"I won't do it again, Jim," he said. "It wuz 'cause I feel ez bad about it ez you do, an' I jest had to let off some meanness."
Lieutenant Diégo Bernal reappeared at last. He bestowed shrewd looks upon the five and said:
"I have an impression, though my impressions are usually false and my memory always weak, that you are pining. You wish the liberty and the open air of Kaintock. Your legs are long and you would stretch them."
"You hev shore hit it, leftenant," said Tom Ross. "Sometimes I think uv startin' off walkin' ez straight an' hard ez I kin, goin' right through the wall thar, an' then through any house that might git in the way, an' never to stop goin' 'till I got to Kentucky, whar a man may breathe free an' easy."
Lieutenant Diégo Bernal laughed and daintily stroked his little mustache.
"I understand you and you have my sympathy," he said. "We Catalans are at heart republicans, and I am interested in this new place of yours that you call Kaintock. But you will have to endure this fort a while longer. The good Señor Pollock does not make progress. He cannot produce the proof of what you charge. Yet Bernardo Galvez waits. He believes in you, and he holds Alvarez and Wyatt in the city. He is strengthened in his opinion, too, by gossip that has come down from Beaulieu, but that is not proof and he cannot act upon it. But be patient. I have an impression, although my impressions are usually false, that time is fighting for you."
He stayed with them an hour, precise and affected, but they believed him to be brave and true. A few days later Oliver Pollock himself came again.
"I have not been able to get hold of Wyatt," he said. "He stays too closely with Alvarez. I don't think that my agents are skillful enough. Hence I decided to procure a new one and fortunately I have succeeded."
"Who is that?" asked Henry.
"Yourself."