Down the greenhouse the two went. The master was alone! He bowed his splendid head, and perhaps tasted, for the first time, the dregs of desolation.
Andy, lying low among the bushes, saw that the master's feet were bound. The sight wrung the boy's soul. Perhaps he had wildly hoped that escape were possible, but one glance showed him that the fetters were cruelly strong. What could he do? Near and far he heard the measured tread of sentinels at their posts. He wondered that he had ever gained his present position unnoticed. It was doubtful now that he could make his own escape, for a gray dawn was breaking in the east. But the thought of his own danger troubled the boy little. He was thinking of a peculiar whirring sound that he and the master had once practiced together. A sound like an insect. "'Twould be a good signal," the teacher had said. Would he remember it?
Andy pressed close to the broken glass, and chirruped distinctly. The master started and raised his eyes. Was he dreaming! Again Andy ventured. Then a smile flitted across the master's face.
"Andy!" he breathed.
"Here, close to you!"
Slowly, without a suspicious start, the man turned in the boy's direction; and the two brave comrades smiled at each other over the gulf of pain and grief.
"I will try to sleep!" This aloud, to regale the ear of any possible listener other than Andy. With difficulty the master stretched, as best he could, his fettered limbs upon the floor, taking heed to lie as close to Andy as possible.
Silence. Then the man tossed and talked aloud in troubled fashion.
Andy, meantime, with a daring that might risk all, put his hand in the broken pane and drew the bits of paper of the torn letters to him.
"Tell Washington," moaned the voice of the master in a half sleepy whisper, "I regret nothing. Am proud to die and to have given all."