“He is at the bottom of all this,” snapped Arnold harshly. “It was he who saw the spy; it was he who carried the story to Sir Henry Clinton and procured the order for your arrest. By heaven, sir! for this one time I shall show them that I am at least the colonel in command of my own regiment! Get you into the house--you and the sergeant--and we shall see if their order for your arrest runs this far.” Surely, this was mirth for the gods; that the man who should have been most eager to see us hanged was interposing his own authority against Sir Henry Clinton’s to balk the hangman! It was like robbing a blind man to take such a gross advantage of his vanity and pride, but there was no alternative. Now that he had told us what we had to fear, there was no other hand or house in all New York that could shield us. So we followed him through the door of the house which we had lately broken into, and were told curtly to rest ourselves as we could in the orderly-room; and that Arnold’s man would later bring us our breakfast. At the last, when he was leaving us, I ventured to cast a small anchor to windward. “One word, General Arnold, before you go. I spoke, a few moments since, of certain suspicious occurrences of the night. If, as I have good cause to fear, you shall find yourself overruled in this matter--if you are compelled to turn us over to our accusers--I beg you will not do it until you have heard what we have to tell you of last night’s doings in the town.” “You shall have your hearing, never fear,” he asserted, frowning again at the hint that he would be forced to yield us up, whether he wanted to or not; and so he left us. “Pull yourself together once more, Sergeant,” I commanded, shaking Champe awake when we were alone together. “We are no more than fairly across the threshold of the peril. We shall doubtless be questioned separately, and God help us if we are not letter-perfect able to tell the same tale! Listen, now, and get your lesson by heart.” At this I gave him the meat and marrow of the story I meant to tell Arnold on my cross-examination, drilling him patiently until every nerve of him save the receptive was fast asleep. Yet I think he had it all line by line before Arnold’s serving man came with the breakfast, though he afterward went to sleep in his chair with the gulping of his third dish of tea; a good example which I presently followed with the chimney-corner settle for a bed.