The prisoner was Albert Van Auken.
I do not claim that mine is the acutest mind in the world; but at a single glance I saw to the bottom of the whole affair, and the desire to laugh grew very strong upon me. It had not been twenty-four hours since I was talking to Albert Van Auken in Burgoyne’s camp, and here he was a prisoner in our camp, bringing dispatches from Clinton, down the river, to Burgoyne. I believe some things—not all things.
I perceived that the bright light shining directly into Albert’s eyes would soon awaken him. In truth he was yawning even then. I sat down in front of him, closing my arms around my knees in the attitude of one who waits.
Albert yawned prodigiously. I guessed that he must have been up all the previous night to have become so sleepy. He would have relapsed into slumber, but the penetrating streak of sunshine would not let him. It played all over his face, and inserting itself between his eyelids, pried them open.
Albert sat up, and, after the manner of man, rubbed his eyes. He knew that some one was in the tent with him, but he could not see who it was. I had taken care of that. I was in the dark and he was in the light.
“Well, what is it you wish?” he asked, after he had finished rubbing his eyes.
I guessed that he took me for one of the general officers who had been examining him. I have a trick of changing my voice when I wish to do so, and this was one of the times when I wished.
“I am to ask you some further questions in regard to the matters we were discussing this morning,” I said.
“Well!” said Albert impatiently, as if he would like to be done with it.
“According to the dispatches which we secured when we took you,” I said, “Sir Henry Clinton was very near at hand with a large army.”