“Oh, you are an Englishman, are you, and you won’t endure abuse, won’t you?” said Hicks with irony; and then to me, “We did not understand you to say he was an Englishman.”
I saw that we were in a pickle, and I thought it best to tell the whole truth in a careless way, as if the thing were but a trifle.
“The man is an English officer, an escaped prisoner, whom I have retaken,” I said. “I did not deem it worth while to make long explanations, especially as we must now push on after you have so kindly fed us.”
But Hicks was suspicious; so were the others, and their suspicions were fed by the mutterings and growls of Chudleigh, who showed a lack of tact remarkable even in an Englishman out of his own country. Then, to appease them, I went into some of the long explanations which I had said I wanted to avoid.
“That’s all very well,” broke in Hicks, “but if this man is an English officer, why is he not in the English uniform? I believe he is an Englishman, as you say; he talks like it, but tell me why he is dressed like a civilian.”
The others followed Hicks’s lead and began to cry:
“Spy! Spy! Spy!”
In truth I felt alarm.
“This is no spy,” I said. “He is Captain Chudleigh, of the English army.”