Champe and I exchanged discouraged glances. That settled it for us, and when we were out of sight and hearing of the farmer we made some hurried discussion of what came next on our bill of fare.
“You must take to the road, worn out as you are, and make your way back to your regiment, Sergeant,” I said, settling Champe’s course for him as if I had been his own captain.
But now his dogged courage seemed to have oozed away. “I can never make it, Captain Dick. I’d be overhauled as soon as daylight comes, and that would mean dancing upon nothing for me. They wouldn’t even give me a soldier’s death.”
“Pshaw, man!” said I, half angrily. “Being safely out of the town and this far on the road, you have little to fear.”
But he only shook his head gloomily, and would not be persuaded, breaking in upon me, while I was trying to urge him, with a question as to my own designs.
I laughed. “I came out to snare Sir Judas,” I told him. “That, and nothing less, is what I shall do, John Champe, if I follow him to the ends of the earth.”
“You’ll be taken and hanged,” said Champe.
“Not if I can help it, you may be sure. But come; you must decide. I’m going back, and there is little enough time to do it in, the Lord knows.”
He hesitated yet another minute or two and then rose up stiffly from the log on which he had been sitting. “I’ll go back with you and see it through,” he declared moodily.
I tried once again to dissuade him, showing him how he was likely to have miseries enough as a common soldier in any regiment commanded by Arnold; showed him further how he would certainly be required to choose between death at the last and fighting against his country in very deed and fact.