“Get the proof, if it were to be had,” said Champe.
“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—”
“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.”
He was back in a short while, shaking his head and slinging the water from his hat.
“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.
XIX
MINE HONOR’S HONOR
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.
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.
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.”
This was explicit, as far as it went, though it was anything but reassuring. I had known Castner but a 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.