -overhead. I could have wished for a little space in -which to set a sleep-befuddled brain in order, but it -was not given me. So far from it, I was still yawning -foolishly behind my hand when I stumbled into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> -Arnold’s presence, trying to look soldierly, and making -a rather shameful failure of it, I fear.</p> - -<p>But the man behind the little writing-table gave no -heed to my gapings. “Sit down, Captain Page,” he -said briskly. “While you have been sleeping, we have -come to some better understanding of this business—better -for you and Champe, at all events. The order -for your arrest has been suspended—or at least, made -discretionary with me.”</p> - -<p>I saw how his vanity and self-esteem had been propitiated, -and was glad, since therein lay our only hope.</p> - -<p>“We owe you much more than we have yet been -able to pay, General—the sergeant and I,” I said, -which was the truth masquerading as a lie. “So long -as you are our judge-advocate, we don’t fear the drumhead -court. But now, if it is permitted, I should like -to inquire how suspicion fell specially on us.”</p> - -<p>When he answered, his frown was not for me.</p> - -<p>“There is a mystery about it, Captain. Castner -claimed to have had speech with a spy, who incriminated -you and Champe on a direct charge; and upon -that information the order for your arrest was issued—without -my knowledge or approval, as I have said. -Now, when I go to demand an explanation, the spy -has disappeared and Castner is missing. No one else -has seen the spy, and even his name is carefully suppressed.”</p> - -<p>I put on an air of surprise which I was far enough -from feeling. Mr. James Askew’s tenderness about -that whispered story of his part in the André betrayal -accounted for everything but Castner’s disappearance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>“You are looking for some motive under all this, -General?” I inquired.</p> - -<p>“To be sure; and it is not far to seek. Lieutenant -Castner is my personal enemy, and he has been at no -pains to conceal that fact, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“You astonish me!” I exclaimed; and this, at least, -was a pure falsehood.</p> - -<p>“It is true,” he asserted bitterly. “He has not -scrupled to say openly that Sir Henry would do the -king’s cause a worthy service if he would send me to -Mr. Washington in chains!”</p> - -<p>“Then,” said I, smoothly, “you would rather expect -to find him conniving at the crime I was charged -with, than to find him striving to prevent it.”</p> - -<p>“It is a myth—this kidnapping tale,” said the -traitor hotly. “He merely wished to deprive me of -your services, Captain—at the expense of your life, if -need be!”</p> - -<p>Was ever a man so misled? Here was the arch-plotter -of his century, the man who had been able for -months to hold a trusted station in the patriot army, -and at the same time to carry on a constant and treasonable -correspondence with his country’s enemies, unable -to keep from falling into the simplest of plots laid -for him! It was weighing pretty heavily upon Castner, -who was merely an honest soldier trying to do his -duty as he saw it, but I could hardly afford to defend -the lieutenant.</p> - -<p>“Whatever the lieutenant’s object may have been, -I think that I have had a narrow escape,” I said, which -was truth of the truth. “But you spoke of mysteries:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> -I think you will say there are more and greater ones -when you hear what I have to tell you, General Arnold. -You missed me yesterday afternoon?”</p> - -<p>“I did. And that gave more color to Castner’s -charges. Also, it was reported that Sergeant Champe -had not rejoined his ship, and that you had been seen -together, earlier in the day. Also, again, that neither -of you could be found, though the order for your arrest -went straight to the outposts as soon as it was -issued. I take it you are prepared to explain all these -seemingly suspicious coincidences, Captain?” He said -it almost anxiously, though the anxiety was more for -the humbling of Castner than for any other reason, I -thought.</p> - -<p>“I am, fully,” I replied. “To begin at the beginning, -Sergeant Champe did not return to his ship yesterday -morning because he failed to find a boat going -down to the fleet in the lower bay. Quite naturally, -he drifted into a tap-room, the bar of a sailor’s groggery -at the waterside. While he was there, and still -sober enough to have his wits about him, a man in citizen’s -clothes stood at the bar trying to make a bargain -with the tavern-keeper for a boat. The sergeant heard -all that was said. A boat was required which would -carry three men, two of them would row, and it must -be exceedingly light and speedy.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!” said my listener; “three men, and only two -to row. The third man might be a prisoner, eh, Captain -Page?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly,” I answered, smiling inwardly at the -readiness with which he followed me. Then I went<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> -on, keeping as scrupulously within the bounds of fact -as if I expected to be called to account for every word—not -because I was afraid to lie, but because nothing -but the point of view needed to be concealed.</p> - -<p>“When the man left the tavern, the sergeant, as -you may say, trod in his very footsteps. The long jaunt -ended at the house of a Dutch boat-builder on the eastern -shore. The man in citizen’s clothes went in, and, -a little later, the sergeant thought he heard sounds of -a struggle. Be that as it may, the man came presently -out of the house and made his way back to the neighborhood -of Fort George, where he disappeared. -Whereupon the sergeant dutifully hunted me out and -told me his story.”</p> - -<p>“This was in the morning, you say?” queried Arnold, -most deeply interested, as I could see.</p> - -<p>“In the forenoon,” I went on, and now I saw that -I must begin to invent. “Later on, after Mistress -Arnold’s visit to you here, I learned through Champe -that the man who had worn citizen’s clothes in the -forenoon had turned up at the tavern in the uniform -of a British private soldier, and that he had been seen -in company with an officer wearing the uniform of the -Loyal Americans. This, in itself, seemed a little suspicious, -and as the plot you speak of was, by that time, -becoming a tavern rumor—”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said Arnold, anticipating me. “You sallied -out to find this officer and his boat-requiring companion?”</p> - -<p>I bowed.</p> - -<p>“We had little difficulty in placing them, the officer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> -and his masquerading comrade, in the lane beyond -the tavern; and when they went eastward, you may -imagine that we, as you might say, tracked them step -for step. They took a most roundabout way, but finally -reached and entered the boat-builder’s house.”</p> - -<p>“Ah; but you did not drop it there, Captain Page. -You are far too enterprising, I am sure.” By this time -the traitor was up and walking the floor, his eyes flashing, -and his entire manner reminding me of nothing so -much as of a hound roving to find a scent.</p> - -<p>“No; we did not drop it. But what followed was -still more mysterious. You must know that by this -time it was black dark. The two men locked themselves -in the house, struck a light, made a fire on the -hearth, and, by the sounds, filled a kettle and put it on -to boil.”</p> - -<p>“You could see them—see their faces?” was the -eager question.</p> - -<p>“I saw the face of the soldier, but not that of the -officer,” I replied, skipping around the eager query. -“The man who had been boat-seeking in the forenoon -was tall and dark; something on Sergeant Champe’s -order. The other was also tall, with square shoulders, -and he was fair.”</p> - -<p>Arnold stopped abruptly, and wheeled to face me. -Some sudden emotion had transformed him. His eyes -were blazing, and the thin nostrils were quivering with -rage or excitement, I could not tell which.</p> - -<p>“I can name one of those men—possibly both of -them!” he cried. “But go on, Captain Page; go on, -sir!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>“They made tea and ate,” I went on, wondering -what new pool of disturbment I had unconsciously -troubled. “Afterward they sat before the fire and -smoked. Later, the soldier rose and went into another -room, coming back directly to say something -which made the officer spring up and go with him. -They took the candle, and, as the fire had died down, -the house was dark; dark and silent. But after a time -there came muffled cries, and a crash like that of a -falling trap-door followed by a bedlam of thunderings -as if a cataract of bricks were pouring upon the floor. -Then a strange little man, dripping and reeking as if -he had been soaked in a cask of liquor, dashed out of -the house and disappeared in the darkness.”</p> - -<p>I paused to give him his chance to lead me. It was -a perilous road that I was traversing, but I meant to -draw him so far afield this time that he would never -get back to any suspicion of Champe or me.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he said sharply. “That was not the end -of your adventure, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>“No,” I rejoined. “The little man was gone but a -short time before he came running back with a mob at -his heels—sailors, armed with guns and cutlasses. It -did not take us long to understand that the little man -was the boat-builder, and that he had contrived to pen -his two housebreakers in the cellar.”</p> - -<p>Arnold nodded with apparent satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“A troublesome friend of yours and mine will -probably trouble us no more, Captain Page,” he commented. -“The boat-builder’s house is a hiding-place -for smugglers—one of a number in the locality you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -have described. And your armed sailors were a smuggler’s -crew. There was a fight?”</p> - -<p>“We could not be sure; there was a great deal of -noise. But it ended in a fiasco. There was a loophole -of escape, and the two cellar prisoners must have found -it—we guessed it would be an underground passage -leading from the cellar to the boat-builder’s shop at -the water’s edge. At any rate, a dim light flickered -for a minute or two in the shop, and then a boat was -run down the launching ways, with two men scrambling -into it at the final instant.”</p> - -<p>Again I paused, and once more he gave me my -lead.</p> - -<p>“They escaped?—got off? But surely you did -not give up, Captain?”</p> - -<p>“No. The sergeant and I put to sea the moment -we could find a boat and launch it—which seemed to -be before the mob in the house had discovered the -escape. But when we manned the oars and began to -look about us, ours was the only boat in sight. We -pulled down the shore, keeping the sharpest lookout, -but we saw nothing save the fog, which presently -made us lose ourselves, and a guard schooner whose -commanding ensign wished to arrest and detain us—chiefly, -as I gathered, because we were wearing the -uniforms of the Loyal Americans.”</p> - -<p>For a long time Arnold walked back and forth in -deepest meditation, and I feared he was not going to -give me the chance to put the capstone on my carefully -built pyramid of dissimulation. But he did.</p> - -<p>“And after your encounter with the young cub<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> -who did not like your uniforms, Captain Page—what -then?”</p> - -<p>“We could do nothing in the fog, and we landed, -a little way from the fort, and came here to mount -guard. Now for the confirmation of all this fairy tale, -General: the groggery-keeper can testify to the boat-seeker’s -disguise; the smugglers, or their ally, the -boat-builder, can be interrogated; and doubtless the discontented -navy ensign will remember our visit, our -explanations, and our request for the loan of a compass—which -he most churlishly refused.”</p> - -<p>He sat down at his writing-table and put his head -in his hands. After another interval of silence, he -looked up to say: “You have sufficiently accounted for -yourself and Sergeant Champe, Captain; now I shall -try to account for the two men who escaped in the -stolen boat. Come with me.”</p> - -<p>I followed to the other end of the long room, mystified -in my turn. But my heart was pounding like a -blacksmith’s hammer when he snatched the bed-curtains -aside and pointed to the unmistakable mud stains -on the coverlet—traces left by Champe: traces which, -in the darkness, we had not seen, and which we could -not have removed if we had seen.</p> - -<p>“Those men whom you found and lost, Captain -Page: they came here, either before or after you -mounted guard in the street. Their purpose is plain. -They entered the house through a window in the rear, -leaving these mud stains all the way along. They came -here to abduct me, sir, and but for the fortunate circumstance -of my absence, they might have succeeded.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>My expression of horrified surprise did not need -to be feigned.</p> - -<p>“What a frightfully narrow escape!” I exclaimed, -but I was thinking of ours rather than his.</p> - -<p>“It was,” he said impressively. “But the plot was -even subtler than you think. Have you guessed why -its execution was delayed until last night? The time -was chosen when the Loyal Americans—my own -legion—was well out of the way; only two of my own -men were known to be ashore, and these two—yourself -and Sergeant Champe—were to be frightened by -this carefully spread rumor and threat of arrest so that -you would both run away, disappear, and so lend color -to the later story that you two had surprised me in my -bed and carried me off.”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens!” I ejaculated. “But that inculpates—”</p> - -<p>“Quite true,” he agreed gravely. “It inculpates a -British officer; a man who has been forced upon me -as an aide; a man who hates and despises me as heartily -as Mr. Washington does. Captain Page, if you -could have seen the face of the officer, who sat before -the fire last night in the boat-builder’s house, you -would have seen the face of Lieutenant Charles -Castner!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVIII<br> - -<small>IN WHICH THE WIND KEEPS REVELS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WHEN Arnold gave me his climax by pronouncing -Castner’s name, I saw at once to what conclusion -he had been working all through my story of -the night’s happenings. He had imagined Castner and -some accomplice of his under my figuring of the -two who were really Champe and myself.</p> - -<p>It must not be set down as hypocrisy if I say that I -was sorry. While it was doubtless true that Castner -was doing his best to convict us of treachery, I knew -that he believed Askew’s story, and that in seeking to -have us apprehended he was merely doing what appeared -to be—and what certainly was—his plain -soldier duty. For that reason it pained me to see him -involved, even in a traitor’s imaginings; but there was -no help for it.</p> - -<p>Having shown me his mind, Arnold next proceeded -to lay his commands upon me; and now I saw -how his good angel, if he ever had one, had deserted -him entirely.</p> - -<p>“With Sergeant Champe for your subordinate, you -will constitute yourself my bodyguard from this time -on until we join the army in the fleet, Captain Page,” -he said, when we had thrashed out the matter of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -attempt upon his liberty to the final straw. “The convoy -frigate will return in two or three days at the -farthest, but until I go aboard, I wish to be assured of -the presence of men upon whom I can rely.”</p> - -<p>If I bowed very low at this, it was only because I -feared he might see and read the exultation in my -face. Now, indeed, I thought, the Lord had delivered -this traitor helpless into my hands. Alone in the house -with him at night, and with the sunken boat raised -and fitted for service, it would go hard with us now if -we could not wring complete success out of all the -foregone failures.</p> - -<p>Conning all this over afterward, it seemed passing -strange that no hint of a rising obstacle, bigger than -any we had yet encountered, came to me at that time. -War and its cruel necessities are frightful levelers, -breaking down many ideals and brushing aside all the -finer scruples. Though I was far from recognizing it -at the moment, the desire to carry out the kidnapping -purpose had come to be a purely brutal obsession, recking -nothing of the common humanities, and completely -losing sight of the fact that Arnold, by his misguided -trusting of us, no less than by his many kindnesses to -me, was making an unconscious appeal too strong to -be disregarded. But at that moment there was nothing -in me to which the appeal could address itself; -nor could there be until an angel from heaven should -bring me the fire to re-light the candle which the war-winds -had blown so gustily into extinguishment.</p> - -<p>When I was released and suffered to go below-stairs, -I could scarcely wait to get Champe thoroughly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -awake before beginning to coach him in the new part -he must play. But when he sensed the astounding turn -things had taken, his loud guffaws made me clap a -hand over his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Silence, you oaf!” I commanded. “One unguarded -word—one lifting of an eyelid too few or too -many—and the balance tips the other way. I tell you, -John Champe, I have been through the valley of the -hot plow-shares itself since I left you snoring here!” -And then I told him of Arnold’s discoveries, and how, -in our breaking and entering, we had left a trail a blind -man could follow when we thought we were leaving -none at all.</p> - -<p>He was sober enough when I finished, and, soldier-like, -asked for his orders. I told him he might sleep -again till I called him; that he must be fresh for the night.</p> - -<p>“Then you are still for trying it on, Captain Dick?—in -spite of everything?”</p> - -<p>“It would be flying in the face of Providence not -to try, and keep on trying until we succeed. We are -many miles nearer the goal by what I have just told -you, Sergeant.”</p> - -<p>But now he was shaking his head dubiously.</p> - -<p>“We shall never do it,” he objected; “never, in this -world, Captain Dick. I saw that written out on the -walls of his room last night. Something will stop us; -I feel it in my bones.”</p> - -<p>“But you won’t leave the plow in the furrow?” I -protested. “We are equals in this, Champe: I can not -command you against your convictions, or even -against your wish.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>“You can command me, and you shall,” he rejoined. -“You will tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. -But we shall fail.”</p> - -<p>That set me to thinking how far I was justified in -involving another man in a desperate affair for which -he had apparently lost his stomach; an affair in which -my responsibility as his superior officer would be -doubled. I did not wish to shirk, God knows, or -even to divide the responsibility with my companion. -But his new attitude of dejection made me tenderer of -his safety than I had been before. In the last resort, I -thought it might be possible to let one bankrupt pay -the total cost of failure.</p> - -<p>“I’ll take you up on that, Sergeant Champe,” I said -calmly. “From this time forth you will consider yourself -a mere machine. Will you obey me to the letter?”</p> - -<p>“As I would Light Horse Harry Lee, himself, -Captain Dick,” was his answer.</p> - -<p>“Then listen: we will discuss ways and means, and -work together, as heretofore, straight through to our -end. But if anything happens—if, say, we should be -taken in the act—you must not scruple to turn against -me; to save yourself if you have to catch and hold me -while they tie my hands. Will you promise to do this?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said bluntly. “I could never do that, -Captain Dick. There is only one thing that would -ever make me an enemy of yours—and then there -would be no feigning about it: if you should turn softhearted -of a sudden, and spare Sir Judas—”</p> - -<p>“Why do you say that?” I demanded. “Have I -shown a soft heart, thus far?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>“No; but—but—your pardon, Captain Dick, but -there is a woman in this tangle of ours; two of them; -and one of them would willingly die in this man’s -place, and the other—”</p> - -<p>“Never say it, John Champe!” I interposed. -“When it comes to that, I shall want you for my -enemy; and you must not spare me the shrewdest blow -you can strike. But in the other event, you must save -yourself if you can, remembering this one thing—that -I shall hang a great deal the easier and more comfortably -if I hang alone.”</p> - -<p>“I’m too sleepy still to argue that point out with -you,” he protested; and I think he was nodding again, -to make up the arrears of the night, before I had -ascended the stair to take my place at Arnold’s door.</p> - -<p>The traitor never left his house all that afternoon, -and when I was not dozing in my chair in the corridor, -I could hear his pen scratching steadily, hour upon -hour. For a brevet-commander who was, in truth, no -more than the colonel of a regiment, Arnold did more -writing than any lawyer’s clerk, and sometimes I have -wondered if his treasonable correspondence did not -have its first beginnings in his insatiable thirst for letter-writing. -But no: it was his vanity again, which -ever loves to dribble from a pen’s point, that made him -such a slave of the ink-pot.</p> - -<p>The house darkened early in the afternoon, and -when I went to the corridor window to look at the -sky, there were promises of a storm. Here was -Champe’s prophecy of further obstacles on its way to -fulfillment hours ahead of any possible move we could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> -make. Inclement weather, rain, snow or cold, we -might brave, but not a wind which would raise a sea.</p> - -<p>I looked at the heavens long and earnestly. There -was a gray sky, but the clouds were lower than I liked -to see them. Rain or snow it would be, I decided, -with a chance of wind from the southeast. That was -nothing, so long as it did not blow too hard.</p> - -<p>It was near about dusk, and the serving man had -brought me my supper on a tray, when Arnold opened -the door for the first time and found me at my post.</p> - -<p>“Lord, Captain Page!” he said. “Have you been -here all the afternoon? You took me too literally. Go -down to the dining-room and have yourself served in -some comfort. Afterward, you may come and get a -letter for Mistress Arnold, leaving Sergeant Champe -on duty in the lower hall. We are in no such peril as -to need a death watch.”</p> - -<p>That matter of carrying another letter to Margaret -Shippen set me to blowing hot and cold in the same -instant; elate with the thought that I might see Beatrix -again, and apprehensive from the fear that if I -should see her, I must be put to it harder than ever to -defend my secret. Also, there was another thing to -add a chill, if not of apprehension, at least of decent -reluctance. How could I brazenly face the dear lady, -who was so good to Beatrix and me, with a lie in my -eyes and false words on my lips, carrying her husband’s -love-billets on the very eve of a deed which -would crush her into the dust of affliction?</p> - -<p>I was half minded to ask Arnold to make Champe -his messenger, pressing the resolve so far as to inquire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -of the sergeant if he could find the way in the dark -to a certain house across the open square from Mr. -Justice Smith’s. When he was doubtful about it, I -braced myself and said I would go; which, when I had -posted Champe in the lower hall, and had got the letter -from Arnold, I did.</p> - -<p>The promise of a bad night weather-wise was beginning -to come to pass when I set out—a bit warily -for the sake of Lieutenant Castner’s shrewd and -watchful enmity—to thread the poorly lighted streets. -A cold rain was falling and the wind off the bay was -sharp-edged, with a threat of more to follow.</p> - -<p>Though it was not the shortest way to my destination, -I went, for a purpose of my own, up Broad Way, -past the wretched, makeshift shelters that were taking -the place of many fair homes destroyed in the great -fire of ’76, past Trinity Church standing as a ghostly -ruin on the left, its walls only partly down and a corner -of its bell tower still rearing itself high above the -fire-killed trees in the churchyard. Beyond the church -I made a détour to the westward to get a glimpse of -the river. It was not very rough as yet, but a heavy -swell was running up with the tide to tell of rough -weather to the southward. I recalled the light craft -which must be our dependence. It would do very well -in a seaway, always provided there was not enough -wind to make the waves break over its low gunwale. -There were as yet no white-caps to show their teeth on -the black and heaving expanse, so I turned back to my -errand with rising hope.</p> - -<p>As on the former occasion, it was the old negro<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> -servant who admitted me to the Vandeventer house -and took Arnold’s letter above-stairs; and almost before -I had had time to feel the cheer of the fire in the -luxurious little reception-room whither I went to await -whatever answer there might be, the door opened to -show me, not Mistress Margaret, nor yet Beatrix, but -Mistress Julianna Pettus, Jack’s aunt, and Beatrix’s -cousin, once removed.</p> - -<p>Now, truly, Beatrix had told me very plainly that -she was expecting “Cousin Ju”; was delaying her departure -for Virginia only until that good lady should -come over from Philadelphia to accompany her. But -this fact, like some others, had gone completely out of -my mind, else I think I should never have had the -courage to come within speaking distance of the Vandeventer -house that night. For Cousin Julianna was -fair, fat and forty, with a mind of her own and a -tongue sharper than any whip-lash; and being my own -second cousin on my mother’s side, she had a sense of -proprietorship in me which she had exercised impartially -since she stood godmother for me in the old -church in Williamsburg.</p> - -<p>“Well, Dick Page!” she cried. “So you have come -to show me your new clothes, have you? Was there -no other ditch that you could wallow in, but you must -be the first to disgrace a long line of honorable Virginia -gentlemen? Merciful suz! Shame, hot shame on -you, boy—to make us all hide our heads this way! -Beatrix Leigh will never marry you now; her father -would disinherit her flat, and so, too, would I. And -you’ve fairly thrown her into Howard Seytoun’s arms,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> -brute beast as he is! No, don’t try to explain it; there -is no explanation—there can’t be!”</p> - -<p>What could I do, other than bow my head to the -righteous storm and let it exhaust itself, if it would? -It raged—oh, how scathingly it raged!—for a full -quarter of an hour, I believe, during which time I -could scarcely get a word in edgewise; but when the -hurricane had blown itself out, my cousin sat down -and condescended to ask me news of Jack, and of the -doings in the camps on the Hudson, remembering herself -now and then to flay me afresh for the coat I -was wearing.</p> - -<p>I told her all she asked to know, and was as meek -as mush, hoping she would come finally to telling me -something of her plans and Beatrix’s, as she did. And -it was very comical, too, if I had been in any laughing -mood, for, when she had told me that the rescued -Leigh tobacco had been put aboard of a certain coasting -schooner named the <i>Nancy Jane</i>, Captain Elijah -Sprigg, and that her passage to the James River, and -Beatrix’s, had been taken on board the same vessel, -she remembered suddenly that she was telling all this -to a king’s officer, and her threatenings of me, and her -alarm for the safety of the tobacco, were equally -matched.</p> - -<p>“You’ll never go and tell on us, Dick Page!” she -half pleaded, half commanded. “You wouldn’t be such -an abandoned and despicable villain as that!”</p> - -<p>“Why,” said I, teasing her a little, “haven’t you -just been telling me that nothing was too hang-dog -and mean for me to do, since I am wearing the king’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> -coat? Isn’t it my duty—my new duty—to go straight -down to Sir Henry Clinton’s quarters with the news -that you mean to run the blockade with a contraband -cargo of tobacco?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’d never, <i>never</i> do that, Dickie Page!” she -protested, wringing her hands in distress. “Mr. Vandeventer -says we are ‘winked at’; that because Beatrix -is a brave girl, and the friend of Margaret Shippen, -she will be allowed to take her tobacco and go home. -But I don’t trust them—any of them. They’ll stop us; -send us to prison! Dick, you’ll never be so cruel?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll make a bargain with you, Cousin Ju,” I -laughed. “Get me speech with Beatrix, and I’ll promise -you never to lisp a syllable to a living soul about the -tobacco.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but Dick! she protests she will never look on -your face again—and serve you right, too! She’ll -never come down to you for my urging.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she will. Tell her it’s the price of her cargo -of tobacco.”</p> - -<p>“You promise?”</p> - -<p>“Most faithfully, I assure you.”</p> - -<p>Cousin Julianna went away in haste, and I was still -laughing over her absurd fears when the door opened -to admit Beatrix. And I do think she was more beautiful -and winsome and alluring than I had ever seen -her, as she stood in the doorway, trying to make me -believe she was angry—as she was not.</p> - -<p>“So you threaten me, do you, Mr. Page? If I -don’t dance when you pipe, you will turn informer. -Did Cousin Ju tell me straight?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>“If Cousin Ju told you that I was ready to put my -soul in pawn for another sight of you, she had the -straight of it. I owe you an apology for—”</p> - -<p>“You owe me ten thousand of them—and more. -You ran from me yesterday afternoon when I was -waiting in the coach for Margaret as if I had had the -plague!”</p> - -<p>“I was on duty and was obliged to go. It was imperative. -I might say that the lives of two men hung -in the balance of my haste at that particular moment.”</p> - -<p>She was leaning against the door-post and regarding -me steadily.</p> - -<p>“Dick,” she said; “what has come over you since -the days when we were children together? Then you -were as truthful and transparent as they say Mr. -Washington used to be when he was a little lad and -would rather be punished than lie; but now.... Listen, -sir. Our carriage did not move for five full minutes, -and I saw you: you talked easily with a little gentleman -in gray, and afterward took his arm and -walked away with him to the tavern—and the tap-room, -I suppose—without so much as another look in -our direction. And now you would tell me—”</p> - -<p>“I have told you the exact truth, as far as it went, -Beatrix,” I interrupted. “The man in gray held two -men’s lives in the hollow of his palm. If I had not -caught him on the instant—well, no matter; that was -Sir Henry Clinton’s door he was meaning to enter.”</p> - -<p>“More mysteries,” she complained, though not so -impatiently now, I fancied. “What would have happened -if he had gone to see Sir Henry?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>“An almost certain chance that the Gallows Hill -squad last night would have been increased by two -more unfortunates.”</p> - -<p>“How terrible!” she murmured. “Is it possible -that you live from day to day in the midst of such -frightful perils, Dick? These two endangered men—are -they friends of yours?”</p> - -<p>I grinned. “One of them I may call my friend: -the other—well, there are those who will tell you that -the other has always been Dick Page’s own dearest -enemy.”</p> - -<p>Her keen wit pounced instantly upon the truth before -I could bite my tongue for its foolish rashness.</p> - -<p>“Yourself? Oh, Dick! what is this wretched web -you have become entangled in? Tell me—tell me!”</p> - -<p>“I can not,” I said, realizing too late that I had -brought all this upon myself.</p> - -<p>“You mean you will not: then you do not love me, -Dick Page!”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it is because I love you too well, sweetheart. -Can’t you believe that?”</p> - -<p>“No, I can not. Where there is love, there is -confidence and trust. You don’t trust me!”</p> - -<p>“I do trust you. But this you are asking me to tell -you is not my own secret and, besides, it would only -add to your burdens without lightening mine; indeed, -it would make mine immeasurably heavier—too heavy -to be borne, I fear.”</p> - -<p>She sat down and began to look into the heart of -the crackling fire on the hearth, as she had done that -other night.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>“How little you know of women, Dick,” she said -musingly. “You ask my love, and yet you deny that -love its first privilege—the right to share your dangers -and perplexities. More, you would even lie to it—by -implication. But you have not succeeded wholly in -doing that. Some things I have found out for myself, -and one of them is—that you are not the traitor you -seem to be, Richard.”</p> - -<p>“Hush—for heaven’s sake!” I interposed. “One -whisper of that overheard in this house where Margaret -Shippen is a guest—”</p> - -<p>“Poor, dear Margaret!” she said, and now she was -all sympathy and pity. “I doubt if even she would betray -you, Dick; and all the others in this house are -secretly our friends. But what could have tempted -you, a Page and an officer, to become a—a spy?”</p> - -<p>“That is what I can not—dare not—tell you, -Beatrix,” I protested. “And that is not for my sake, -but for your own. Won’t you believe me, heart of mine?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll never believe you love me as you say you -do until you are willing to let me share your hazard, -whatever it is,” she retorted.</p> - -<p>“You would not be sharing the hazard; you would -merely be miserable, Beatrix dear.”</p> - -<p>“Then I claim the privilege of being miserable for -your sake, Dick: please!” and her arms went out to -me in a pleading gesture that no lover could withstand—for -long.</p> - -<p>It was Cousin Julianna who saved me. There was -a light tap at the door, and she entered in a fluster of -alarm.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>“A lot of redcoat soldiers have just come into the -yard and are surrounding the house!” she announced. -“Is this some of your doing, Dickie Page?”</p> - -<p>I told her it was not, but I did not add that it -would probably prove my eternal undoing. I could -think of but one explanation: by some means Castner -had prevailed upon Sir Henry Clinton to reestablish -the order for my arrest, and the lieutenant had traced -me hither. But I had no intention of letting the two -women know what was awaiting me.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go out and see what is preparing to happen,” -I offered lightly. “So much my red coat may do for -you, Cousin Ju.”</p> - -<p>But now Beatrix sprang up and threw her arms -around my neck and clung to me, protesting that I -should not go—that I must not go; and I do think our -good cousin was more deeply scandalized than I ever -saw her. The little hubbub gave me a chance to whisper -in my loved one’s ear: “You must let me go, -Beatrix; it may be nothing. And if they have come -for me, I could not escape. Be brave, dear, for my -sake—and for the honor of the Leighs!”</p> - -<p>She loosed me, and though Mistress Pettus was -looking on, I took the sweet face between my hands -and kissed the trembling lips. Then I went out -quickly to live or die, as it might befall, caring little, -just at that moment, for the worst that any one could -do to me.</p> - -<p>It was a false alarm, as I was able to assure the -two women after I had spoken to the sergeant in -charge of the detail. Properly counted, Cousin Julianna’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> -“lot of redcoat soldiers” dwindled to a half-dozen -men, sent out by Arnold to guard the house where his -wife lay—this in view of the disturbing rumors which -might reach her ears. It was to advise her of this -that he had sent the letter by my hands, as Margaret -Shippen, herself, came down to tell us.</p> - -<p>I take no shame for saying that I made haste to -leave when Mistress Arnold came upon the scene; and -as it was, her sweet patient face, as reproachful to me -as an accusing angel’s, went all the way with me in the -storm-breasting return to the lower part of the town, -with the wind howling overhead and a sleety rain driving -in level stinging volleys.</p> - -<p>Champe was alone in the lower hall when I gave -the password to the sentry at the door and entered.</p> - -<p>“It is a bad night?” he said, most grimly.</p> - -<p>“It is,” I admitted, struggling out of my dripping -watchcoat.</p> - -<p>“There will be shipping lost, think you?” he -queried meaningly.</p> - -<p>“No small craft will venture out,” I returned, -matching his hyperbole. “Anything sitting less deeply -than a fifty-four would founder in the launching.”</p> - -<p>“I thought so,” he said gloomily; and after that -we sat in silence before the fire, listening to the wind -yelling in the huge chimney.</p> - -<p>It was still early in the evening when Arnold came -down to us, treading the stair so lightly that his appearance -was all but a surprise. His brow was clouded, -but there was a dull glow in the depths of his eyes to -tell of the passions slumbering in his heart.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>“A word with you privately, Captain Page,” he -said, drawing me aside. “Make your dispositions for -the night so that the house will seem unguarded. If -our intruders return, I would wish them to find the -way to my bedside unhindered—but with two good -men close behind them and ready to act at the critical -moment. You understand me?”</p> - -<p>I bowed. “You think there will be another attempt -made—to-night? And if so, you desire to have the -kidnappers taken in the very act?”</p> - -<p>“There will be another attempt, Captain; of that -I am sure,” he answered. “I told you this morning -that Lieutenant Castner was missing—absent without -leave. He is still unheard of. When he returns, I -wish to see him a prisoner in your hands, Mr. Page.”</p> - -<p>With that, he left us and went up-stairs; and when -I looked at Champe, the sergeant was scowling fiercely -at our handful of fire.</p> - -<p>“You heard him?” I asked, when Arnold’s door -had closed; and Champe nodded.</p> - -<p>“We are more likely to be Castner’s prisoners, than -he ours, don’t you think, Captain Dick?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Much more likely,” I admitted; adding: “I don’t -like this mysterious disappearance of Mr. Charles -Castner just at this time.”</p> - -<p>“What does it argue, think you?”</p> - -<p>“Trouble for us. He was not able to get James -Askew’s story fully believed, though he believes it -himself. If you were Castner, what would you do -under the circumstances, Sergeant Champe?”</p> - -<p>“Get the proof, if it were to be had,” said Champe.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>“Exactly. And that is probably what Castner is -trying to do. It has become a point of honor with -him. If he can find any one who will vouch for the -spy’s story, or for some part of it, or for the spy, himself—”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said the sergeant, rising and reaching for -his sword-belt. “Which means that the present moment -is ours—and it is all we are sure of. With your -good leave, Captain Dick, I’ll go down and have a look -at the river.”</p> - -<p>He was back in a short while, shaking his head and -slinging the water from his hat.</p> - -<p>“No boat as small as ours would live a minute in -it,” he said briefly; and so, with hope lying dead again, -we sat down to wait for morning; for the breaking of -another day and the probable return of Lieutenant -Castner.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIX<br> - -<small>MINE HONOR’S HONOR</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE rain had abated by morning, but the wind -was still blowing rather more than half a gale out -of the southeast when the watery sun rose over the -housetops.</p> - -<p>With the reporting of the first orderly for the day, -a young man from Clinton’s staff-family whom I had -not seen before, I went out, ostensibly for a breath of -fresh air, but really for news—news of Castner. The -tap-room of the tavern offered the most promising -source, and thither I went to hobnob with the barman.</p> - -<p>There was no news—which was good news. Castner -had not been in his room or at the inn since his -morning meal there of the day before the yesterday; -though the barman had seen him later that same day, -crossing the green in company with a smallish man in -citizen’s clothes. Pressed more closely, my tap-turner -was sure he had seen the smallish man in gray at some -other time; and after more brain cudgellings: “Sure, -then! ’twould be the same man you’d be taking up to -your room, either befoor or afther—I’d not be remimbering -which.”</p> - -<p>This was explicit, as far as it went, though it was -anything but reassuring. I had known Castner but a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -little while, yet one of his characteristics, patient pertinacity, -was written out large in his sturdy jaw and -steadfast gray eyes for the merest passer-by to read. -I thought he would hang on to whatever clue he had -found, and pull and tug at it until he had drawn it out -to some workable length. And, according to the barman’s -story, the clue—James Askew by name—was -fairly in his hands.</p> - -<p>One other bit of news the barman gave me that -was also disconcerting. The night gale, which had -blown too hard for our enterprise, Champe’s and mine, -had blown the war-ships back to New York from -whatever port they had been calling at; and now, my -news-vendor told me, the sailing of the fleet waited -only on a favorable shift of the wind.</p> - -<p>“Two chances against us—Castner and the fleet-sailing,” -I said to myself, faring back to my prison cell -in Arnold’s house, and breakfast, “both of them -more than likely to ripen before we see another night. -Truly, the devil fights for his own!”</p> - -<p>It was Arnold himself who gave me leave to go out -again after the morning meal had been despatched, -coming down to us in one of his kindly moods, and -saying that we need not confine ourselves so closely -to the house during the day. I hated him most cordially -when he gave himself the air of a simple-hearted, -kindly gentleman, as he very well could. It -seemed unfair that he should so often remind me of -the thorn of reluctance that was pricking me; a hurt -that went deeper with every gentlemanly thing that he -did, and every fresh trust he reposed in me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>For, charge it to what account of self-love, or -pride, or vanity, I would in the man, he had assuredly -been indulgent to us and had unquestionably saved our -two lives; and while he was a traitor and false to his -oath and his soldier honor, a vague and disquieting -wonder was beginning to stir in me, asking if I supposed -that, with all his oath-breakings, he would consent -to do what I was doing.</p> - -<p>So, when he told me I was free to go abroad in -the town, I replied, rather churlishly, as I remember, -that I knew my duty and would try to do it; after -which I spent the better part of the day before the fire -in the orderly-room, going to the windows now and -again to see if there were any signs of Castner coming -to hang me, and behaving so sourly to Champe that the -sergeant finally took the privilege Arnold had given -us, and went out.</p> - -<p>He had been gone something over an hour when -he returned with a piece of news. Hanging about the -waterside, and keeping an eye out for anything that -might bring grist to our mill, Champe had been -accosted by a man, a stranger and a sailor, as the sergeant -described him, and a New Englander by his -speech. This man had asked for me by name, and had -pitched upon the first soldier he saw wearing the -Loyal Americans’ uniform for information of me. He -claimed to have urgent business, going so far as to say -to Champe that I would rue it smartly if I denied -him an interview.</p> - -<p>“Where did you leave him?” I asked, when the -sergeant had finished his tale.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>“In the tap-room of the tavern. And I made sure -he had no following.”</p> - -<p>“Damn his following!” I growled, well-nigh desperate -from the day-long grinding of the mill of reflection; -“I’ll fight him, or any dozen of him, at the -dropping of a handkerchief, if that is what he wants!” -And with that snappish word of thanks for Champe’s -loyal forethought, I strode off to the tavern.</p> - -<p>For once in a way, Champe’s description personal -had been accurate enough. The man who was awaiting -me was a sailor, and he hailed from Massachusetts. -What the sergeant had omitted to mention was that he -was as curst and crabbed by nature as I was at that -moment by my mood.</p> - -<p>For the first few minutes, as I recall it, we merely -bickered at each other, snarling like a fair of unfriendly -dogs. Then some shrewd, dry, verbal slap of -his jarred a laugh loose in me; after which we got on -better.</p> - -<p>“I want no truck with ye, nor with any of your -kind, Captain,” he warned me, when the ice was -broken, “but I was told to come and find ye, and so -I have. You’re from Virginia, and they tell me that -ye have no schoolmasters in those parts: would it be -too much to wonder if ye could read a smitch o’ writing?”</p> - -<p>“Give me the letter,” I said, ignoring the gibe and -knowing now that he was somebody’s messenger.</p> - -<p>The missive was from Beatrix, and it voiced—somewhat -formally, lest the letter should fall into the -wrong hands—a plaintive little call for help. It ran:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>“Dear Captain Page: We are in deep trouble, and -since none of our friends can help us, we turn to our -enemies. The bearer of this is the captain of the ship -we had chartered to take us home. He tells us now that -he is required to hold his vessel at the disposal of -Major Simcoe, of the Queen’s Rangers, for transport -service in the expedition soon to sail, and, for reasons -sufficiently known to you, we are in despair. What -do you suggest?”</p> -</div> - -<p>I turned to the crabbed mariner.</p> - -<p>“You are Captain Sprigg, of the <i>Nancy Jane</i>?” I -asked.</p> - -<p>“I’m nobody, of nothing,” he answered. Then he -began spitefully to accuse Beatrix of bad faith. “It’s an -ill thing to trust a woman: she promised me there -should be no naming of names, and—”</p> - -<p>I crossed over to where he stood and chucked him -under the chin to make him hold up his head and pay -attention.</p> - -<p>“One word derogatory to the good name, the birth, -breeding, beauty or discretion of that lady, Captain -Sprigg, and I shave off your ears, and split your nose, -and otherwise improve your personal appearance till -your own cabin-boy won’t know you. The lady wrote -no names in her letter—having given you her word -that she wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p>It seems that I had somewhat mistaken my man. -While I was bullying and staring him down, something -cold began to press against my stomach, namely, -the muzzle of a huge horse pistol that the captain had -fished out of the folds of his loose coat.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>“Keep your chin-chuckin’s for the women-folks; -they like it better,” he said, quite without heat. And -then: “I’ve done my errand; what are you going to -do?”</p> - -<p>“First tell me a few things,” I suggested, wisely -ignoring the pistol which he rather ostentatiously concealed -under the coat flap. “You know the purport of -this letter?”</p> - -<p>“Bein’ as I told her how she might fix it, I guess -maybe I do.”</p> - -<p>“You have the tobacco aboard?”</p> - -<p>“All aboard and safe under hatches.”</p> - -<p>“Where is your ship?”</p> - -<p>He waved a gnarled and tarry hand in the general -direction of the East River.</p> - -<p>“She’s hangin’ in the stream, ready to trip her -anchor.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve had orders to join the fleet in the -lower bay?”</p> - -<p>“No; I’ve had orders to hold the schooner ready to -take on twenty men of Major Simcoe’s troop.”</p> - -<p>“You have no idea when they’ll come aboard?”</p> - -<p>“No more’n a cat with six blind kittens.”</p> - -<p>“You are a good sailor and a daring one. Captain -Elijah Sprigg, and the <i>Nancy Jane</i> is not afraid of any -weather that blows; so much I know of you and your -ship. Could you get to sea in spite of the gale, the -guard ships, and the fleet, if it were needful?”</p> - -<p>“Not in daylight, with women-folks aboard. And -you wouldn’t want me to try it, neither, Captain -Page.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>“No,” I agreed thoughtfully. “A chance shot -might make me poorer than any beggar that lives, Captain -Sprigg. We must not take that risk.”</p> - -<p>“I thought ye wouldn’t want to. But if them -soldiers ever get aboard of me, Miss Leigh’s charter -goes glimmering, and so does her daddy’s tobacco, I -guess.”</p> - -<p>Again I studied the awkward situation and a possible -solution of it began to take some shape in my -mind.</p> - -<p>“You could get under way after dark and crawl out -of the harbor, do you think, Captain Sprigg?” I -asked; “even if the weather does chance to be pretty -bad?”</p> - -<p>“The weather will be no worse to-night than it is -now,” he asserted. “But the frigate has come back, -and the fleet will most likely get sailing orders. That -means that my redcoat passengers will be atop of me -sometime to-day.”</p> - -<p>At this I gave him some notion of what was in my -mind. Champe had told me that the greater part of -Major Simcoe’s command, the mounted Rangers, was -still in the barracks, Sir Henry being reluctant to part -with his best cavalry force until the last moment. -Twice within the last two days the Rangers had been -ordered out on the Tarrytown road to meet and repel -incursions from our camps on the Hudson. Possibly a -false alarm might be raised that would send them out -again; and when I got this far, Sprigg interrupted me.</p> - -<p>“You’re a man of ideas. Captain Page, I’ll say that -for ye, and a dum’ sight loyaler to your little girl than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> -ye be to the coat you’re wearin’. I’ve got a man in -my crew who lives up Tarrytown way; a good sharp -fellow without any wool in his brains. He’s just back -from home this morning, and I shouldn’t be at all -s’prised if he c’d tell some sort of a yarn about Baylor’s -Horse ’r Major Lee’s Legion a-swoopin’ down this -way. If we only had a dollar ’r so to kind o’ stimulate -his mem’ry—”</p> - -<p>I gave the captain two guineas.</p> - -<p>“Will that be enough?”</p> - -<p>“More’n enough; you make me recollect that old -sayin’ about a fool and his money, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind: this is no time for half-measures. -Get your man into action swiftly, and let him do what -he has to without reference to me. A word to some -under officer at the fort will be sufficient; it will reach -Sir Henry Clinton as fast as an orderly can run with it.”</p> - -<p>“All right; so far, so good. What next?”</p> - -<p>I thought for a moment, and then asked how many -men he mustered in his crew, and if they were dependable.</p> - -<p>“We’re full-handed; ten—countin’ the mate and the -cook—and I’ve tried ’em, every one.”</p> - -<p>“Good. They’ll fight, if they have to?”</p> - -<p>“For me and the <i>Nancy Jane</i>—yes; but in the war, -we’re neutrals, Captain Page,” he answered warily.</p> - -<p>“Like the devil you are!” I retorted, laughing at -him. And then in low tones: “You weren’t so precisely -neutral that night when you hung off and on -in the river and dropped a dinghy to ferry two men -and a prisoner across to Jersey, Captain Sprigg.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>If I had given him an inch of a dagger between the -ribs as I bent over to whisper this to him, he would -not have jumped back any more quickly.</p> - -<p>“Sufferin’ Jehoshaphat!” he ejaculated thickly. -“Who be you, anyway?”</p> - -<p>“Never mind me, Captain Elijah; we were talking -about the schooner and her crew. Good men and true, -you say: and have you any arms aboard?”</p> - -<p>He blew out his lips like a dying man gasping for -breath. “Would I be tellin’ it to a redcoat officer if I -had?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>“That is enough,” I laughed. “Now we can come -to the arrangements for the day and night. You are -footloose and can go where you please in the town. -Watch the Queen’s Rangers’ barracks, and if the men -are ordered to the northern road, do you come back -here and stand before this tavern door. I’ll see you, -and be with you promptly, to tell you what next.”</p> - -<p>I said nothing of all this to Champe when I went -back to Arnold’s house and found the sergeant dozing -before the fire in the orderly-room—which was possibly -a mistake. But Champe had not invited my confidence -in any matter remotely concerning Beatrix and -her venture, and I think I was a little afraid of his -tongue.</p> - -<p>So, while he dozed in his chair, I paced a nervous -sentry-beat between the door and the window which -commanded a view of the tavern, fearful lest the plan -of sending Major Simcoe afield would not work; fearful -also, lest Arnold might find some service for me -which would interfere with my keeping of the appointment -with Captain Sprigg.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>As it happened, however, the strain on my patience -was the only one I was called on to bear. It was exactly -four o’clock, as I noticed—having pulled my -watch out of its pocket so many times during the long -interval that it had grown bright from the handling—it -was four to the minute, I say, when I saw Sprigg -standing in front of the tavern door. There was nothing -in the way to stop me from hurrying across to him, -but I had a sudden access of caution and did not hurry.</p> - -<p>“Well?” said I, when I had lounged most leisurely -up to my sour-faced tryst-keeper, and there was a -whole world of impatience in the single word.</p> - -<p>“You’re a master hand at plotting,” he commented. -“Thing worked” (he said “wukked”) “like a -charm. Hull clamjamfrey of Simcoe’s men trotted out -on the north road ’bout half an hour ago. Now -what?”</p> - -<p>“For you, Captain Sprigg, a small thing first, and -a bigger one afterward. Have a dinghy at the foot of -Amsterdam lane by eight o’clock to-night, and make -sure of just one thing—that it waits until its passengers -come, if that shall not be until midnight. With -the ladies on board, the game is yours, to play out as -you can.”</p> - -<p>“Then I won’t have to go back and see Miss -Leigh?”</p> - -<p>“No; I’ll see her and bring her and my—the other -lady, down to the boat to-night.”</p> - -<p>“No need for you to go. I guess I c’n see to all -that,” he said slyly. Then he added: “Might get you -into trouble—with that red coat o’ yours, Captain -Page.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>I did not mean to delegate this last service I might -ever render Beatrix to him or to any one. But now, -upon second thought, his jesting after-word sank in: -it might be an added risk—not for me, as he had -hinted, but for the women. So I reluctantly changed -the order and told him to go to the Vandeventer house -to serve as an escort for the ladies, when all was ready.</p> - -<p>He promised; and when I had seen him on his way -down to the waterside, I once more returned to Arnold’s -house. For the time had now come when boldness -must take the place of caution. I dare not run the -risk of arousing the traitor’s suspicions by going clandestinely -to the house where Margaret Shippen was; -and on the other hand I could not dodge the necessity -for telling Beatrix in person that her plea had been -received and acted on, and that Sprigg would come for -her and Cousin Ju at the fortunate moment.</p> - -<p>Arnold bade me come in, when I had climbed the -stair and tapped on his door, and, as always, I found -him writing like a scrivener.</p> - -<p>“A cousin of mine is in town, and I am told she is -leaving before long, General,” I began. “Have I your -permission to go and bid her good-by?”</p> - -<p>He looked up, and so far forgot his dignity as to -make a wry face.</p> - -<p>“I have had the pleasure—in deference to your relationship, -Captain Page, I call it a pleasure—of -meeting Mistress Pettus; also of taking at her hands -the blame for your leaving of the other army. I -should think you would be glad to have a fair duty -excuse for omitting your leave-takings.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>“So I might, under other circumstances,” I began; -“but—”</p> - -<p>“But Mistress Pettus has a traveling companion, -you would say. Strange that I should overlook, even -for a fleeting moment, so charming a fact. Ah, Captain, -I can guess very well what has made you such a -willing letter carrier for me. I know of but one dear -lady who is more beautiful than Mistress Beatrix -Leigh—which you may take for high praise, since I -have been permitted to see only the scornful curve of -Mistress Leigh’s lips and an unfriendly light in her -eyes.”</p> - -<p>I can not tell how it ground me to have him talking -thus of Beatrix, in the kindly familiarity of a -friend—this man with whom, come what might, I -meant to close in a death-grapple a few hours further -on. It is said that all the world loves a lover, and -surely this applies to that part of the world which is -itself in the sweet toils. With all his hideous faults, -Arnold was still the devoted husband-lover of Margaret -Shippen; let him have the credit for that. And -since he was—but I saw that I must get away speedily.</p> - -<p>“I have your permission, then, General?” I asked; -and he gave it in a courtly bow, and turned back to his -writing.</p> - -<p>I confess I had a most evil turn when the orderly -on duty in the lower hall saluted and let me out into -the open air. From force of habit—the habit of the -hunted—I glanced up and down the street before venturing -beyond the shelter of the doorway. It was well -that I did, for just past the tavern, three men were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> -coming on abreast, two of them plainly recognizable -as Lieutenant Charles Castner and the spy, James -Askew; and the third was strangely familiar in his -gait and carriage, though for the down-drooped hat-brim -I could not see his face.</p> - -<p>My first impulse was to warn Champe; the next to -stand still and see what form the catastrophe threatened -to take. If the trio was coming on to Arnold’s -door, I would step inside, call the sergeant to his duty, -and we would die as soldiers should.</p> - -<p>But this test of last-ditch courage was not made. -At the door of the hostelry the three men turned in -and disappeared, and a few minutes later, Castner -came out alone and made straight for Sir Henry Clinton’s -quarters. That was my cue, and going to the -orderly-room, I roused Champe from his nap before -the hearth.</p> - -<p>“Castner is back,” I said hastily. “He came down -the street just now with Askew and another man, left -his companions at the tavern, and has gone alone to -Sir Henry Clinton’s house.”</p> - -<p>The sergeant yawned and felt tenderly of his -throat, a gesture that was growing into a habit with -him.</p> - -<p>“Orders, Captain Dick,” he said, parrot-like.</p> - -<p>“There are none. I am going into the town for an -hour or more, and you may do as you think best: stay -here and face it out when it comes, or cut and run for -it. You may have an hour’s grace, or two or three, -or no time at all.”</p> - -<p>“And you,” he said; “what will you do?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>“I shall come back here and see the grist put -through the mill, as I may be allowed to.”</p> - -<p>“Then here I stay,” he announced calmly, sitting -down; and so I left him, hoping little ever to see him -again as a free man.</p> - -<p>There was no corporal’s guard waiting to seize me -at the outer door, as I more than half expected there -would be; and taking advantage of the gathering dusk, -I got away from the dangerous neighborhood as -swiftly and unobtrusively as possible, arguing that it -would take some little time for Castner to spread a net -that would reach over any very wide area of the town.</p> - -<p>Fifteen minutes later I was rattling the knocker on -Mr. Vandeventer’s door; and this time it was Beatrix -who opened to me.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she gasped; “I thought you would never -come!” And when I stepped within: “Something has -happened—your face tells me. Oh, Dick! is there—are -you in danger?”</p> - -<p>Her eager solicitude was a balm to my soul, and -just at that moment I was needing balms. But I had -no notion of adding my burdens to hers, since hers -were surely heavy enough as they lay.</p> - -<p>“There is no day or hour without its danger for a -soldier,” I told her evasively, and not to delay the chief -matter—which was the getting of her and my cousin -safely a-sea before my <i>coup de grace</i>—or Benedict -Arnold’s—should fall—I asked if we might have privacy -absolute for a few moments while I should instruct -her what she was to do.</p> - -<p>At this, she led me into the little room that I was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> -coming to know as the chamber of mingled bliss and -torment, and carefully closed the door.</p> - -<p>“Cousin Ju is sleeping,” she said. “I persuaded -her, expecting that our night’s rest would be sadly -broken. It will be, I know, Dick; I can read that in -your face, too.”</p> - -<p>I laughed, and said I must have a face like a large-print -book; whereat she came to me and took the face -in question between her soft palms, and for the moment -I forgot everything save the loving, tender eyes -that were gazing into mine, and the sweet lips with -the tiny Cupid’s-bow curve at the corners of the sensitive -mouth, and the perfect oval of their setting, and -the masses of lustrous hair to frame the oval—but this -would not do!</p> - -<p>“Yes; your rest is likely to be disturbed,” I told -her, and thereupon gave her an outline of the plan for -the evasion of the order making a potential troopship -of the <i>Nancy Jane</i>.</p> - -<p>Her eyes were shining when I explained how -Major Simcoe’s troop had been got out of the way.</p> - -<p>“How like your cool daring that was, Dick! No -one else would have thought of trying to move a whole -regiment to get a score of men delayed in their embarking,” -she commented.</p> - -<p>“I would have undertaken to move Sir Henry’s -army in the mass to serve you, dear,” I replied. Then -I rehearsed the simple details again, so there might be -no misunderstanding. “You are to make yourselves -ready and stay here quietly until Captain Sprigg comes -for you, no matter how late that may be. He will take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> -you by the quieter streets to the river, and his boat will -be in waiting. Once on board the schooner, you must -obey the captain in everything. He may have to fight -his way out of the harbor; I hope he may not, but it -is possible. If he does—”</p> - -<p>“If he does, I shall not forget that I am a Leigh, -and that my lover is the handsomest, bravest soldier -that ever drew sword,” she said, making me blush -again. Then she passed suddenly to my affair. “But -you have been talking altogether of us and our safety, -Dick, and I am much more concerned for yours. I -know now that you are a true man and no traitor, and -the knowledge makes me shiver and cringe for every -passing moment: you’ll be taken—and—I shall not be -here. Oh, Dick! when will it be over? How long -must you stay here under the shadow of that dreadful -thing on Gallows Hill?”</p> - -<p>“It will be over—to-night,” I prophesied, comforting -her as I could.</p> - -<p>“But you do not say that you will escape!” she returned, -her quick intuition penetrating behind the -masking words.</p> - -<p>“No; I can not say that, Beatrix. The thing I am -pledged to do is a most desperate thing: and the promise -of success is not great. Yet, as I say, it will be -over to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Dick,” she said, coming close again, “what is -this mission of yours that puts your life in jeopardy -every hour, that has made you lay aside your dignity -as an officer, that has been great enough to bring you -here as a deserter and to take a service, every step in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> -which must be a wretched lie? We may well be parting -for the last time in our two lives, Dick, dear: don’t -deny me this time.”</p> - -<p>If she had not said that word about the parting—a -word which was all too likely to be true—I think I -might still have withstood her. But that one word -broke down the barrier of my resolve, and so, flinging -my soldier promise to Mr. Hamilton to the winds, I -told her all, in tones that grew more and more the -tones of shame when I realized what it meant to spread -the harsh, brutal, military necessity of the kidnapping -plan upon the tables of a pure woman’s mind and -heart.</p> - -<p>She heard me through without interruption, sitting, -as she had sat that other night, gazing steadfastly -into the heart of the embers on the hearthstone. But -when I had made an end, she began to speak in a low -voice, never letting her eyes meet mine.</p> - -<p>“I do not at all understand these things, Dick: no -woman ever can, I fear. We are taught at our mother’s -knees that a lie is wrong; a thing to shudder at, -to turn away from in loathing. We are taught that -the finest things in those we love are truth and honor, -and that the finest of all is the high honor’s honor that -rises above the most binding necessity, or seeming -necessity, that can constrain us. Yet you tell me that -all this must go down at the bidding of a thing called -military duty; that one must lie, cheat, steal, swear -false oaths—”</p> - -<p>“No,” I interposed. “By some curious oversight I -have not yet been required to take the oath of allegiance -to King George.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>She put the excuse aside with a little gesture of -patient weariness.</p> - -<p>“What does it matter whether or not you have -missed the chance of saying over the formal words? -By every act and word and the breath you draw, you -are protesting that you are a true man in your present -standing. The man you will strike down to-night has -had no hint of warning; miserable traitor as he is, he -still believes you are his friend—not only his captain -servant, but his friend. He trusts you with his love-letters -to his wife; he takes you fully into his confidence. -Is it not so?”</p> - -<p>“It is,” I confessed. And then I broke out passionately: -“But my word is passed; I must not give -this up, Beatrix! You must not make me give it up!”</p> - -<p>“And I shall not try, Dick, dear,” she went on in -the same low tone. “I shall merely try to fit myself -into this new, this terrible scheme of things: for I must -believe in you: I must believe that you are doing the -right and honorable thing, though every fiber of me -shudders in horror at it. Oh, Dick, dear—don’t you -see what a woman’s love must be?”</p> - -<p>God of love, but I did see! I saw that her ideal -had fallen into ruins at her feet, and that she was trying -to gather up the poor fragments, calling them precious, -still! How swift and sure her stroke had been! -How unerringly her keen unsullied sense of the higher -right and wrong had set its arrow quivering in the -very heart of the target! Yet in very shame I could -not yield without a struggle.</p> - -<p>“The man is the basest of traitors; he has put himself -beyond the pale of mercy,” I insisted.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>“I am not speaking for the man: God knows how -I detest and fear him, though, for Peggy’s sake, I have -tried to see only that humaner side of him she would -have me see. Nor do I say one word for poor heart-broken -Margaret, whom your deed will condemn to a -living death. But for yourself ... for your honor’s -honor: oh, Dick, dear; is it too late to save that?”</p> - -<p>I rose and went to stand beside her chair, knowing -now that the angel I spoke of a while back had indeed -come with the saving heavenly fire to light my poor -candle that the vindictive blast had blown out.</p> - -<p>“No, Beatrix, love; it is not too late to stop, though -it may well be too late to turn back in safety. There is -another involved in this with me: a man from Major -Lee’s Legion. He will be furious; but if I recant, he -at least, must be saved.”</p> - -<p>“For so generous a thing as that, Dick, your own -good heart will answer; you would never leave a subordinate -to pay the score, of course,” she said with the -air of one who knows full well that blood and breeding -have their responsibilities that may not be pushed -aside.</p> - -<p>From that I went a little deeper into the confessional -pool, telling her how Seytoun had harried me, -knowing that he was safe behind my promise to her, -and how, if I should be happy enough ever to return -alive to the Tappan camp, I should be branded from -end to end of it if I should still refuse to fight Seytoun -for his satisfaction.</p> - -<p>At this she wished to know particularly the cause -of quarrel and how Seytoun had offended; and when I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> -told her that, too, and how he had cast the slur not -only upon the women of my own house, but also upon -hers, she bit her lip and I saw the beautiful eyes kindle.</p> - -<p>“I would have saved his miserable life for him, -Dick, if I could. That was why I made you promise—I -knew you would remember his killing of your kinsman -and slay him without mercy if you ever got him -at your sword’s point. And now, my lover, I release -you. If he pushes this quarrel on you—”</p> - -<p>It was enough, and I took her in my arms and -kissed her, saying, because it had to be said, sooner -or later:</p> - -<p>“Good-by, dearest. The parting time has come. -In the larger matter I can’t promise; but I’ll do what -lies in me. If I am strong enough to rise to your high -plane, I’ll come to you, if I can—when I can—with -clean hands. But if I am not great enough, I shall not -ask you to marry the fragments.”</p> - -<p>“But I love the fragments,” she said simply; and -this was her word of leave-taking.</p> - -<p>Once more out in the keen cold air of the December -night and I was face to face with the moment of decision. -Love, duty, honor, and vindictive hatred of -Benedict Arnold all dragged me their several ways; -but when at last I won back unhindered to the house of -doom, and to the guard-room where John Champe was -pacing moodily back and forth before a cold hearth, -the decision was no longer trembling in the balance. -As if a veil had been swept aside I saw into what -depths vindictive rage and soldier patriotism had -plunged me. Mr. Hamilton, himself, I felt sure, would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> -be the first to call me back if he could know that I -must sink myself neck-deep in a mire of perfidy too -foul to be borne if I were to accomplish now the thing -he had sent me to do.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XX<br> - -<small>TRAITORS ALL</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT WAS still early in the evening when I reentered -the ground-floor room of Arnold’s house—the -room of the cold hearth—on my return from the soul-searching, -but most heart-warming interview with -Beatrix Leigh. Champe wheeled quickly to face me -at the door-closing, and I saw that his day-long moodiness -had vanished to give place to suppressed excitement.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he said grittingly. “I thought you’d -never come!—or that the provost-guard with the handcuffs -would get here first. Sir Judas has played fairly -into our hands at last. For a good half-hour past he -has been walking in the garden—alone!”</p> - -<p>“Ah?” said I, seeing how poignantly the matter -had climaxed in my short absence, and not seeing, in -the suddenness of it, what course I ought to steer. “So -you think our chance has come?”</p> - -<p>“Think?” he echoed; “think? Why, Captain Dick, -isn’t it the very bone and marrow of the thing we’ve -been praying for? We’ve but to go quietly and raise -the boat from the river-bottom where we sank it, to -make all ready, nab him, and away up-river in the -darkness. The very night belongs to us—black dark,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> -and with the wind quartering right to blow us where -we wish to go. Come; we are wasting the precious -minutes!” And while he was struggling into his -watchcoat he kept on saying over and over again: -“Good God—if he will only give us time!”</p> - -<p>He was out and away before I could say more to -him, and I followed more leisurely, turning over in my -mind a dozen expedients which might serve in the last -resort to make this climaxing broadside flash in the -pan. For now there was no more hesitation. In the -open field, or even with the poor chance that the -hunted fox has, after he has heard the dogs baying at -his heels, I would have flung myself upon the traitor -to take him, or let him kill me as I tried. But to win -his confidence, as I had, and then to steal up and -garrote him like a wretched footpad was no longer -among the possibilities for an officer and a gentleman—and -a Virginian.</p> - -<p>None the less, there was a thing to be done, and -done quickly. Champe had no such scruples as these I -had so lately admitted, and I must swiftly invent a way -to stop him from putting his neck solus, as you might -say, into the hangman’s halter. For I made no doubt -that, lacking my help or countenance at the pinch, my -dour-faced sergeant would thrust me aside, with a -saber slash if no other means offered, and fling himself -madly into the kidnapping breach single-handed -and alone.</p> - -<p>You are to figure these reflections flashing themselves -upon the mental mirror as I stepped from the -fireless guard-room into the broad entrance hall which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> -was used as a lounging place indifferently by Arnold’s -aides or Sir Henry Clinton’s. When I passed through -there were three young fellows with their feet to the -fire; young Hetheridge, Ensign Brewster, and an aide -of General Phillips’ whose name I had heard but had -promptly forgotten.</p> - -<p>“Good evening to you, Captain Page,” said Hetheridge; -“are you off after your black-faced sergeant? -What ails the beggar that half the time he forgets to -salute his betters in passing?”</p> - -<p>I was about to make some indifferent rejoinder -and go on to the door when the thought struck me that -here was a chance to drive a small nail for Champe -against the day of need.</p> - -<p>“The sergeant is a law to himself, like one of the -old Cromwell Ironsides,” I replied lightly. “He should -have been born in the other century, when we should -have seen him going about with a Bible in one hand -and a two-edged slaughter sword in the other. I advise -you young gentlemen to walk straight: otherwise -he’ll be denouncing you as traitors, some fine day -when you least suspect it.”</p> - -<p>Brewster laughed.</p> - -<p>“He looks like a man who would denounce his own -blood brother if the occasion should arise. For the -last half-hour he has been raging up and down in that -cold guard-room muttering and cursing to himself like -a madman, and I dare swear I heard your name -mingled in his maledictions, Captain Page.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t doubt it,” I agreed readily. “The sergeant -has had a suspicious eye on me for some little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> -time past. He is a grim devil of a fellow, I promise -you, and no man’s good company. I begged the general’s -permission to keep him by me as a soldier-servant, -but lord! he’d sour the milk before the milkmaid -could get it strained into her crocks.”</p> - -<p>“Being such a devil, I wonder he didn’t stay with -the other devils—saving your presence, Captain,—on -the far side of the Neutral Ground,” young Hetheridge -put in.</p> - -<p>Now all this talk was a cruel wasting of most critical -time, but I paused to drive the saving nail yet a -little farther into the wood.</p> - -<p>“Champe may be like some others of that devilish -rank and file you speak of, Mr. Hetheridge; one who -has been constrained against his will to go barefoot -and empty-bellied in a cause that meant nothing to -him. At any rate, you can find no fault with his present -loyalty. You may believe it or not, as you please, -but when he first saw me here in New York he took -me for a spy, broke into my room at the tavern and all -but had me choked to death before I could get the better -of him.”</p> - -<p>There was a laugh at this, and then the young fellow -whose name I could not remember, said: “I wish -you joy of such a soldier-servant as that; I do, indeed.” -And, as I laid a hand on the door-latch; -“Drink an extra posset for me, while you’re about it, -Captain Page, if that’s what you are going after. My -throat is as dry as a desert.”</p> - -<p>It was well that they should think I was on my way -to the tavern, and I vanished while the notion lay uppermost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> -in their minds. Champe was waiting for me -at the corner of the house, and he was fairly shaking -with fierce impatience.</p> - -<p>His greeting of me took the form of a raging oath -directed at my time-killing with the young fellows at -the house fire; and then: “While you were dallying I -got a glimpse of him—he’s there yet, tramping up and -down the walk. Hell and furies—if he’ll only give us -time—time!” And again, before I could have any -speech with him, he was dragging me by a roundabout -way to come at the back of the garden enclosure and -to the place where our sunken boat was lying.</p> - -<p>While we were waiting for our chance to dodge -the pacing sentry on the river bank, speech was still -impossible, but in the interval I began to get some -glimmerings of a plan which would solve the wretched -tangle, and at the same time give Champe his leave to -escape.</p> - -<p>We both saw Arnold through the gap in the fence, -which was still open. Once he extended his walk on -the garden path to come and stand almost within -touching distance of us as we lay crouching in the -shadows. He seemed to be staring out over the river -which the gale was lashing into yeasty foam-crests. I -marveled at his indifference to danger, the more since -he had not seemed at all indifferent hitherto. And -now he had more cause to fear, knowing by the broken -lock and the muddy foot- and finger-marks that at -least one desperate attempt had been made to abduct -him. But, as I have said before, cowardice in any real -pinch of danger was not among his many faults.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>Nothing would have been easier than for us to -seize and bind and gag him there and then, leaving -him so fettered and silenced to wait on the issues of -our boat recovery. Champe was hot for doing this, and -I had much ado to hold him back. When we had our -opportunity to pass the sentry, Arnold had gone back -to his tramping of the garden path and I felt that the -worst of the crisis was now safely passed.</p> - -<p>Reaching the water’s edge we groped for our -mooring rock and found the boat’s painter fastened as -we had left it. In the task of raising the boat, Champe -worked like a demon, wading in the icy water to tug -and haul, and when the little craft finally showed her -nose, plunging his arms shoulder deep to remove the -weighting stones. Since the pacing sentinel passed -and repassed on the bank above us every five minutes -or so, silence and caution were prime necessities; and -again and again I had to warn my companion on the -score of his reckless and frantic haste.</p> - -<p>So working and halting, the task was accomplished -at last; and when the final stone was removed and we -had rocked and rolled the boat gently on the beach to -free it of some of the water, Champe got in to bail -while I held the gunwale and kept an ear alert for the -sentry’s comings and goings.</p> - -<p>“All ready, Captain Dick,” muttered the frenzied -one when he had finished the bailing and had carefully -pulled the oars from their anchorings under the -thwarts. “Make fast, and hold her so until I get out.”</p> - -<p>The time was come for striking the deadly blow, -and it fell upon poor Champe without warning.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>“Stay where you are, Sergeant,” I commanded in -low tones. “The game is up, and we shall not do this -thing which we set out to do. Take the oars and let -the tide and your two arms get you safely back to -Major Lee’s camp at Tappan while you have the -chance.”</p> - -<p>I could not see his face in the darkness, but my -imagination could very well picture the fierce rage -which was distorting it.</p> - -<p>“What’s that you say?” he choked. “You are giving -it up?—now, when the devil himself couldn’t balk -us? In God’s name, what do you mean, Captain Dick?”—this -last in an agonized whisper.</p> - -<p>“I mean precisely what I say; you can not take him -alone, and I shall not help you.”</p> - -<p>“You are turning your back upon it, and you are -staying here?” he muttered, as one half dazed. Then -he came suddenly alive to the full meaning of my -words: “You are a foul traitor, Captain Richard Page! -Curse you, curse you, curse you!—that Judas and the -women have won you over! I’ll see you hanged for -this, if so be I have to hang with you! Out of my -way, or I’ll kill you where you stand!”</p> - -<p>He had started up, and was clambering over the -thwarts to get at me, when I stooped and gave the boat -a mighty shove out into the stream. The sudden lurch -made him lose his balance and come down with a noisy -crash among the unshipped oars. As quick as thought, -the sentry on the bank above cried out his challenge -of “Halt! Who goes there?” but Champe, furious as -he was, was yet wary enough to lie still, letting the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> -wind and tide carry him on. The sentry did not climb -down the bank to investigate, as I made sure he -would; and better still, he did not fire his piece to give -the alarm. I thought surely that Arnold must have -heard his shout, in which case my capture would be -certain.</p> - -<p>That the shouted challenge had been heard, I had -proof presently in a wind-blown muttering of voices -at the top of the bank overhead. I figured that the -sentry had stopped to speak to Arnold, but I could -make no move to escape. Champe’s boat had disappeared -in the darkness, but I could not tell whether it -had gone up or down the river or was drifting with -wind and tide out toward the Jersey shore. It was -enough that it had gone, as I fondly hoped, beyond the -possibility of a return. Champe, I fancied, would -come to his senses shortly and make his way to safety. -Surely he would know that it would be nothing short -of suicide for him to land again within the enemy’s -lines.</p> - -<p>When all was quiet again on the bank above I still -had to wait some little time before venturing to cross -the sentry’s path on my retreat. There was good hope -in the interval since I neither heard nor saw more of -the sergeant and was thus convinced that he was making -the best of his way out of the peril. More than -once, however, while I waited, I could distinguish the -sound of Arnold’s footsteps on the gravel walk in the -garden, so I knew that the traitor had not been frightened -away by whatever talk he had had with the bank-pacing -sentry.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>Since boldness is often the truest kind of caution, it -was in my mind that I should snatch my chance to pass -the sentry and so slip through the gap in the fence to -join Arnold in the garden, trusting to my wit to frame -a plausible excuse for the intrusion. Though for -honor’s sake I had turned my back on the purpose of -betraying our chief deserter, I meant to delay my own -escape long enough to make sure that Champe was -safely out of the way. Try as I might, I could not rid -myself of the fear that he might yet be retaken, and in -that case he would sorely need a friend at court to -save him from the rope. You will say that I might -have cut this knot by going with him in the boat, but I -confess frankly that I had no stomach for such an -enterprise. Indeed, as matters stood at our parting, it -was plainly evident that I should have had to kill him -or let him kill me to patch up a peace between us.</p> - -<p>It was with a mind strangely confused by the sudden -turn which I had forced our fortunes to take that -I climbed the bank and dodged the sentry and made -my way by the roundabout route Champe and I had -taken, back to the street. I went this way, not because -I was afraid to carry out that purpose of going -through the garden, but because, in passing the gap in -the fence, I found the garden walk untenanted, and a -light showing in the upper windows of the house to -tell me that Arnold had gone back to his office workroom.</p> - -<p>With my feet pressing the familiar pavements in -front of the house, it came to me suddenly and with a -curious little shock that I had lighted upon an entirely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> -new world; a world in which I was at the same moment -a man of rejuvenated honor and a hunted fugitive. -I say it without shame that for the moment my -eyes were dimmed and a rush of emotions too varied -to be analyzed came swiftly over me. It is no light -thing to fling one’s self, heart and soul, into the accomplishment -of a certain purpose and then to turn short -and take the path of renunciation at the very climax -of success.</p> - -<p>Yet I felt strangely light-hearted, and as if a huge -burden had been lifted from my shoulders. Now that -all was over, I could realize very clearly that neither -General Washington nor Mr. Hamilton could possibly -have foreseen any such wading in the pool of duplicity -for me as that into which my emprise had pushed me. -Also, I understood that when they should be made -aware of all the circumstances they would be the first -to approve this final step of withdrawal which, lacking -Beatrix Leigh’s gentle promptings, I might never have -taken.</p> - -<p>So my conscience was clear at last and yet all this -had little bearing upon things present and pressing. -When all was said, I was to the full as likely to pay -the spy’s penalty now as I should have been had I been -taken red-handed in the very act of abducting Arnold. -The facts of my mission were all known to Castner, -and it was upon these facts, and not upon the accomplishment, -that I should be tried and condemned. Why -Castner had waited so long before springing his trap -I could not guess. Now that he was back from wherever -he had been and with the spy Askew safely in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> -tow, a word to Sir Henry Clinton and another to Arnold -were all that were needed. And, surely, Castner -had had time to preach an entire sermon to either or -both of them since I had seen him passing the tavern -with his two companions.</p> - -<p>I had a part answer to this puzzling question of -the reason for Castner’s delay when, while I was as yet -hanging upon my heel and not knowing which way -to turn, I saw an officer with the shoulder-straps of a -general descending Sir Henry Clinton’s steps; a man -walking slowly and with his head bowed and his hands -tightly locked behind him. The man was Benedict -Arnold; and they had just been giving him the undeniable -proof of my treachery. I knew it as well as if I -had been an eavesdropper at the conference behind Sir -Henry Clinton’s closed door.</p> - -<p>Now you may scoff, if you will, but this discovery, -the clinching of the nail, as you may say, hurt me unspeakably -for the moment. Deny it as we may, we do -all live more or less upon the good opinions of our fellow -creatures; and surely I had painted myself as a -villain of the deepest dye for this man who was coming -on with his head bowed and carrying in his heart a -bitter disappointment to go with him back to his quarters -in the adjoining house.</p> - -<p>I turned away, immeasurably saddened in spite of -the strange and most welcome heart-lightening; and I -do think I would have given much at that moment to -be able to tell Arnold that I had spared him at the final -crisis. He would never know, and perhaps that was -best; yet I thought it was a needless twist of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> -thumb-screws of fate both for him and for me that he -could not know.</p> - -<p>But there was no time for repining. I had no -thought of taking the first step in an effort to secure -my own safety until after I should have made sure of -Beatrix’s embarkation and departure; indeed, it was -this, as much as anything else, that had made me miss -the chance of fighting it out with the saturnine sergeant -in the boat. By every lover’s obligation it was -my first duty to see Beatrix and my Cousin Ju on -board the <i>Nancy Jane</i>, with the staunch little schooner -plunging on its way down the bay; and after that I -could make my flight—if Champe should not have -turned up again to need a friend, and if all the avenues -should not be closed to me.</p> - -<p>But the more I thought of the seaward venture for -the two women the less I liked it. It was a rough -night, with the wind in the wrong quarter and the -lower bay still cluttered with the waiting ships of Arnold’s -expeditionary fleet. Again, Sprigg’s vessel -might be detained; at any hour it might be boarded by -the harbor patrols, and its contraband lading—the recovered -tobacco—turned up to the light. In that case -I knew that the military authority which had winked -at the ransoming of the tobacco cargo could not, and -would not, openly intervene.</p> - -<p>Worse than all, Major Simcoe’s troop might return -from its wild-goose chase on the Tarrytown road -in time to claim passage rights for its twenty-man -quota on the <i>Nancy Jane</i>. Perhaps the Rangers had -returned already!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>With that threatening possibility in mind I resolved -to go at once to the barracks on a spying reconnaissance, -and if I should find that Simcoe’s troop had -returned, to press quickly on to the Vandeventer house -to hasten the embarkation. But first I yielded to a -madman’s prompting that had been fretting at me ever -since Champe’s boat had disappeared in the darkness -and I had realized that I was once more a free man. -It was no less than a foolish notion that I should like -to show myself to Beatrix at the parting moment in -my true colors—the same patriot homespun I had -worn when she had given me God-speed at the door of -her father’s house in Virginia, and which I had exchanged -so unwillingly for these cursed facings of -Arnold’s Loyal Americans.</p> - -<p>Now that I had cut loose once and for all from the -tanglings of chicanery and deceit, this uniform of Arnold’s -Legion was hateful—doubly hateful. To every -eye that saw me in it, it told an added lie; and I was -sick and nauseated with lying. Could I not slip into -the tavern and find my portmanteau and make the -change?</p> - -<p>It seemed feasible enough; and a stealthy peering -through the windows of the lighted tap-room showed -me a measurably clear field. A Quaker in a drab long-coat -and broadbrim sat at one of the tables smoking -a thin-stemmed church-warden. Two Hessians of -Knyphausen’s were guzzling ale at another; and the -Irish barman was nodding sleeping behind his wicket.</p> - -<p>I opened the door and entered, passing quickly to -the stair and reaching it before the aproned Irishman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> -at the bar could do more than rouse himself and say, -“Och, ’tis yourself, then, is it, Captain Page?” and -straightway fall to nodding again.</p> - -<p>Coming to the barn-like room above-stairs which -had apparently lain undisturbed since Champe and I -had forsaken it to become fugitives two days before, I -found flint, steel and tinder box, and a candle-end to -flare gustily in the cold drafts of the place while I -made the swift change from red and green to homespun -blue. Flinging the badges of disgrace into the -corner, I replaced the Scots’ rapier in its belt, thinking -that I must, after all, be beholden to King George for -this much of my equipment. For Champe still had my -horse-saber, and I would not go on Beatrix’s business -weaponless.</p> - -<p>Being now ready to run the gauntlet of the tap-room -again I sallied out and groped my way to the -stair-head. A hubbub of voices was rising from the -room below and when I had stepped cautiously down -to the landing turn I saw that my fate had already outrun -me. In the few minutes which had elapsed since -my passing through it, the tap-room had filled with -soldiers and a crowding throng of riff-raff from the -street; and by the light of the bar candles I saw Castner. -He was questioning the Irish barman sharply -and the good pot-filler was trying his best to shield me.</p> - -<p>“Arrah, now, Liftenant, dear! is it Captain Page -you’d be asking for? Shure I haven’t seen the smilin’ -face av him these four hours. Would he be comin’ -here widout me knowin’ ut?”</p> - -<p>At this point there was a stir in the crowd and a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> -tail man, soaked and dripping, pushed his way rudely -up to Castner’s elbow. I looked and looked again, and -gasped. By all the lunatics that ever filled a Bedlam, -it was John Champe!</p> - -<p>“Don’t believe that lying Irishman, Lieutenant -Castner!” he cried out hoarsely. “I tell you I saw him -enter here—no longer ago than the time it took me to -run and fetch you, sir!”</p> - -<p>I saw Castner’s involuntary shrinking from the -man who was thus betraying one who at least held the -claim of being a fellow-countryman, a fellow-soldier, -and a fellow-deserter. I confess that, at first, it seemed -blankly incredible to me that Champe should be doing -this. If the spy Askew’s story was to be taken as a -whole, the sergeant from Major Lee’s Legion was involved -no less deeply than the captain from Baylor’s -Horse. But there was no mistaking his intention. -There were black circles around his eyes and he was so -drunk with passion that he could scarcely stand without -leaning against the barman’s wicket.</p> - -<p>My first impulse was to steal back up the stair to -try a drop from one of the windows. But when I -would have translated the impulse into action, another -man, a small rattish man in gray clothes and with a -great bunch of seals dangling at his watch-fob, thrust -himself forward out of the mob of onlookers and I -heard his whispered word to Castner.</p> - -<p>“On the stair landing, Lieutenant. Look for yourself, -and let the Irishman spare his lying evasions!”</p> - -<p>Castner looked as directed, bowing gravely when -he saw me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>“Come down, Captain Page, and surrender your -sword,” he commanded, soberly stern; and the brabble -of voices ceased and a sudden hush fell on the room. -Also, I noticed when Castner spoke and all eyes were -turned to my landing, Champe drew back behind the -more forward ones in the crowd and I saw him no more.</p> - -<p>Now that the suspense was ended and open war -was declared, I felt better and could even lean over the -stair-rail and laugh down upon these king’s bush-beaters.</p> - -<p>“You want my sword, Lieutenant?” I retorted. -“I’ll give it to you, or to any man whose need is -greater than my own—always provided that you or he -will take it point foremost.”</p> - -<p>“I make the demand in the king’s name,” said -Castner, refusing to be either joked or jarred out of -his even-toned soberness. And then he added, out of -the heart of friendliness, I do think: “I wouldn’t make -it harder for you than I must, Captain Page. You -should see that resistance is madness.”</p> - -<p>“I see that you may order your men to train their -muskets on me and bring me down bird-wise, Mr. -Castner. I do assure you it will be far more merciful -than those other designs you have on me.”</p> - -<p>He took me at my word with a soldierly disregard -for further parleyings. In a trice he had cleared the -space to the stair-foot, and had given the order to five -of his musketeers. When their pieces were leveled he -gave me one more chance.</p> - -<p>“Once more, and for the last time, will you come -down and render yourself, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>“With pleasure!” I cried; and whipping the rapier -from its sheath I vaulted over the stair-rail and fell -upon him so heartily that he was driven fairly back -among his musket men before he could bare steel and -defend himself.</p> - -<p>Lord! but there was a scattering among those gaping -lookers-on! Never have I seen buyers in the eagerest -market so anxious to get to the front—only their -front was the rear. With an onset so vigorous and -unexpected, I might have cut and thrust my way to -the door, if it had not been for the cursed little gray-coated -spy, James Askew. But at the charging instant -he dodged to get behind me, and I knew better than to -leave an enemy of his temper unaccounted for in the -rear. My foining to get a side-thrust at the spy gave -Castner his chance to draw; and in another breath we -were at it, hammer and tongs, Castner striving manfully -to press me to the wall, and Dickie Page fighting -as a man fights when he knows that his hours are -strictly numbered, and who asks no more of this world -and his enemies therein than the chance to die while -his blood is leaping battle-warm.</p> - -<p>It was the cur Askew who ended it, after all, -though not as he meant to, I’ll dare swear. In our -stamping rushes and thrustings and parryings, Castner -and I had him penned in a corner, and at length, in a -wide flanconade, my sword’s point touched him on the -outward sweep to line. With a yelp like that of a -pricked dog, he darted out of his corner and made to -get away, rushing blindly into the zone of whistling -sword blades.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>It was the end of him, as well as of the sword play. -He was just in time to catch the swift following thrust -with which Castner replied to my attack, and the lieutenant’s -blade passed clean through him; through his -heart, I think, for he dropped like a stone, and gave -only a shiver before his eyes glazed and his jaw fell.</p> - -<p>This was my fair chance to kill Lieutenant Charles -Castner, of the King’s Own; but I hope we Pages are -something better than assassins, even when the blood -is hot and we are fighting for our lives. My point -went to the floor, and I stepped back to let Castner -disengage; then the musketeers flung their pieces aside -and made their smothering rush, and I was done.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant was considerably out of breath -when he pulled his sword from the spy’s body and fell -fiercely upon his men, who were mishandling me -pretty cruelly.</p> - -<p>“Your word that you will not try to escape, Captain -Page!” he panted; but I would not give it.</p> - -<p>“No; ‘safe bind, safe find,’ is your motto, my good -friend,” I said cheerfully, holding out my wrists for -the cord.</p> - -<p>It galled him to do it, but he would not fail in any -part of his duty.</p> - -<p>“I have had too much trouble in overtaking you,” -he said in extenuation, when the soldiers were tying -my hands; with all the riff-raff of idlers turned back -now to look on, gaping.</p> - -<p>“What a pity you have lost your witness,” I remarked, -indicating the dead spy.</p> - -<p>“The less valuable of my witnesses,” he corrected<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> -curtly. “Unhappily for you, there is another and -more credible one.”</p> - -<p>This remark of his set me to wondering. Then I -remembered the third man who had walked with Castner -and the spy in the afternoon—the man whose face -I could not see, but whose gait and figure had been -singularly familiar. Was this the “more credible” -witness? I should soon know.</p> - -<p>We stayed no time at all in the tavern after the -hand-tying. With a word to the inn people about the -disposition of the body of James Askew, Castner disciplined -his corporal’s guard and we took the open -air for it, pointing not for Sir Henry Clinton’s house, -as I supposed we should, but on past it toward Fort -George.</p> - -<p>Within the walls of the fort, we marched silently -to the house of the commander, a long low structure -of Dutch brick, facing the parade ground. Two rooms -of it were well lighted, and when the door was opened -and I was thrust in, I saw that the court-martial was -sitting and waiting for me, and that I was confronting -my judges.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXI<br> - -<small>THE DRUMHEAD COURT</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SOME of the British officers gathered in the fort -commandant’s room to hold the court-martial -were known to me by name, but that which gave me -the greatest shock was the sight of Major Simcoe, sitting -stern and thoughtful behind the up-ended drum. -For his presence argued the return of the Queen’s -Rangers from their wild-goose chase up the Tarrytown -road, and their return promised the collapse of -my care-taking plot to insure the escape of Beatrix and -my cousin on the <i>Nancy Jane</i>.</p> - -<p>But they gave me little time for the anxious lover-thought, -these stern gentlemen who were holding an -inquest rather than a trial. With a haughty nod, to -indicate my place in the prisoner’s dock, I suppose, -General Phillips, who sat as judge-advocate, signed to -Simcoe, and the major cleared his throat. I saw the -burly Knyphausen tilting in his chair; the two Hessian -captains sitting on either side of him; the commandant -of the fort; a major; and a lieutenant-colonel of Sir -Henry’s staff: saw, also, that neither Clinton nor Arnold -was present. And then Major Simcoe began to -recite the charges against me, Castner bending over to -untie my hands as the reading went on.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>It was evident, before the charges were half read, -that I had been tried and condemned beforehand; that -whatever I should say or do would in no wise modify -the sentence which had already been determined on. -That conviction broke the final thread of prudence in -me; and when the major came to that part of his -manuscript where it was set forth that I had entered -the British lines as a spy and an emissary of General -Washington’s, with the premeditated purpose of kidnapping -General Benedict Arnold, I laughed hardily, -and said I should like to be confronted with the proofs, -if there were any.</p> - -<p>“You shall be accommodated, Mr. Page,” returned -Simcoe gravely. And then to Castner: “Bring -in the man, James Askew, if you please, Lieutenant.”</p> - -<p>At this I laughed again, and said, most impertinently: -“Having run his sword through the body of -the said James Askew a few minutes ago, Lieutenant -Castner makes his apologies to the court, and—”</p> - -<p>“Silence, sir!” thundered Phillips, frowning me -down; and I held my peace while Castner explained, -rather shamefacedly, how the spy had come to his end.</p> - -<p>“Then we will take your testimony, Mr. Castner,” -said Simcoe; whereupon the lieutenant told in a -straightforward way how the spy Askew had first informed -him of my purpose; how, when the story, second-handed -on to Sir Henry Clinton, had resulted only -in an order for my arrest and detention, which order -had been suspended, he, Castner, had gone with Askew -to meet an officer of Major Henry Lee’s Legion—one -who knew the facts from the rebel side, and who, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> -the sake of common honor, would substantiate Askew’s -story.</p> - -<p>Much more the lieutenant said, and doubtless the -court listened to him. But I did not. My senses had -gone blank to all outward happenings at that mention -of an officer of my own fellowship who had made an -appointment with Castner and the spy to insure my -undoing. Admitting that Mr. Hamilton’s secret had -leaked out, what man in all the patriot army hated me -cordially enough to do this despicable thing? There -was but one answer to that query: I had come between -Howard Seytoun and the woman of his desire. -For no lighter cause would any man turn his back -upon his country, his honor as a soldier, his loyalty to -the brotherhood of the army.</p> - -<p>When I listened again, Major Simcoe was saying: -“Your word is sufficient, of course, Mr. Castner. But -for the sake of the formalities, a statement from this -officer you speak of would sit well on the records of -this court.”</p> - -<p>“I anticipated that,” said Castner promptly. -“Under an assurance of safe-conduct back to his own -lines, the officer has accompanied me to New York.” -Then, to one of his men: “Warnock, bring the Continental -captain in.”</p> - -<p>The man went out, and when next the door was -opened, I saw what I was fully expecting to see. Seytoun -came in, blinking at the lights, his bloated face -flushing purple, and his shifty eyes looking anywhere -save in my direction.</p> - -<p>“Will you be good enough to answer a few questions,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> -Captain Seytoun?” said Simcoe, taking a most -gentlemanly tone with this double-dyed renegade and -villain. “You have offered Lieutenant Castner a corroboration -of the charge against Captain Richard -Page; namely, the fact set forth by the man James -Askew: that Captain Page came to New York as a spy -and a kidnapper. Is this true?”</p> - -<p>“It is,” muttered my accuser in a low tone.</p> - -<p>“Upon what grounds do you assert this, Captain -Seytoun?” cut in one of Knyphausen’s aides.</p> - -<p>“It is the common talk in our camps.”</p> - -<p>“You lie, Captain Seytoun—like the father of lies -after whom you are named,” I said coolly; for now I -remembered Askew’s story of his escape from the -guard house at Tappan, and could easily add two and -two together.</p> - -<p>Simcoe would have put me down with harsh bluster; -but now Phillips, cold-eyed and haughty, intervened -suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Can you impeach the witness, Captain Page?” he -demanded.</p> - -<p>“I can. By his own confession, James Askew lay -under sentence of death in General Washington’s camp -at Tappan. He escaped by the connivance of the officer -of the guard. The bribe he offered and paid was -the sharing of a certain secret with that villain who -stands there, and the secret was this highly incredible -story upon which you have convicted me, General -Phillips. This man knows nothing but that which the -spy, Askew, told him, and for aught that can be proved -now, the story may well have been nothing more than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span> -a tissue of falsehoods, made up for the spy’s own purpose,” -I answered boldly.</p> - -<p>Seytoun might have outfaced me in this, if he had -been endowed with the right kind of brazen courage: -it was but my word against his. But his face was an -open confession of guilt, and I think they all saw it, -though, as I say, his testimony was a mere matter of -court-martial routine—my fate had been predetermined -long before.</p> - -<p>A silence fell upon the room, and it was Major -Simcoe who broke it.</p> - -<p>“Captain Page, your conviction,”—I remarked -that he used the word,—“does not turn upon these preliminaries, -which serve merely to show premeditation -and design. Whether you came as Mr. Washington’s -emissary, or upon your own initiative, matters not: the -fact remains that you not only intended to kidnap General -Arnold; you have actually made the attempt. Do -you deny that, sir?”</p> - -<p>I did not see what good could come of adding lies -to lies, at least, in my own behalf. By this time it must -be known that Champe and I were the two who had -eaten our suppers in the Dutch boat-builder’s house, -the two who had stolen the boat, and, quite as inevitably, -the two who had broken into Arnold’s house to -find the empty bed. If I hesitated, it was only because -I was striving to devise some way of saving Champe.</p> - -<p>“I do not deny it,” I said, when the pause had -grown to an impossible length.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” said the major; and the exclamation was -echoed in an audible sigh of relief on all sides. Then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span> -fixing me with a look that was not all unkindly, Simcoe -went on. “Your opportunities for carrying out -your desperate enterprise have been all that you could -ask; you have so won upon General Arnold’s confidence -that he has trusted you fully, and even now, he -yields only to the incontestable facts, and would shield -you if he could. You must have had more than one -chance of carrying out your design.”</p> - -<p>“I had,” I broke in. “No more than an hour ago, -Mr. Arnold was walking in his garden, alone. Once -he came and stood within an arm’s reach of me; and -I had a boat at the river’s edge in which to make my -escape.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he said again, and this time the exclamation -was a sharp indrawing of the breath. “You spared -him; will you tell us why, Captain Page? It can make -no difference for or against you, now.”</p> - -<p>“It is easily explained,” I said, smiling to give dissimulation -the proper mask. “There were two of us; -and at the crucial instant one of the two could not, or -rather would not, rise to his opportunity—when he -found out what that opportunity really meant.”</p> - -<p>Simcoe nodded, and I marked the swift glance of -intelligence that passed from one to another of my -judges. Once more I had been able to impose upon -them. They were saying to themselves that at the -crisis the loyal sergeant had refused to be dragged into -the kidnapping—which was as I had hoped. After -which, Phillips took me up.</p> - -<p>“Add a little more to your frankness, Mr. Page, -and earn the satisfaction that comes from doing a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> -worthy deed at the last,” he said austerely. “Do you -confess that you have made a tool of Sergeant Champe -in all this conspiracy?”</p> - -<p>“I confess it,” I said, striving to keep the keen -joy of the success of my stratagem out of the words. -“In all the twistings and turnings of the last three -days, the sergeant has been merely a well terrified -common soldier acting under compulsion coupled with -threats to have him hanged for a spy if he refused to -obey me. It was I who plotted to keep him ashore -when he came as your letter carrier, Major Simcoe; -and in all subsequent matters, he has straitly obeyed -my orders, doing what he was told to do in the fear of -death, and disobeying me only in the final critical moment -I have just been telling you about.”</p> - -<p>It was here that I was made to feel the curious -prickings that come upon getting the credit for a good -deed when the credit is not fairly earned.</p> - -<p>“You know that the sergeant denounced you, and -pointed out the place of your concealment to Lieutenant -Castner?” queried the major of Sir Henry’s staff.</p> - -<p>“I do, and I applaud his resolution, sir. That is -the kind of loyalty I should be rejoiced to discover in -my own men. He but did his duty, as he saw it.”</p> - -<p>Then this major, whose name I have never known, -rose up in his place and gripped my hand most heartily.</p> - -<p>“You are a true man and a gentleman, Captain -Richard Page, notwithstanding the fact that we shall -have to hang you presently,” he said, with bluff good nature; -and I thanked him gravely, with that curious -prickling that I speak of tingling in my finger-ends.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>After this, Major Simcoe asked if I had anything -further to say before I should be remanded under -guard, and I rose and said I had, if the gentlemen -present would bear with me. At General Phillips’s -nod, I went on.</p> - -<p>“One thing I wish to say is this: as Lieutenant -Castner has explained, the spy, James Askew, went to -his long account by an accident. But Mr. Castner’s -sword has merely saved your hangman an item in his -day’s work. I had speech with Askew two days since, -as he may or may not have confessed to Lieutenant -Castner. In the course of that interview he admitted -to me, inadvertently, that he was the man who sold -Major André to those who took him.”</p> - -<p>The effect of this little shot was quite what I had -expected. There were deep and bitter oaths of satisfaction -at Askew’s death, and more than one word of -thanks to me for setting this matter, which had been -in doubt, finally at rest. This emboldened me to go -on, for I had a boon to ask.</p> - -<p>“That is one thing, General Phillips,” I said, addressing -the highest authority I could reach. “Another -is in the nature of a condemned man’s final request. -I have an unfinished engagement with Captain -Howard Seytoun, an engagement entered into before I -left the camp at Tappan, and I pray you to grant me a -short quarter-hour with him on the fort parade or in a -guarded room, under such restrictions as you may see -fit to impose.”</p> - -<p>I don’t know what might have come of this request -if Seytoun had held his peace. The British officers of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> -Sir Henry Clinton’s military family were great sticklers -for the point of honor, notwithstanding the well-known -opposition of the knight himself to the common -practise of dueling. But Seytoun must needs -draw himself up scornfully and say that he had no -cause of quarrel sufficient to make him wish to give -satisfaction to a condemned spy.</p> - -<p>At this, I went rage-mad, of course, like a hot-headed -fool, and sprang across the intervening space -and struck him; after which I was hustled off under -guard, as I deserved to be for so greatly offending the -dignity of the court; hustled out, and across the parade -ground, and into a cold, bare barracks room, where -Castner came to find me a few minutes later.</p> - -<p>“Well?” I said, rightly guessing that he was the -bearer of news.</p> - -<p>“Your sentence has been passed, Captain Page, -and now that I know you better, I am truly sorry to be -General Phillips’s messenger. You are to be confined -in a cell under the battlements of the fort until midnight, -at which hour you will be taken to Gallows Hill -and hanged. It is a terrible short road for you, Captain, -and I begged them to make it a little longer, but—”</p> - -<p>He choked, and could say no more; and truly, I -think I may say without boasting that I was sorrier -for this clean-hearted, noble young fellow than I was -for myself, just at the moment. But that sorrow, and -my own, and all things else were quickly swept out of -my mind by a most miserable anxiety for Beatrix. -Had Simcoe’s troopers been ordered to the ships? -There was one chance in a thousand that Castner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> -might know, and I put the question to him as he was -turning me over to the fort prison guard.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, Lieutenant,” I said hurriedly; “do you -chance to know if the Queen’s Rangers have been -given their embarking orders yet? You will betray no -trust in telling a dead man.”</p> - -<p>He answered without hesitation.</p> - -<p>“They have been embarking this evening since -supper,” he said, little thinking what a stone he rolled -upon my soul in these few words. And then: “Is there -anything else, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. From what was said in the court room -yonder you doubtless gathered how much, or rather -how little, Sergeant Champe has been to blame in all -that he was made to bear a part in. Because you are a -soldier and a gentleman, Lieutenant Castner, I know -you have small respect for Benedict Arnold; but for -the same reason I am sure you will say a word to him -for this poor fellow who, after all, was your best means -of bringing me to book. Will you say that word?”</p> - -<p>But now Castner swore savagely and said he would -not—to Arnold, though if any move were made to -question Champe he would come between as he could.</p> - -<p>“That is all I ask,” I interposed. “Champe is but -an unlettered fellow, and if you were to put him upon -the rack, he would be helpless. I shall hang the easier -if you promise that he will be spared.”</p> - -<p>“Champe will be sent to the fleet to-night to rejoin -his legion: I’ll see it done, myself,” was Castner’s -promise, and that promise, which was carried out some -hours later, did, indeed save Champe from the hangman’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span> -halter, though it sent him with Arnold’s legion -to the Virginia ravaging and was, besides, the father -to all of the poor sergeant’s wanderings and perils -through the weary weeks and months which were to -intervene before he could make good his escape and -rejoin our army, a ragged, half-starved fugitive, in -far-away Georgia.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXII<br> - -<small>IN THE POWDER-ROOM</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WHEN Castner turned me over to the guard I -was taken to a high-arched, brick-walled chamber -buried in the battlements of the fort beyond the -barracks. By its location I took the cell to be the -powder-room of the old Dutch fortress antedating -Fort George by a century or more; guessing at this -because the place was too spacious to figure as a dungeon, -and much too gloomy to be put to any other use.</p> - -<p>By all the obligations of a decent upbringing at the -hands of godly parents, I suppose I should have gone -down on my two knees to spend the few hours that -were left in making my peace with God. Certain it is -that there were sins enough to be repented of, though -I hope and trust they were chiefly soldier sins, and not -the kind that make a sniveling craven of the sinner at -the last. As to this, however, these death-hour penitences -have always seemed to me to be a rather pitiful -and unworthy begging of the Great Question; and, -besides, hope dies hard in vigorous youth, especially -when it is fed by anxiety for the unknown fate of a -loved one.</p> - -<p>So, when I heard the big key grate in the lock at -the outgoing of Corporal Warnock, my jailer, I took<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> -the candle which Warnock’s, or Castner’s, kindness -allowed me, and began a searching review of my -dungeon.</p> - -<p>From the furnishings, a blanketed bunk-bed in one -corner, a small table untidy with candle drippings, and -a heavy three-legged stool, I judged that the place had -been lately used by the British occupiers as a guard-room -for the detention of petty military offenders. -Beyond this there was little to be remarked save that -the bricks in the walls were old and crumbling, that -the arch of the ceiling had fallen out in several places -to litter the earthen floor with débris, and that the door -was strong and new and solid enough to stop a battering-ram.</p> - -<p>After a careful scrutiny of the door and its massive -lock there seemed to be little left for hope to build -upon. Having been designed for a magazine, the brick-lined -cavern had no window or other outlet; as, indeed, -it could not well have, being sunk in the earthwork. -Hence, a second tour of the place, in which I made use -of the heavy little stool to sound the walls, promised -nothing, you would say. Yet to this seemingly fruitless -proceeding hope owed the fresh lease of life which -was to carry it in some fashion over the high crisis -of despair.</p> - -<p>It was in that end of the oblong cell directly opposite -the door that I came upon a section of the wall -which seemed to give back a hint of hollowness to -judicious thumpings with the stool. This set me to examining -that part of the brickwork with greater care. -In this area the bricks were newer, and by passing the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> -candle back and forth I found the reason for the fresher -brickwork. A low doorway in the original wall had -been filled up and its outlines were plainly traceable.</p> - -<p>On my knees before this bricked-up door I sought -to recall all I had ever heard of the earlier fortalice—the -old Fort Amsterdam of the Dutch. Somewhere, -in some Dutch settler’s house on the upper Hudson, I -had once seen a sketch plan of Fort Amsterdam; in -that plan there were outworks shown beyond the walls, -though they were not so extensive as those constructed -later by the British rebuilders. Had the Dutchmen -used this tunnel passage to supply their outer works -with ammunition? It seemed altogether logical and -reasonable to assume that they had.</p> - -<p>Having reasoned thus far, the next step was clearly -obvious. Beyond the bricked-up door there would be a -passage leading to what was now the southeastern -ravelin. True, the passage might have been filled up -when the doorway was stopped; but the hollow sound -given back by the newer wall encouraged the more -hopeful conclusion. Taking the existence of the passage -for granted, the next thing in order was—or -should have been—a tool to dig with. But a cat with -clipped claws could scarcely have been more helpless in -this respect than I was. The most painstaking search -of the littered floor revealed nothing in the way of a -bit of metal that would scratch the mortar of the joints -in the later masonry, much less a practicable digging -tool.</p> - -<p>I was sitting on the edge of the bunk-bed with my -chin in my hand and fairly at the end of any fruitful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> -invention, when there came muffled sounds beyond -the door to warn me of an approaching intrusion. Presently -the key squeaked in the rusty lock and the door -swung open to admit a visitor. By the light of the one -poor guttering candle on the table I did not make him -out at first, though I supposed, of course, it would be -Castner. But when I looked again I found myself -staring in astonishment into the gloomy eyes of Benedict -Arnold. I knew what he had come for, or thought -I did; and once more I strung myself up to the task of -deceiving him yet further—for John Champe’s sake.</p> - -<p>“So,” he said, and his voice was so low that it was -almost gentle; “the long road of equivocation has -found its fatal turn at the last, has it, Captain Page?”</p> - -<p>I thought he had come to gloat over me, as would -have been most natural, but never was a prefiguring -worse mistaken. Coming closer until I could almost -feel the auger-boring of the moody eyes, he went on -in the same low monotone.</p> - -<p>“You doubtless think that you, of all living men, -are the most to be pitied, Captain. You are young; -you have scarcely tasted of life; you have been permitted -to look into the eyes of love with the good hope -that in the days to come there would be happy fruition; -you have an honorable name and forebears to -whom your children might look back with honest -pride; and in a few short hours all this will be blotted -out for you forever. Tell me, sir; was it worth this -stupendous sacrifice—the bare chance of taking a -broken, disappointed fellow-man back to die this same -death which is now confronting you?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>I saw now that he was not meaning to rejoice in -my downfall, and I took time for my answer.</p> - -<p>“A good soldier should not measure the weight of -sacrifice in a question of duty.”</p> - -<p>His hands went apart in a sudden gesture of impatience.</p> - -<p>“What is duty? A man, by some blunderings of -chance or perhaps by his own crafty chicanery, becomes -your superior officer. Are you to lay aside all -your convictions of justice and mercy and common -manly honor merely because he holds up before you a -fetish of soldierly obedience? Remember, he is but a -man, as you are. Stripped of his rank and all the -artificial contrivances which have made him for the -moment figure as your superior, he becomes only a -fellow human being, standing high or low in your estimation -only as his heart is sound or depraved.”</p> - -<p>“Pardon me, Mr. Arnold,” I put in; “pardon me if -I say that you are beclouding the issue. The matter -of duty, as I have conceived it, does not rest upon the -question of obedience to a ranking superior. It has a -better foundation in the love of country. I will be -very plain with you. It seemed to me to be for the -best good of my poor distracted country that you -should be made to go back and pay the penalty for the -blow you have struck it. Acting upon that conviction, -I came here—voluntarily, you must understand, and -not upon the command of any superior whomsoever.”</p> - -<p>He took another step forward and laid a hand on -my shoulder.</p> - -<p>“You did this from your own conception of your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span> -duty, and yet when the chance came you spared me. -Captain Page. Why did you change your mind? Was -it because you found me something less than the despicable -piece of gallows-meat you had been told I -was?”</p> - -<p>I could not tell if this were merely the undying vanity -of the man fishing for compliments on the edge of -the grave, or some better prompting; but I gave him -the benefit of the doubt.</p> - -<p>“I found you as I expected to find you, a most misguided -man, as I still hold you to be; but yet a man, -and neither greatly better nor worse than others, Mr. -Arnold. The discovery that I made—or rather that -was made for me—was in myself.”</p> - -<p>“Ah? And that was—?”</p> - -<p>“It was the discovery that there are lengths to -which a man and a gentleman may not go, even to -compass the greatest apparent benefit to his fellow-men -and his country. You put it within the truth -when you say that I spared you. At this very moment, -had I willed it so, you might be lying bound and -gagged in the bottom of a rowboat and well on your -way to the camp at Tappan. I have told you the -simple truth, Mr. Arnold; I assumed the task of kidnapping -you voluntarily, and voluntarily I relinquished -it.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” he rejoined abruptly, and then he turned -from me and began to pace the floor as if in a repressed -passion. After a time he broke out bitterly.</p> - -<p>“Like others, you know nothing of the conditions. -You saw only a man turning his back upon a cause<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> -to which he had given as much or more than any, and -straightway you set him down as the basest traitor, -measuring the depth of his depravity, it may be, by -that very standard of loyal service which he himself -had set. What can you know of the slights and evasions, -the refusal to recognize just claims, the spite and -envy of those who drag others down so that they themselves -may climb the higher?” Then, stopping suddenly -to face me: “Captain Page, they even put a -cloud upon my honesty in money matters!”</p> - -<p>Now I had heard that there had been charges of -irregularity in his official reports; it was common talk -in the army, though I think none went so far as to -charge dishonesty. His repute had been that of a -high-stomached officer who could as little bear criticism -as he could a rebuff to his ambition. But I said -nothing. I could do no less than pity a man who felt -that he must come and try to justify himself to a condemned -spy whose confessed object was, or had been, -a most deadly one. But he fell to pacing again without -waiting for my reply.</p> - -<p>“You did not believe that scandal about the regimental -accounts, Captain Page?” he said, after another -pause.</p> - -<p>“No; I did not believe it, and I think there are -few in our army who do. But that is nothing, Mr. -Arnold; you are well hated for a much greater thing.”</p> - -<p>“What is done, is done,” he broke in moodily. “I -did not come here to argue with you, Captain; I came -to ask what I may do to make your fate more easily -met. Your life I can not save; that matter has gone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> -beyond me now, however much I might wish to intervene. -But any last request you may have to make—”</p> - -<p>There were two, and on one of them, the safe departure -of Beatrix, my lips were sealed. But of the -other I spoke freely.</p> - -<p>“You have not mentioned Sergeant Champe in all -this, and I would not have my sins charged to his -score,” I began: “I do not know how much or how -little you are involving him—”</p> - -<p>He interrupted with gesture expressive of complete -understanding and appreciation.</p> - -<p>“Champe is but a common soldier, and a most -fanatical patriot, like yourself, Captain Page. I have -known this last, or suspected it, from the beginning. -There will be no punishment for him greater than that -which will be the greatest for a man of his stamp—to -be obliged upon a warrant of life or death to make -good his lately sworn oath of allegiance in battle. He -rejoins the legion to-night, and when the fleet sails he -will go with it, to live or die as he fights or refuses -to fight.”</p> - -<p>I stood up, hoping he would take it as a hint that -I desired to be alone.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing more, then, I believe,” I said. -“Due report of this night’s doings will be sent to -Colonel Baylor, I trust; and I shall be glad if the -charge against me shall stand without reference to my -self-appointed errand. I ask this as much for your -sake as for my own, Mr. Arnold. Others might not -understand why I found my mission impossible at its -final turning point.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>“You mean that the report shall go out that you -were executed merely as a spy caught within the -enemy’s lines?”</p> - -<p>“That was my meaning; yes.”</p> - -<p>In a flash he held out his hand, and I forgot that -he was a traitor to the cause I loved and grasped it -heartily.</p> - -<p>“You are a man in all your inches, Captain Page,” -he declared warmly; and then: “I would to God I -could do you a real service, sir! You think there will -be only one woman to be broken-hearted, but I assure -you there will be two. I shall ill know how to face the -second one when I have to tell her that you spared me -of your own free will, and that yet you had to die!”</p> - -<p>“Let your gratitude to the other woman nerve you -to that task, Mr. Arnold,” I put in quietly. “It was -Mistress Beatrix Leigh who showed me my duty to -her—and to myself.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, these women!” he said gently. “A man never -sees himself as he ought to be until he looks into the -crystal mirror of a good woman’s soul. You are prodigiously -to be pitied, Captain Page—but not more -than you are to be envied. A little respite—time -granted you for a meeting and a parting with this -young woman who hates me well but hates dishonor -more—possibly my word to Sir Henry Clinton would -run thus far. Shall I try it, sir?”</p> - -<p>I shook my head and said, no. Apart from the -added agony of such a meeting and parting, I hoped -against hope that the good fates and Captain Elijah -Sprigg had already made it impossible by putting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> -Beatrix safely a-sea, though I feared the New Englander -might wait to get word of me first.</p> - -<p>“Then I can only bid you farewell, Captain, and -wish with all my heart that I might put a sword in -your hand and tell you to fight your way to death like -a soldier!”</p> - -<p>With that he gripped my hand again and went -quickly to the door; and I think Warnock or another -must have been waiting for him, for when I looked -again the door had opened and closed, and I was alone.</p> - -<p>Call it a weakness if you will, but after he was -gone I wasted some precious minutes sitting on the -bunk-bed with my head in my hands and my heart -mellowing in a sudden rush of meliorating softness. -It is so easy to fall into the rut of the harsh rigidities, -judging all humankind by unbending formulas of right -and wrong and making no allowances for the thousand -and one battling influences which are always dragging -the human atom hither and yon. This man whose -name had become a hissing and a reproach was neither -an angel nor a devil; he was merely a human being, -swayed now by the good and now by the evil. If he -had shown himself capable of the basest political -treachery, he here and now had also shown that he -could be magnanimous and truly generous to a fallen -enemy.</p> - -<p>It was another key-grating in the door-lock that -roused me from the softening reverie and I sprang up, -shocked for an instant by the thought that I had spent -all my little respite and that midnight was come. That -shock was followed by another when the door opened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span> -and Champe, with a face so haggard and wrought -upon that I scarcely recognized him, came stumbling -in to fall upon his knees at my feet.</p> - -<p>“Champe!” I cried, thinking nothing but that they -had sifted the truth out of him in some way, and that -he was to die with me.</p> - -<p>“Aye,” he mumbled, “I’ve come, Captain Dick. -Strangle me with your bare hands—burn my eyes out -with the candle—do what you will to me and I’ll never -cheep nor whimper nor lift a finger. They’ve told me -what you did; how you stood up and took it all upon -yourself, after I had gone crazed with rage and disappointment -and betrayed you like another Judas! Let -me hang in your place; or if I can not, I’ll hang with -you—I swear it!”</p> - -<p>“Hush!” I commanded harshly, for I could not -trust myself to speak otherwise. And then: “You -need not reproach yourself. They would have caught -me anyway before the night was over, and there is no -sense in two hanging where one will serve. But tell -me: how did you get here?”</p> - -<p>“Warnock is corporal of the guard, and one night -I saved him from being found asleep at sentry post. -He told me what you said to General Phillips; how -you—” his voice broke and again I had to be rough -with him to save my own self-possession.</p> - -<p>“Name of the devil!” I cut in snappishly. “Dry -your eyes, Sergeant, and take the crack out of your -voice. You are the man of all others who can do me -a service, and here you come to me whimpering and -crying like a whipped dog!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>“Say it, Captain Dick,” he pleaded. “Give me my -orders, and I’ll—”</p> - -<p>“—And you’ll carry them out: of course, you -will,” I finished for him. “Now listen, and I’ll tell -you what you are to do.”</p> - -<p>A plan had been shaping itself with lightning-like -swiftness in my brain since he had told me enough to -make it plain that he was still free to go and come in -the town; that he had not yet been put under guard to -be sent to the ships, as Arnold had said he would be.</p> - -<p>First I plied him with questions which he answered -with rare intelligence, giving me the exact location of -the powder-room prison cell in relation to its surroundings, -and telling me what lay beyond the fortress walls -behind it—a ravelin, a ditch, outworks, and then the -beach. Then I gave him his instructions.</p> - -<p>“You remember the sea-captain who sent you to -fetch me to the tavern?”</p> - -<p>Champe nodded.</p> - -<p>“He is with us, though he claims to be a neutral -and is allowed to go and come as a trader, under some -surveillance. His schooner lies in the East River, -ready to put to sea, if it has not already sailed. Your -task is to find the ship and the man, if they are within -finding distance. Tell the captain what has befallen -me, and you may add that I’m going to try to break -jail. If I succeed, a few stout friends, to be waiting -on the beach at the southeastern angle of the fort at -half an hour before midnight, might turn the scale for -me.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll find him if I have to go to hell to make the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> -search a thorough one. But what hope have you of -breaking out of this, Captain Dick?”</p> - -<p>I dragged him across the room and showed him -the outlined door in the earthward wall.</p> - -<p>“You are to smuggle me something to dig with,” -I told him, and instantly he searched in his pockets -and found a huge clasp-knife.</p> - -<p>“Will that do, think you?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ll make it do for the brickwork, though, the good -Lord knows, I may need a pick and shovel for anything -this bricked-up door tells me of what is beyond -it. But never mind; go you and do your part, Sergeant. -And one other thing: Captain Sprigg has -either gone to sea, or is about to go, as I have told -you, and his errand is to convey two women home to -Virginia. One of those women is my cousin, and the -other—”</p> - -<p>“The other will be somewhat more than a cousin, if -you live to get free of this: I take you, Captain.”</p> - -<p>“Good. Then you will see to it yourself that whatever -may be done toward helping me, there must be a -sufficient guard left to protect the women. That is -all, I believe, though I would give much for a weapon -of some sort bigger than this pocket-knife to even me -with those who will seek to stop me after I burrow -out.”</p> - -<p>At that Champe unbuttoned his great watchcoat and -showed me my good Scots rapier hanging by a thong -around his neck; and I could have shouted for joy.</p> - -<p>“Where did you find it?—and how could you pass -the guard with it?” I demanded.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span>“I found it in the barracks, where one of Warnock’s -men had flung it aside,” he explained. “I -thought first to bring your own horse-saber, which I -was wearing, but Warnock made me put it away before -he would let me see you. I did put it away, but I -hid this other in my coat at the same time.”</p> - -<p>With midnight coming nearer at every breath we -drew, I gave Champe his final word.</p> - -<p>“Do your errand quickly, Sergeant,” I adjured -him. “On two counts you have little time to spare: -Sprigg’s vessel, if it be not already gone, will be ready -to go at any minute; and after all you may be too late. -The other count is your own. You will be ordered to -rejoin the legion before the night is out; I have Arnold’s -own word for that.”</p> - -<p>“They’ll not take me down the bay alive before my -errand is done; I promise you that, Captain Dick.”</p> - -<p>While he was hammering at the door for Warnock -to come and let him out, I hid the rapier in the blankets -of the bed; and no sooner was the door opened for -Champe, and closed behind him with the bolt shot, -than I fell to work with the great clasp-knife, digging -as for dear life.</p> - -<p>It took no little time to loosen the first brick, toil as -I would, and when it was withdrawn, the thrust-in -candle showed nothing but a shallow, earth-smelling -burrow behind the wall, with its farther extremity -stopped up by a stout wooden boarding.</p> - -<p>This was sufficiently discouraging, since it indicated -that the old sally-port through the powder-room -to the outworks had been sealed up at both ends. How<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span> -thick the outer barrier might be, I had no means of -determining; and before I could remove any more -bricks, I heard the key rattling in the lock again, and -there was barely time to stand the clumsy little table -before the tell-tale breach beginnings, to kick the floor -rubbish over the mortar powderings that whitened it, -and to slip the clasp-knife into my pocket, when the -bolt was shot and Castner marched in.</p> - -<p>Now was the time when it took the final ounce of -fortitude in the good old Page reserves to make me -face him and say carelessly, “Is it midnight, at last, -Lieutenant? By all the hours that ever struck, I -thought it would never come!” For, truly, and for the -second time that night, I made sure that my short respite -had slipped away unheeded, and that he had come -for me.</p> - -<p>“No, Captain Page,” he rejoined soberly; “it -wants two good hours of midnight yet, and I’ve come -on a different errand. You have spoken twice in my -hearing of a postponed engagement with your—with -this Captain Seytoun who has come so far out of his -way to do you an ill turn: are you still wishing it -might be kept?”</p> - -<p>I made my laugh sound as lightly as it should have -sounded if the meeting with my cousin Devlin’s slayer -were the last unfulfilled desire of a man who was -about to die.</p> - -<p>“You saw how hard I tried to make him wish it. -My dear Castner, he is little better than a brute beast. -I doubt if the rope stout enough to drag him to a fair -field of honor has ever been twisted.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>The lieutenant’s eyes were fixed upon one of the -holes in the ceiling masonry.</p> - -<p>“It would be little loss to the reb—to the American -cause if he should never return to Tappan?” he suggested.</p> - -<p>“It would be small loss, as you say. Though you -will not look at it in that light, the man is a traitor at -heart; a man who, to satisfy a purely personal grudge, -does not scruple to betray his trust, his cause and his -commanders.”</p> - -<p>Castner looked me full in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“He hates you well, Captain Page. I had no -thought save to have James Askew’s story confirmed -by some one in authority. I was astounded when the -spy told me that, upon a few hours’ notice, an officer -of Major Lee’s Legion would meet us at a certain spot -on the Tarrytown road and confirm his information -word for word. We rode out to the Neutral Ground -to the place indicated by Askew, and there we met this -precious troop-captain. He not only did all that Askew -had promised for him; he was anxious to come -and testify in person. I had little choice but to give -him the safe-conduct necessary.”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” I hastened to say. “I’m never blaming -you, my dear Lieutenant. Don’t think it for a moment.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” he returned. “Duty is a hard schoolmaster -at times; never harder for me than in the present -instance, Captain Page. But to return to this -poltroon captain of horse; I am beginning to suspect -that he had another object in asking for his safe-conduct,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span> -eager as he is to see you effaced. He has been -making inquiries of me about a lady.”</p> - -<p>“Ah?” said I; and then: “I’ll name her for you—Mistress -Beatrix Leigh, of Virginia?”</p> - -<p>“The same. She is here on some business for her -Virginia estates—a tobacco cargo that fell into the -hands of our Philistines. Some influence has been -brought to bear upon Sir Henry Clinton to make him -wink at the blockade-running of this confiscated cargo, -provided it can be done without bringing it to public -notice. Seytoun tells me of this, lodges an information -against one Elijah Sprigg, captain of Mistress Leigh’s -ship, and urges me to lay the affair by the heels.”</p> - -<p>“You mean to do it, Lieutenant Castner?” I demanded -angrily.</p> - -<p>“Not upon that cur’s prompting, you may be sure,” -was the hearty rejoinder. “But this is all far beside -the mark. One other request Seytoun makes of me, -and that is that he be permitted to see you, alone, before -you—before your—”</p> - -<p>“Before my hanging, you would say; don’t boggle -at so harmless a little word, my good friend: I don’t. -You’ll let him come?”</p> - -<p>“That rests with you,” he announced quietly. “Do -you still wish to keep your—that broken engagement -with him?”</p> - -<p>I fear my smile at this was cynical.</p> - -<p>“You needn’t approach it so cautiously, Lieutenant. -He merely wishes to come and triumph over a fallen -enemy. I know him. I’m beginning to think there is -no fight in him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>“By heavens! I’d make him fight!” burst out my -quiet lieutenant, in a most unprecedented upflash of -rage. “See here, Captain Page; by all the gods, I’m -going to take the chance of having my commission -canceled, and send him to you! Here is my sword”—he -drew it and flung it upon the bed. “You’ll promise -me that you will not use it in a way to make me sorry -that I trusted you?”</p> - -<p>“Most willingly,” I replied, smiling at his sudden -ardor, and added: “But he won’t fight, Mr. Castner.”</p> - -<p>“Then kill him!” he snapped vindictively; and -turned to kick hotly at the door for the guard to come -and let him out.</p> - -<p>Not to lose any of the precious minutes I fell into -furious labor on the hole in the wall as soon as the -door clanged behind Castner. When at length the -aperture was large enough to let me squeeze through, -nothing was revealed save the crumbling sides of a -damp earth-tunnel, with the wooden bulkhead stopping -its farther end.</p> - -<p>I did not dare to creep into the tunnel for a better -investigation of the <i>cul de sac</i>. If Seytoun had not -changed his mind, he might be admitted at any moment, -and remembering this, I hastily replaced the -loosened bricks, and moved the table, with the candle -on it, against the wall. Happily, I had made the breach -so low that the table hid it; which was more by hit -than good wit, since I had not thought of having to -conceal it.</p> - -<p>These preparations were barely completed when -the door-bolt clicked, and my enemy was come. Between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span> -the bolt shooting and the swinging of the door, -I had time to drop down upon the edge of the bunk-bed, -and to put my face in my hands; so Seytoun -found me as I wished he should find me—in an attitude -of the deepest dejection.</p> - -<p>He took instant advantage of it, as I made sure he -would, laughing harshly and slapping his leg, and saying -it was as good as a comedy to see me sniveling like -a whipped schoolboy because, forsooth, I was going to -be choked presently with a bit of cord!</p> - -<p>At first I took no notice of him, wishing to see him -climb the ladder of triumph so high that the fall, when -it should come, would jar his teeth loose. He climbed -fast enough, in all conscience, pouring out the most -obscene imprecations upon me, telling me how he -should live to see me dancing upon nothing; how he -would marry Beatrix now in spite of hell and all the -base-born, light-mothered Pages that ever mewled in -their nurses’ arms; how, in one stroke, he would be -avenged for all that I had ever done to him.</p> - -<p>When he had run the full gamut of abuse, and was -fairly at a stand for fresh epithets, I took him up, not -angrily, for, strange as it may seem, I could not for the -life of me stir the hot rage that had twice or thrice -made me so eager to kill him.</p> - -<p>“You say I am a coward, Seytoun, and that is a -harsh word to fling at a dying man. What have I -ever done to you, more than to post you in the tidewater -country for killing my cousin Devlin Page over -a game of cards without giving the poor lad a tenth of -a chance to defend himself?” I asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>“You posted me, and you have struck me twice -without giving me a chance to kill you!” he raged. -“On top of that you have eaten insults that would have -made a horse-boy fight!”</p> - -<p>“Um,” said I. “If I have eaten at your table, I -have also made you eat at mine. And I had a much -better cause than you, Wolf Seytoun,” I added, giving -him the name he went by in Virginia. “The woman -who loves me, and who will loathe and despise you to -her dying day for this night’s work, begged me to -spare you—for the sake of our common country—and -I gave her my promise.”</p> - -<p>“By heaven!” he shouted, “you’ll taunt me with -that? I tell you, Beatrix Leigh will—”</p> - -<p>“Hold on,” I warned, raising a hand in deprecation. -“That makes twice you have used her name to -me within five minutes. Don’t do it again!”</p> - -<p>“What’s to stop me if I name her a hundred million -times?” he bellowed.</p> - -<p>“This,” I said, taking up the sword that Castner -had flung upon the bed. And still I was not angry.</p> - -<p>His first act was the craven cur’s: a swift glance -over his shoulder to see if haply the door had been -left ajar to let him run; his next was the trapped -wolf’s: a whipping-out of his saber, and a lightning-like -launching of his great body in a rush that was -meant to slay me before I could get upon my feet.</p> - -<p>The attack failed only because I was fully expecting -it; but the warding of the murderous saber cut -snapped my borrowed weapon short off at the hilt. It -was here that John Champe’s devotion surely saved my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span> -life. But for his smuggling of the Scots rapier under -his coat, I should have been left unarmed and helpless, -and Seytoun would certainly have slain me like a dog.</p> - -<p>But the rapier was at hand, and I made shift to -snatch it out of its hiding-place beneath the blankets, -to spring aside from the second saber sweep, and to -face my antagonist in some equality.</p> - -<p>Then began a battle the like of which I hope never -to have part in again. Seytoun’s face was the face of -a demoniac, and he fought with the coward’s courage, -the frenzy of a madman. For a time I could do nothing -but strive to keep out of his way, and never before -had I been made to feel the bitter inadequacy of the -lighter weapon when opposed to the heavier troop -saber. I dared not try to parry his sweeping slashes, -and my only hope lay in winding him.</p> - -<p>This result came in time, helped on by his reckless -wasting of his strength, and by the heavy coat he was -wearing. Then it was my turn, and I began to press -him slowly backward, changing my defense into an -attack, and crowding him to make good before he -should recover and catch his second wind. Round and -round the narrow cell we went, and still the heavy saber -rose and fell, and the slender rapier darted in and out, -and never a drop of blood was drawn.</p> - -<p>“End it!” I cried; “why don’t you end it, you brute -beast?”</p> - -<p>He took me at my word, or tried to. In a fierce -rush he backed me all across the room, and when he -had me in a corner, stooped, caught up the heavy stool -in his left hand and hurled it at my head. It was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> -base advantage to take of a lighter-armed antagonist, -but I forgave him. For at the instant of missile-hurling -I found my opening, and the rapier flashed in over -the momentarily neglected guard; darted in and found -its mark and pierced it.</p> - -<p>I did not thrust a second time; did not need to. -While the clock could tick twice, he stood looking at -me with a sort of shocked wonder in his bloodshot -eyes. Then he turned away slowly, and fell face -downward across the bunk-bed, and I think he never -stirred afterward.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIII<br> - -<small>OPEN FIELD AND RUNNING FLOOD</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">I  CONFESS, with some prickings of remorse, that I -did not stay to help Seytoun live or die. Fiercely -swift as the fight had been, it had cut deeply into the -little time I could count on, and no sooner was it -ended than I was down on my knees under the table, -and burrowing out through the breach in the wall.</p> - -<p>Once in the earth kennel, with the candle, and my -sword and the clasp-knife, I replaced the bricks hurriedly -in the breach and began to sound the wooden -bulkhead. To my dismay, it seemed as solid as the -earth itself, and I saw nothing for it but to try to dig -a passage around it. This might well be the work of -hours; but after the moment of despair it gave me, I -fell upon the task furiously, digging with the knife, -with my hands, and at last with the rapier, boring it -around to cut out futile little cones of the crumbling -clay.</p> - -<p>I was stabbing thus feverishly at the stubborn earth -bank, and accomplishing little, as I thought, when -sounds in the powder-room behind me made me stop -and listen. I heard the door clang back against the -wall; heard footsteps and voices, and then the shout -of surprise when they found Seytoun. I did not need<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span> -to look at my watch to see the time: it was midnight -and my gallows guard was come for me.</p> - -<p>I think it must have been my good angel whispering -at my ear—the prompting to make a last despairing -push with the thin-bladed sword in the clay at the -back of the shallow excavation. To my joy the steel -went through, and by wriggling it about I quickly had -a hole through which the keen salt air of the December -night poured to refresh me.</p> - -<p>Luckily, I was still cool enough and sane enough to -be certain that I should never have time to enlarge the -hole so that it would serve to let me out. I knew it -must be only a matter of seconds until those in the -powder-room would find the breach in the wall, and I -should be like a trapped rat. But now my brain was -working swiftly and clearly. The wooden bulkhead -stopping the passage was merely covered with a bank -of earth in the ravelin ditch to conceal it. Would my -strength suffice to overturn it?</p> - -<p>Dropping the sword, I put my shoulder to the bulkhead -and heaved. It gave—sprung outward at the -top and let a little rain of loosened dirt trickle down -upon my head. Again I heaved, lifting until the veins -in my forehead seemed about to burst; and I could -hear the men in the powder-room dragging the table -aside, and pulling the loose bricks out of the breach. -Another moment, and—</p> - -<p>But that moment was mine. With the final heave -the bulwark tilted outward and fell into the outworks -ravelin with a smothered crash, carrying me with it. -There was a shout from behind to follow me out, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span> -a sentry, pacing his beat on the breast-high banquette -beyond the ravelin, stopped, gave a great cry as if he -had seen a ghost, and let his musket off.</p> - -<p>At the musket-fire and the shouts of those who -were wriggling through the breach in the wall of the -powder-room, there was a rush of the outworks -sentinels from both directions. Seeing at once that -my only way lay straight before me, I leaped afoot, -dragged the dazed gun-firer from the banquette by his -legs, and, with another bound, went over the breast-height -and tumbled into the moat.</p> - -<p>Here the palisade, a closely set fence of upright -stakes driven into the ditch-bottom, balked me, but -only until I could spring and reach the top and clamber -up. It was here that I nearly got my quittance. If I -should drop into the V-shaped ditch beyond the palisade, -there was an even chance that I should not be -able to climb out to the top of the abattis breast beyond. -But if I could balance on the stakes for the -single instant necessary, the gulf could be leaped. I -drew myself up, balancing precariously on the stake -tops; there was a roar of musketry behind me, a sharp -twinge in my right shoulder, and I hurled myself outward -into space.</p> - -<p>I remember vaguely the fall among the sharpened -tree-branch spines of the abattis, and, more dimly still, -a frenzied effort to roll out of the tangle toward the -edge of the sea-slope. After this I knew nothing till I -came back to life at the bidding of a tossing and -wrenching that seemed to be tearing me limb from -limb.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span>The figure was no figure, as I soon discovered. I -was in the thick of a group of men who were running -swiftly along the beach, four of them carrying me. -Somewhere in the background of the night, other men -were running, and now and then muskets barked and -there came a whining of bullets overhead.</p> - -<p>While I was yet no more than half at myself, a -voice I should recognize anywhere gasped a question.</p> - -<p>“How much farther, Captain Sprigg?” the voice -said; and I reached out and laid my hand on the arm -of the big fellow running with my bearers.</p> - -<p>“Jack!” I shouted feebly.</p> - -<p>“The same, Dickie-lad,” he panted back. And -then: “Hold the life in you by main strength, Dick; -get a tail-twist on it and hang to it! Beatrix and Aunt -Ju are waiting for us in the boats!” And again to -Sprigg: “How much farther, in God’s name, Captain?”</p> - -<p>It was no farther, as it chanced. At Pettus’s eager -repetition of his anxious question, the running group -swerved sharply to the waterside, and my bearers -plunged thigh-deep into the icy water and lifted me -gently over the side of a small boat; over the side and -into the keeping of a pair of loving arms that clasped -themselves quickly about me.</p> - -<p>“Beatrix!” I cried in utter weakness; and then I -felt her tears drop like warm rain on my face, and -heard sounds as of a hand-to-hand struggle on the -beach, in the midst of which our smaller boat put off -and was pulled swiftly to the side of a schooner lying -out of musket range from the shore.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span>Here again, helping hands were ready to lift me -to the deck, where a spare sail was quickly folded to -make a bed for me under the lee of the high bulwarks, -and a ship’s lantern was brought, and loving womanly -hands, four of them now, began to search anxiously -for my wound.</p> - -<p>In the thick of it I heard the other boat come -bumping against the side of the ship, and the men, a -half-dozen or more of them, trooped aboard, bringing -a prisoner. Following quickly there was a medley of -shouted sailor orders in the harsh nasal twang of Elijah -Sprigg’s best voice; and then Jack came to kneel -beside me, beseeching Beatrix to tell him I was not -dead.</p> - -<p>The white canvas was snapping and crackling -overhead, and the <i>Nancy Jane</i> was heeling to the fair -half-gale and racing down the harbor, before they -would let me speak; and then all I could say was “Tell -me—tell me.”</p> - -<p>And they told me, Beatrix and Jack, with Cousin -Ju to stroke my forehead and to break in with tearful -self-reproachings for the tongue-lashing she had given -me in Mr. Vandeventer’s parlor: told me how Jack -had got Major Lee’s leave to follow Seytoun to the -meeting-place on the Tarrytown road with Askew and -Castner; how he had overheard enough to make him -disguise himself as a farmer, and dog the three back to -New York; how he had accidentally stumbled upon -Sprigg and the women as they were making their way -to the waterside, and so had been present when -Champe brought the news of me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span>“But—but how did you come to be so late in starting?” -I said, holding my loved one close with the arm -they had not bandaged.</p> - -<p>“It was God’s Providence, no less, in a thing we -took for the greatest disaster that could befall,” said -Beatrix gently, taking up the narrative where Jack -broke off. “Major Simcoe returned with his troop, -and the twenty men of the <i>Nancy Jane’s</i> allotment -were sent down to embark. Captain Sprigg claimed -to have only the little boat, and he fetched the troopers -aboard two or three at a time, and the sailors made -prisoners of them, putting them in the hold as fast as -they came over the side. All this took so much time -that the captain was but just bringing us to the shore -when Sergeant Champe came with your message.”</p> - -<p>“Lord, lord!” cried I, laughing weakly. “And -you’ve got twenty men of the Queen’s Rangers in the -hold?”</p> - -<p>“Twenty men <i>and</i> the tobacco,” Jack boasted; adding: -“and one other fine young fellow—an officer, -who was so forward in his pursuit of you that he got -tangled up in a hand-to-hand mellay with the long-boat’s -crew and we brought him off with us. He says -his name is Castner, and he was most anxious to inquire -about you, when I told him you were winged.”</p> - -<p>Again I laughed, as I should have laughed with my -last breath, I think.</p> - -<p>“Castner—<i>Castner</i> a prisoner? Treat him well, I -do beseech you,” I begged. “He is my friend and one -of God’s own gentlemen. But you tell me nothing of -Champe.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span>“Because there is nothing to tell,” said Pettus sorrowfully. -“He went back to the fort to try to get -word to you; to tell you that if you failed to dig out, -we meant to fall upon your gallows guard for a rescue -when they brought you out. They will hang poor -Champe, I’m thinking.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said I, “they will not hang him. But he -may wish they had before he ever hears the old troop -call again, Jack,” and I was far indeed from knowing -at the moment how true a prophecy I was making.</p> - -<p>At this Pettus stood up, and looking back over the -schooner’s foaming wake told us how they were displaying -signal lanterns on the battlements of Fort -George, and how a Bengal light was burning on a ship -near the shore to show the sailors heaving up the -anchor and making ready to chase us.</p> - -<p>“But they’ll never catch us, dear heart!” said my -loved one bravely, and again her arms went about my -neck.</p> - -<p>And so they did not; though to tell of how we ran -the gauntlet of the fleet in the lower bay, and of what -befell us and our one-and-twenty British captives on a -voyage that ended far enough from the Capes of Virginia, -would take a livelier pen than mine. For this, -as you will see, is but a tale of a few landward days, -while that other is of storm and shipwreck, of perilous -weeks and weary months, before we saw the tidewater -homeland again.</p> - -<p>So, then, with the <i>Nancy Jane</i> dancing down the -harbor with a bone in her teeth and her canvas straining -to the gale; with Cousin Ju beginning to feel the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span> -coming sickness and begging Jade to take her to the -cabin; and with my dear heart whispering to me between -her kisses to know if my shoulder pain was -more than I could bear, this pen need add no more to -a tale which, brief as its measuring was in days and -hours, has already grown over-long.</p> - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> -</div></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. 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