The dispatch goes off, but still the Commandant is undecided. If he strikes to-night, Hines may escape, for the fox has a hole out of town, and may keep under cover till morning. He is the king-devil, and much the Commandant wants to cage him. Besides, he holds the bag, and the Texan will go out of prison a penniless man among strangers. Those ten thousand greenbacks are lawful prize, and should be the country's dower with the maiden. But are not republics grateful? Did not one give a mansion to General McClellan? Ah, Captain Hines, that was lucky for you, for, beyond a doubt, it saved your bacon!
The Commandant goes back to camp, sends for the police, and gets his blue-coats ready. At two o'clock they swoop to the prey, and before daybreak a hundred birds are in the talons of the eagle. Such another haul of buzzards and night-hawks never was made since Gabriel caged the Devil and the dark angels.[F]
At the Richmond House Grenfell was taken in bed with the Texan. They were clapped into irons, and driven off to the prison together. A fortnight later, the Texan, relating these details to a stranger, while the Commandant was sitting by at his desk writing, said,—
"Words cannot describe my relief when those handcuffs were put upon us. At times before, the sense of responsibility almost overpowered me. Then I felt like a man who has just come into a fortune. The wonder to me now is, how the Colonel could have trusted so much to a Rebel."
"Trusted!" echoed the Commandant, looking up from his writing. "I had faith in you; I thought you wouldn't betray me; but I trusted your own life in your own hands, that was all. Too much was at stake to do more. Your every step was shadowed, from the moment you left this camp till you came back to it in irons. Two detectives were constantly at your back, sworn to take your life, if you wavered for half a second."
"Is that true?" asked the Texan in a musing way, but without moving a muscle. "I didn't know it, but I felt it in the air!"
In the room at the Richmond House, on the table around which were discussed their hellish plans, was found a slip of paper, and on it, in pencil, was scrawled the following:—
"Colonel,—You must leave this house to-night. Go to the Briggs House.
J. Fielding."