I gave it.
“And your rank and standing?”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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?”
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 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.
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.
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—
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 jerk that the red-faced little officer went overboard in a clean, sharp headlong plunge.