Then he questioned me sharply about the American army, to most of which I replied, “I don’t know.” I think that he got little satisfaction out of the answers.
“Did you know,” he finally said sharply, scrutinizing my face closely, “a Lieutenant Nickerson of your regiment?”
The question, coming abruptly, threw me a little off my balance, but I replied steadily, “I did know a person who called himself by that name; but I should not know him now.”
“How’s that?” he inquired crisply.
“I once thought him to be a true man, and I would not like to kill him, as I might have to do should we meet again.”
“Why?”
“He has turned traitor and spy. Such men should be shot.”
“Ach! Then you’d kill a Prussian soldier—a gentleman?”
“Yes, sir; that’s what we are here in France for!” But my own words cut me to the heart, when I had spoken them of Jot.
With a gesture of dismissal he turned from me to one of the officers, and made a remark that I did not understand. But his face and manner led me to believe that he had got something out of my replies not displeasing to him.