The general’s aide laughed like a pleased child and bade me sit down again.
“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?”
“None whatever,” I replied. “I’m vastly fonder of action than of the whys and wherefores.”
“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.”
“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.
“As for your instructions, there can be none at all. Our information from the sergeant is most meager; and if it were not, we should not hamper you. Haste and success are your two watchwords. Have you money?”
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.
“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?”
“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.”
“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?”