This Bill suspected, and muttering to himself:
“Good grit, if he is a Rebel,” he went on: “Considerable top-lofty, ain’t you, corporal? And as chaps of your cloth like to meet with their equals, I’ll go on with my history. I was born in Massachusetts, not over a day’s ride from Boston. Ever been to Boston?”
No answer from the stranger, save a heightened color, and Bill proceeded:
“Tall old town. Got a smashin’ monument out to Charlestown. Heard on’t I s’pose, as I take it some of you Southern dogs can read. Wall, father died in State’s Prison down there to Charlestown, and then we moved to Rockland, the old woman, Hal and me. Hal’s lyin’ up there where the hottest of the fight took place, and I’m here tormentin’ you by tellin’ you my character. I’ve been to the workhouse twice,—I have, I swan,—once for gettin’ drunk, and once for somethin’ else a good deal wus. How do you feel now?” and Bill leered wickedly at the young man, who seemed bent on keeping silence.
Only the expression of his face told the extreme contempt he felt for his companion, and how it did wound to the quick one of his nature to be held a prisoner by such as William Baker. But there was no help for it; he must submit to be taken to Washington by the despised Bill, and then,—oh, how his heart sank within him as he thought, what then? Was there no method of escape? Couldn’t he get away, or better yet, couldn’t he hire Bill to let him go? Strange he had not thought of this before. Yankees were proverbially avaricious, and almost every man had his price. He could try, at all events, and unbending his dignity, he inquired what Bill would ask to let him go?
“What’ll I ask?” repeated Bill, placing both feet instead of one upon his prisoner. “I dun know. Le’ss dicker a spell and see. What’ll you give, and where do you keep your traps?”
“In my pockets,” the unsuspecting soldier answered; “there’s my watch and chain, worth over three hundred dollars.”
“Whew-ew!” whistled Bill, his face lighting up instantly, while hope crept into the stranger’s heart. “A gold watch worth over three hundred! Let’s see the critter.”
“You forget that my hands are tied,” the stranger suggested.
“So they be, but mine ain’t,” and the next moment Bill was holding to his ear an elegant Parisian watch, and asking if the stranger were positive sure it cost more’n three hundred dollars. “I had an old pewter thing that I gin to mother,” he said, “and this concern jest comes in play. It’s mine, you say, if I’ll let you cut stick and run?”