His countenance lighted at once. "I'll do it!" he exclaimed, with suppressed eagerness. To fold himself in the cloak, nearly crush my hand as he said "Thank you! Thank you!" and to open the door and walk out, was the work of but a moment. I listened as his firm step died away along the hall, but there was no challenge, no sound that betokened any discovery. The soldiers, seeing the familiar coat, must have supposed its rightful owner in it, and allowed it to pass unhindered. A moment after Sergeant White came in. I feared he would notice the prisoner's absence, but he did not. I got him engaged in story-telling as soon as possible, to postpone any inquiries. For some five minutes I succeeded very well, when Wells entered, cast an uneasy glance about the room, and at once exclaimed, "Sergeant, where is that officer? Did you put him in another room?"
The sergeant answered that he had been out, and that when he returned he saw nothing of the man.
It was Wells' turn to be startled now. He sprang over to me and demanded sternly, "Pittenger, where's that officer?"
I was not in the least terrified. In fact, I was greatly amused, and for the moment forgetting the purpose formed two months before, of always avoiding untruth as well as all other evil things, I answered, "What officer?"
"That officer I put in here."
"Oh! that drunken fellow?"
"Yes; where is he?"
"The last I saw of him, he picked up his coat and said he was going to supper."
"Going to supper, was he? Ho! I see! Sergeant, run to the guards and tell them if they let him out I'll have every one of them hung up by the heels."
Wells was in a towering passion at once. The alarm was sounded, and for a few minutes a terrible commotion prevailed, but nothing was seen of the drunken fugitive, whose importance began to be known. Soon Wells returned, and demanded in a peremptory tone, "Pittenger, why did not you give the alarm when he started?'"