"You!" The officer regarded him critically. Carl, though so young, was very sturdy. "You offer yourself as a substitute, eh, if I will spare his life?"
"Carl!" cried Penn, "I forbid you! You shall not commit that sin for me! Better a thousand times that I should die than that you should be a rebel in arms against your country."
"I have no country," answered Carl, ingeniously excusing himself. "I am vot this man says, a Tuchman. I vill enlisht mit him, and he vill shpare your life."
"Boy, it's a bargain," said Colonel Derring, whose passion for obtaining recruits overruled every other consideration. "Cut that fellow's cords, lieutenant, and let him go. Come along with me, Dutchy."
Ropes obeyed, and Penn, bewildered, almost stunned, by the sudden change in his destiny, saw himself released, and beheld, as in a dream, poor Carl marching off as his substitute to the recruiting station.
"Now let me give you one word of advice," said Captain Sprowl in his ear. "Don't let another night find you within twenty miles of that halter there, if you wouldn't have your neck in it again."
"Will you give me a safe conduct?" said Penn, who thought the advice excellent, and would have been only too glad to act upon it.
"I've no authority," said Sprowl. "You must take care of yourself."
Penn looked around upon the ferocious, disappointed faces watching him, and felt that he might about as well have been despatched in the first place, as to be let loose in the midst of such a pack of wolves thirsting for his blood. He did not despair, however, but, putting on his clothes, determined to make one final and desperate effort to escape.