“Yes; but do you know him?—that is, why do you think he has the power, or what reason have you for believing he will remember his word?”
“If there ever was the stamp of truth or simple honest benevolence in the countenance of man, it shone in his,” said Henry; “besides, Dunwoodie has powerful friends in the rebel army, and it would be better that I take the chance where I am, than thus to expose you to certain death, if detected.”
“Captain Wharton,” said Birch, “if I fail, you all fail. No Harper nor Dunwoodie can save your life; unless you get out with me, and that within the hour, you die to-morrow on the gallows of a murderer. Cæsar met me as he was going on his errand this morning, and with him I laid the plan which, if executed as I wish, will save you—otherwise you are lost; and again I tell you, that no power on earth, not even Washington, can save you.”
“I submit,” said the prisoner, yielding to his earnest manner, and goaded by his fears that were thus awakened anew.
The peddler beckoned him to be silent, and walking to the door, opened it, with the stiff, formal air with which he had entered the apartment.
“Friend, let no one enter,” he said to the sentinel; “we are about to go to prayer, and would wish to be alone.”
“I don’t know that any will wish to interrupt you,” returned the soldier, with a waggish leer of the eye; “but, should they be so disposed, I have no power to stop them, if they be of the prisoner’s friends.”
“Have you not the fear of God before your eyes?” said the pretended priest. “I tell you, as you will dread punishment at the last day, to let none of the idolatrous communion enter, to mingle in the prayers of the righteous.”
“If you want to be alone, have you no knife to stick over the door-latch, that you must have a troop of horse to guard your meeting-house?”
The peddler took the hint, and closed the door immediately, using the precaution suggested by the dragoon.