Shelby turned and beckoned to a man in the group behind him. "Stand out, John Whittlesey," he directed; and I found myself face to face with that rifleman of Colonel Davie's party who had been so fierce to hang me at the fording of the Catawba.
This man gave his testimony briefly, telling but the bare truth. A week earlier I had passed in Davie's camp for a true-blue patriot, this though I was wearing a ragged British uniform at the moment. As for the witness himself, he had misdoubted me all along, but the colonel had trusted me and had sent me on some secret mission, the inwardness of which he, John Whittlesey, had been unable to come at, though he confessed that he had tried to worm it out of me before parting company with me on the road to Charlotte.
I looked from one to another of my judges.
"If this be all, gentlemen, the man does but confirm my story," I said.
"It is not all," said Shelby. "Mr. Pengarvin, stand forth."
There was another stir in the backgrounding group and the pettifogger edged his way into the circle, keeping well out of hand-reach of me. How he had made shift to escape from Ferguson's men, to change sides, and to turn up thus serenely in the ranks of the over-mountain men, I know not to this day, nor ever shall know.
"Tell these gentlemen what you have told me," said Shelby, briefly; and the factor, cool and collected now, rehearsed the undeniable facts: how in Charlotte I had figured as a member of Lord Cornwallis's military family; how I had carried my malignancy to the patriot cause to the length of throwing a stanch friend to the commonwealth, to wit, one Owen Pengarvin, into the common jail; how, as Lord Cornwallis's trusted aide-de-camp, I had been sent with an express to Major Ferguson. Also, he suggested that if I should be searched some proof of my duplicity might be found upon me.
At this William Campbell nodded to two of his Virginians, and I was searched forthwith, and that none too gently. In the breast pocket of my hussar jacket they found that accursed duplicate despatch; the one I had taken from Tybee and which had so nearly proved my undoing in the interview with Major Ferguson.
Isaac Shelby opened and read the accusing letter and passed it around among his colleagues.
"I shall not ask you why this was undelivered, sir," he said to me, sternly. "'Tis enough that it was found upon your person, and it sufficiently proves the truth of this gentleman's accusation. Have you aught further to say, Captain Ireton?—aught that may excuse us for not leaving you behind us in a halter?"