Castner looked me full in the eyes.
“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.”
“No, no,” I hastened to say. “I’m never blaming you, my dear Lieutenant. Don’t think it for a moment.”
“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, eager as he is to see you effaced. He has been making inquiries of me about a lady.”
“Ah?” said I; and then: “I’ll name her for you—Mistress Beatrix Leigh, of Virginia?”
“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.”
“You mean to do it, Lieutenant Castner?” I demanded angrily.
“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—”
“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?”
“That rests with you,” he announced quietly. “Do you still wish to keep your—that broken engagement with him?”