“I?” exclaimed Rigney. “I never said a word about the drean.”
“You must be looked after,” added the sergeant, with a menacing look at the discomfited farmer. “You have concealed a deserter in your house for weeks; and now we find that you hide Yankees too.”
“I didn’t hide him!” protested Rigney.
“Didn’t you agree to keep me here till night?” asked Somers, who despised him beyond expression.
“If I did, it was only to have the soldiers ketch yer.”
The sergeant declared that Rigney was a traitor, and that he must go along with him; but Somers, with more magnanimity than many men would have exercised towards such a faithless wretch, told the whole story exactly as it was, thus relieving him of a portion of his infidelity to the Southern Confederacy; and the sergeant was graciously pleased to let him remain at home, while his victim was marched off to the rebel camp.
CHAPTER XXVI
A NIGHT IN PETERSBURG
The sergeant who had captured our hero seemed to be a very clever fellow, and appreciated the sterling merits of his captive. While he was rigidly devoted to the discharge of his duty, he treated his prisoner with all the consideration which one human being has the right to expect of another, whatever the circumstances under which they meet.