"No, sir," said Dick, wondering what personage was this whose style of speech was so oratorical, and whose spirit remained so high in this miserable hole. "I am a newcomer here. I am Richard Wetheral, of Hendricks's company of riflemen, from the county of Cumberland, province of Pennsylvania."
"I welcome you to my acquaintance," replied the other, heartily, thrusting forth his manacled hands and grasping Dick's. "I am Colonel Ethan Allen."
"What! The captor of Ticonderoga?" cried Dick, remembering how in the camp at Cambridge the news of that bold feat of a May morning had been celebrated, and how the name of the Green Mountain leader had become an every-day word in the colonial army.
"Fortune threw that prize in my way," said the other, with a modesty so unmistakably pretended that the affectation could only amuse, not offend. "Fortune was not so kind at Montreal, as you may have heard," he added, dismally.
"I had heard of your—your bad luck at Montreal," said Dick, leaning against the oaken wall of the enclosure, "but I little expected the honor of meeting you in these circumstances."
"Yet in these circumstances we have been—in this very den, indeed—since ever the army appeared yonder at Point Levi."
"And where were you before that?" asked Dick, eager to hear the story of so famous a hero from the hero's own lips.
"Why," said the colonel, "we were in more places than one, you may be sure. After our—bad luck, which was all because I was outrageously out-numbered and not concerted with, I surrendered, on the promise of honorable terms, and we were led into the town to be interviewed by their commandant, General Prescott, God—bless him! When he asked me whether I was that Colonel Allen who took Ticonderoga, and I told him I was the very man, he went into a rage and shook his cane over my head and called me a rebel and several worse names; and when he ordered us put in irons and sent on board the Gaspee schooner, he swore I should wear a halter at Tyburn. From the Gaspee I wrote him a letter, telling him of the notorious friendship and generosity with which I had treated the officers I took at Ticonderoga, but he paid no attention to my letter."
"You have the satisfaction of knowing," put in Dick, "that General Montgomery has captured Montreal and taken Prescott prisoner."
"Huzza!" cried Allen, and there were utterances of jubilation from the men on the floor. "So the wheel of transitory events has turned that way! I hope Prescott will remember the treatment we got on the Gaspee. The irons were bad enough, Mr. Wetheral, but the insults were intolerable. We received the insolence that cowards always show their betters when in a position to do so,—for cowards they were on that vessel, as they proved one day by scattering as if a wild beast was amongst them, when in a fit of anger I twisted a nail from the bar of my handcuff with my teeth. They said I was a mad savage, a ferocious animal,—in their mean souls they couldn't conceive the feelings of a liberty-loving man under restraint. After five or six weeks we were transferred to an armed vessel lying off Quebec, under Captain McCloud, who was a gentleman and treated us well. The next day we were put on board the vessel of Captain Littlejohn, a brave and civil officer; he ordered my irons taken off and had me sit at his own table. His subordinates, too, were friendly to us. And then we were brought on the Adamant, and handcuffed again. We are under the charge of a damned calico merchant by the name of Brooke Watson, who trades between London and Montreal. He is the man who visited New York and Philadelphia, pretending to be friendly to the glorious cause of the colonies, and who returned to Montreal and wrote letters to Gage's people in Boston, disclosing what he had learned through his make-believe sympathy. This vessel is a floating nest of Tories, who have taken passage on it. When we came aboard, we were treated in the most bitter, reviling spirit, by the officers, crew, guards, and passengers."