“How close were you behind us last night, when we came in, Lieutenant?—and how long did you have to listen at my door to have your suspicions aroused?”
He pushed his chair back, and tried to laugh it off, but I would not let him go.
“No, you must not laugh,” I said soberly. “I am not over-quarrelsome, I think, nor do I make too little of your many kindnesses to me. But you can add greatly to my obligations, Mr. Castner, if you will remember that there are gentlemen in Virginia as well as in the king’s army.”
By this time he was apologizing in good earnest, and when he had gone far enough to be quite out of sight and hearing of the danger point, I forgave him most magnanimously, and drew my first real breath of assurance.
His breakfast finished, Castner would not stay to smoke a pipe with me before the fire. His reason for haste added nothing to my comfort. He told me that Major Simcoe was expected from the fleet, and that he must go to the landing-place to meet him on Sir Henry Clinton’s behalf.
This set me to thinking of how I might best throw up a hasty shelter against the storm the major’s coming would doubtless raise in my quarter of the heavens. By all the military canons I should presently have to go and present my duty to Arnold, and I thought it would be well to do this before Major Simcoe could precede me. Though as for this, I was like a hound in leash, with only so far to run before the cord should choke me, anyway.
Hitherto, I had always gone willingly enough into the den of the wild beast we were seeking to entrap, but now I had a curious chilling of reluctance. What if Major Simcoe had already come ashore? What if he had sent another boat, after I had left him, with a second message to the expedition commander? What if—but there was no end to the list of things that might have happened, and the only way to die was to do it quickly and have it over with.
So, packing my qualms into the smallest corner of my soul, I crossed swiftly to the house of threatenings, only to learn that Arnold had gone to an early conference with Sir Henry Clinton. Following him to the house next door, I was told by an orderly that he was closeted with the commander-in-chief, and was asked if I were the bearer of despatches.
I said I was not, and lingered upon the door-step to wait for my interview. When it was over-long in coming, I left word with Arnold’s orderly that I would return later, and went to make a brisk circuit around the fort by way of walking off the cold chill of apprehension that seemed to be freezing the very blood in my veins.
This walk brought me, in due time, to the water’s edge, and turning eastward I was led into that search for a boat which must precede all else in the plot we had devised. Some little distance up the shore, and well within range of the fort’s heavier ordnance, I placed the sailors’ groggery where Champe and I were to meet at the day’s end. It was a mere hovel on the hillside; a den where I thought a man would do well to go armed after nightfall. It was kept by a shock-headed Irishman, with foxy eyes and a fist like a rail-splitter’s. He served me with a can of grog, and when I asked him if he knew of any one who had a boat to sell, he gave me a cunning leer, and said the “other gentleman” was ahead of me. This told me that Champe had been before me; and thinking I might only direct suspicion toward him or myself, I paid for my drink and went back to see if Arnold had returned.