“Say it, Captain Dick,” he pleaded. “Give me my orders, and I’ll—”
“—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.”
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.
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.
“You remember the sea-captain who sent you to fetch me to the tavern?”
Champe nodded.
“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.”
“I’ll find him if I have to go to hell to make the search a thorough one. But what hope have you of breaking out of this, Captain Dick?”
I dragged him across the room and showed him the outlined door in the earthward wall.
“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.