The provost-marshal, who had seated himself at a small table with a note-book before him and a pencil in his hand, looked up in surprise at this. ‘Do I understand you to say,’ he asked, ‘that this weedy creature actually got the best of Sergeant Mason?’
‘It’s a fact, sir,’ replied the corporal. ‘Mason has got a crack on the head that will keep him quiet this long time. Of course I didn’t see the fight myself, but this fellow here don’t deny that he is the man, and he has a bayonet wound in the shoulder to speak for the truth of what he says.’
‘Humph!’ muttered the provost-marshal. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it possible. Well, I’ll question him.—By the way, corporal, did you hear or see anything of those other two fellows?’
‘No, sir,’ answered the corporal, understanding the reference; ‘but I heard, sir, that Colonel Spriggs was still out on the hunt for them.’
The provost-marshal’s moustache was slightly agitated. So grim a person could not be expected to smile; but his amused thought was evidently: ‘Spriggs will take precious good care not to return to camp until Jackson moves from Port Republic, or we move from here.’
For Ephraim, too, the announcement had a special interest, for it showed him that his identity with one of the escaped aeronauts was not, so far, suspected, and hence the provost-marshal could have no idea that any one else had been concerned in the affair of the despatch. Lucius, he hoped, was by this time out of harm’s way; but at all events Spriggs was not there to complicate matters by referring to him. The Grizzly was quite prepared to take the onus of the theft of the despatch upon his own shoulders, and he awaited calmly the discovery of the packet. Casting his eyes downwards to his cartridge pouch, he saw with some slight surprise that the flap was unfastened. He had been very particular about the fastening, lest by any chance the papers should be lost, and he wondered whether it had come undone during his combat with Sergeant Mason. He was roused from his meditations by the voice of the provost-marshal questioning him.
‘Are you a soldier or civilian?’
‘Civilian, sir. I am a factory hand at the ironworks at Staunton. I came into your lines by accident, and ’cause I wanted ter git out agen without comin’ ter grief, I put on these clothes thet I found in the wood.’
‘Ah! I suppose it was also by accident that, thus disguised as a Federal soldier, you played the part of sentry, and became fraudulently possessed of a despatch belonging to General Shields and addressed to General Frémont? And I imagine that if, by another and very lucky accident, you had fallen in with your friends, the enemy, you would have felt compelled to hand the despatch over to them. It is fortunate that we got hold of you first.’
This was a shot on the part of the provost-marshal, for he had as yet no means of knowing that Ephraim and the man who had stopped Captain Hopkins were one and the same. As Ephraim did not answer, he went on: ‘Have you got the despatch, corporal?’