"He has been lying behind the chimney till he is stiff," whispered Rhoda Polly. "Give him time to limber himself."
For a minute all was quiet along the Potomac, and then a mighty voice was heard demanding "those two young rascals."
Deventer's smile was somewhat forced, and it might only have been the moonlight, but he certainly looked both sick and white about the gills. I was not greatly affected, but then I had not had his discipline. My case and credit were clear. All the same, it was obvious that the Dennis Deventer who captained his forces against the insurgents within the walls of Château Schneider, and the seeker after knowledge who prowled about my father's library or listened modestly to his interminable expositions, were very different persons.
"Better not keep him waiting," said Rhoda Polly. "I will take you. He has a room for himself fitted up on the third floor."
At the opening of the door we saw a long table covered with guns and revolvers, each ready to the hand, while behind the centre ran a continuous mountain range of ammunition in packets of gay-coloured green, red, and yellow.
"What's all this, boys?" said Dennis Deventer gruffly, as soon as he caught sight of us. "Now, you Rhoda Polly, hold your tongue! You are not put up to tell their story. Come—out with it. What is it?"
He thrust his hands through his crisping mane of hair with quick, nervous movements.
"Come, get it into word, Master Hugh Deventer. You were put to do your duty at school. Why didn't you stay put?"
Hugh Deventer had a difficulty about articulation. He was bold and brave really, besides being extraordinarily strong of body, but something in the tones of his father's voice seemed to make all these qualities, which I had seen proved so often, of no use to him. I looked at Rhoda Polly, and, to my amazement, even she appeared a little anxious. I began vaguely to understand the difference among parents, and to realise that with a father of the calibre of the Old Man Masterful I might have turned out a very different sort of son.
Finally Deventer managed to stammer out his account of the retreat of the troops and the hoisting of the Red Flag.