They said they had at first merely looked upon him as a suspicious character, but now, by his own confessed connection with the press, they could not regard him in any other light than that of a very dangerous person, to say the least, and they must trouble him to turn his pockets inside out.
With tears in his eyes he took from his pockets an oroide watch, a jackknife, and some Erie railway shares.
“Let me go hence,” he said, in a voice choked with emotion, “and these shall be your guerdons; there is just a guerdon apiece. You can toss up among you for the choice.”
But, although his captors happened to be wealthy capitalists, they declined to add to their means at the expense of honor. They said guerdons were out of their line, and demanded to know if he (the Major) could discern anything of a verdant tinge in their optics. The Major could not for the life of him. One of these low fellows then hinted that he more than suspected the true nature of their (now) prisoner, and he must be investigated, and further, by a very expressive pantomime (catching himself by the throat, opening his eyes very wide, protruding his tongue and breathing hard) tried to convey some idea of what would happen if his suspicions should prove correct.
The gallant Major was never so mortified in his life before. He began to wonder what would ever become of him if these vulgar persons into whose hands he had fallen should really so far misconstrue his conduct as to condemn him for a spy?
He was not kept long in suspense. (See illustration on page [119].)
There is one incident in connection with André’s capture which has always been unaccountably overlooked by other historians, and which if we omitted in this place we should feel that we had not conscientiously discharged our duty.
When Major André found himself a captive he felt that it would be very desirable to communicate with Arnold before their transactions should be made public. He also saw the impossibility of reaching him by telegraph, as that means of correspondence was not to be invented until half a century or more later, and to delay so long as that might be fatal. While casting about for some means of giving warning to his friend, his eye chanced to rest upon a specimen of the canine species of the yellow persuasion belonging to one of his captors, and a ray of hope gleamed in upon his soul.
They had halted for the night, intending to proceed with the prisoner to headquarters next morning, and preparations were being made for supper. An empty tin coffee-pot sat near the fire, and the yellow dog sat near the tin coffee-pot blinking at the fire, his mind evidently absorbed in some abstruse canine problem. By a curious, though perhaps natural association of ideas, the Briton saw here the crude materials for communicating with Arnold ready to his hand.