"Now we can go when we please, and the sooner we set off the better, for surely it would be folly to make any attempt at aiding Silas while he is so closely guarded," I cried, and Hiram replied grimly:
"Even though we decide to leave without making any effort toward accomplishing that for which we came, I'm allowing there's no need for overly much haste, more especially since we can pass ourselves off as Job Lord and friends easier after night has fully come."
Then Hiram began searching once more among the papers, this time doing it in a methodical manner, and I, who feared each instant lest there should come a summons at the door, or we hear tokens of trouble from the room below, had half-turned to go toward the trap-door when Hiram caused me to wheel about suddenly as he leaped to his feet, waving above his head a slip of paper as if having taken leave of his senses.
"I'm allowing there's still a chance left for us to lend Silas Brownrigg a hand!" he cried, speaking so loudly that I leaped upon him, covering his mouth with my hand lest peradventure some one from the outside might hear and be so inquisitive as to make an attempt at entering.
"Read this, lad! Read this!" Hiram cried as soon as he could free his mouth from my hand, and at the same time he laid upon the desk, where the flickering light of the tallow dip might fall upon it, the paper which had caused him so much of excitement.
During a full minute I stood gazing at the document, not daring to believe the evidence of my own eyes, and saying to myself over and over again that it must be impossible such an order could have come into our hands.
This is what I read, and you may see whether a lad in my situation would not have doubted even the written words:
"The bearer, Job Lord, is hereby authorized to take from the Bridewell any one of the prisoners captured at Charlestown, which he may select. The officer on duty will follow the bearer's instructions in every particular, and retain this order as receipt for the prisoner."
It was signed by the governor's aide-de-camp as secretary, and bore the king's seal. In other words, it was a direct command from General Gage to the officer at the Bridewell to deliver over any one of the prisoners taken at Breed's hill which Job Lord might point out, and, what is more, was dated the very day before we made a prisoner of this double-dyed villain!
"If we had a key to all the plots in that scoundrel's head, then would you find that this permit to take away a prisoner is part and parcel of some scheme concerning us," Hiram said emphatically, and I was quite of the same mind, being convinced thereto because the document had been so lately written.