“Egad, Major Simcoe,” I protested, “I’m afraid you will have to hold me excused. General Arnold would not be greatly pleased to have one of his aides detailed by you to bring in your stragglers.”
At this the doughty major came close and looked me in the eyes as the poor light would let him.
“Hark you, Captain Page,” he said, speaking so those who stood about should not hear; “you seem bent on quarreling with me when there is no need for it. That is your privilege, sir, and if you were a king’s officer I should be the last man in the army to deny you. As it is—well, a polite word or two may go far with a gentleman in your situation, and I wonder you are so slow in perceiving it. Now, sir, will you report to the general in command that I am short a sergeant, and that I shall be greatly pleased to have the proper steps taken to find and send him off to me?”
If there is one good quality above another in the Page make-up it is the instant knowledge of the precise moment when the trumpet should sound the retreat. I saw now that I had taken the wrong tack with the tart major, and that I must butter him well if I wished to come off without loss.
“Saying nothing of your allusions, Major Simcoe,—which we may well take up at some other time and place,—I beg your pardon on the sergeant’s account,” I said, with no more than the proper touch of offended dignity. “You put me upon my mettle, seeming to question my right to bring you a letter—which you may take as the reason why I did not tell you plainly in the beginning that Champe was sent upon another errand after your letter had been written and superscribed. I am sure you do not question the commanding general’s right to use a warrant officer of his own legion as he sees fit.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Page,” said the major crisply. “I am a soldier, sir, and I was thinking only of the man’s possible disobedience. Of course, if Mr. Ar—if the general required him, I have nothing more to say,” and he drew aside and read his letter.
Now I had another twinge or two to suffer while I waited, for fear Arnold might possibly have made some mention of Champe in the letter. But in a minute or two the major turned and gave me my dismissal quite courteously, telling me that there was no answer other than to convey his duty to the commanding officer, and to say, if it came in my way, that he, Major Simcoe, would report at the headquarters sometime during the following day—a thing I prayed my good angel to prevent, if it could be done without setting the entire cosmic plan of the universe ajee.
Having thus been given leave to vanish, I made good use of it before any other untoward thing should happen; and with a coin apiece for my two sailor oarsmen at the landing, I answered the sentry challenge from the fort and made my way swiftly to the tavern.
Here I learned that my portmanteau had not been taken away, and that a soldier, calling himself my servant, was waiting for me in the room above. Meaning to give the Royalist barman no chance to think that I cared a rap about any common soldier who might be sitting up for me, I ordered a cup of wine and a pipe of tobacco, and sat quietly before the fire in the supper-room, sipping the one and smoking the other for a full half-hour before paying my score and going above-stairs.
In the barn-like room Champe was improving the interval soldier-wise; which is to say that he had taken the covers from my bed, rolled himself in them, and was sound asleep on the floor. He roused at my incoming, however, and was broad awake by the time I had thrown a log on the smoldering fire he had made.