Hence, it was with some dull prickings of disappointment that I roused Champe an hour before dawn, and flung myself upon the bed for a little wooing of forgetfulness to precede the forthbringings of another day. For if there had come a thundering at the door and a shouted command to open in the king’s name, we should at least have confronted a peril known and measurable. But now the darkness was full of mysterious eyes, as the silence told of whispering voices; and no step we should henceforth take would be lacking its hidden snare or pitfall.
XI
OUT OF THE NETTLE, DANGER
CHAMPE let me sleep until day-dawn was fully come and the inn was stirring, calling me then, as he explained, only because he was fearful that some orderly from Arnold’s quarters would be up and asking for me, and so raise a wonder at my holding him, Champe, in my room over night.
Being confronted by the perils of the new day, we were first concerned with the problem of keeping the sergeant out of the way, and out of sight of any curious eyes. It was asking too much of the hazards to make the tavern a rendezvous for him, and while he might possibly venture to show himself in the town, trusting to a nimble lie to account for his absence from his regiment and the fleet, it said itself that he must keep well out of sight of Arnold, Major Simcoe, or any shore-keeping officer of the Loyal Americans.
Breakfast was the earliest consideration, however, and I made shift to answer for that, going down to the common-room when the meal was called, and later bribing the cook to give me a tray of dainties for a brother officer, who, as I said, had been forced to share my room with me for the want of sober sense to find his quarters.
How much this tale imposed upon the cook, a fat Dutchman big enough to make three common men in any fair division of flesh, I do not know. But he gave my “brother officer” the credit of a well man’s appetite, and was discreet enough to discard the tray, making the provisions into a paper-wrapped bundle which I might take to my room without exciting remark.
His breakfast despatched, Champe next wished to know how he was to get out of the tavern unhalted to go upon the boat-seeking quest; and here the contents of my portmanteau came into play. In a little time we had him out of his Loyal American regimentals and into the civilian’s clothes I had purchased to replace my patriot homespun. He made a better-looking gentleman of elegance than I had hoped he would, and when he was well-muffled in the cloak that went with the outfitting, I thought he might pass without curious question.
He was eager to make the attempt, as I was to have him. Any minute a messenger might come from Arnold requiring my attendance, and the wonder we had been trying all the morning to avert would be raised with a vengeance. So, after agreeing upon a low sailors’ groggery beyond the burned district on the eastern water-front as our meeting point for the evening, where either of us who chanced to be the first comer would await the arrival of the other, we parted, Champe going boldly down the inn stair in his new toggery and carrying himself as little like a soldier as any young man of fashion in New York.
Now I took it afterward as a piece of sheer good fortune that the idea came into my head to follow the sergeant down, two steps behind him; and assuredly the event proved the timeliness of the prompting. For in the tap-room, at a little table drawn up before the fire, sat Lieutenant Castner as large as life, breakfasting at his leisure; and if I had not steered Champe aside with a muttered exclamation, the sergeant would have brushed Castner’s elbow in passing. As it was, I had time to thrust myself between; and when the door clanged behind the outgoing Champe, I was making my greetings to the lieutenant and asking him if I might share his table for a dish of tea.
He gave me the invitation cordially enough, but there was a look in his mild eyes that I could not fathom. And I was scarcely facing him across the table before he had me skating on the thinnest ice.