The man’s threat that night returned to Ben.
“He feared that I had discovered his identity,” he mused. “And he thought to stop my revealing what I knew. This man whom he calls Sugden as much as said so when I encountered him at Bristol. And the attempt to rob the carriage of the money sacks sent by Master Morris, for I now feel sure that Hawkins was the other party to that, was but another way of seeking the embarrassment of General Washington.”
Hawkins was still chuckling over what were apparently pleasing thoughts. For a time the man with the yellow smile said nothing, but as the other seemed in no hurry to impart what he knew, he grew impatient.
“Come,” he said, “let us know what you have to tell.”
There was a pause, the chuckling ceased, and then Hawkins spoke.
“There was a time only last fall when I considered this work upon which we are now engaged as impossible. It was Admiral Howe who first mentioned it to me, I think, and I openly scouted it. Then Sir Henry Clinton broached it, and at last General Howe. Each of them fancied it, and each of them told me plainly that it was quite in my way.”
Sugden grunted.
“They were right there; everything in the line of underground effort is in your way. I never saw any one who took more naturally to subterfuge, wriggling through keyholes, and the gaining of men’s confidence for his own ends.”
Tobias Hawkins laughed. This, so it seemed, he regarded as flattery.
“You are disposed to think rather well of any little talent that I may possess, my friend,” he said. “But I paid no attention to either of the military or naval heroes,” he proceeded; “their sort are seldom very keen in matters that do not have to do with the movements of fleets or divisions. However, when Lord George Germain wrote to me, begging me to undertake the task—and mentioning a handsome sum which the government would be disposed to pay me should I succeed—I began to seriously turn the matter over in my mind.”