"Send Mr. Middleton to me. Where is he?"
"He is having supper in Captain Peters' cabin."
"Ask Captain Peters if he will be good enough to come in with him."
A minute later Captain Peters entered, followed by the midshipman.
"I suppose, Peters, you have been asking young Middleton the reason why he did not carry out his instructions?"
"I have, admiral," Captain Peters said gravely, "and I was only waiting until you were disengaged to report the circumstance to you. He had better tell you, sir, his own way."
Captain Peters then took a seat at the table, while the midshipman related his story, in nearly the same words in which he had told it to James. When he told of the account the Canadian pilot had given of his escape, the admiral exclaimed:
"But it seems altogether incredible. That some one has unbolted the man's cabin from the outside seems manifest, and it is clear that either gross treachery, or gross carelessness, enabled him to get free. I own that, although the sergeant of marines declares positively that he fastened the bolts, I think that he could not have done so, for treachery seems almost out of the question. That an officer should have done this seems impossible; and yet, what the man says about the cabin, and being let out by a rope, would seem to show that it must have been an officer."
"I am sorry to say, sir," Middleton said, "that the man gave proofs of the truth of what he was saying. The officer, he said, gave him a paper, which I heard and saw the general reading aloud. It was a warning that Captain Walsham had purposely allowed himself to be captured, and that he was, in fact, a spy. The French officer, in his haste, laid down the paper on the table when he rushed out, and I had just time to creep under the canvas, seize it, and make off with it. Here it is, sir. I have showed it to Captain Peters."
The admiral took the paper and read it, and handed it, without a word, to General Wolfe.