Was ever a man so misled? Here was the arch-plotter of his century, the man who had been able for months to hold a trusted station in the patriot army, and at the same time to carry on a constant and treasonable correspondence with his country’s enemies, unable to keep from falling into the simplest of plots laid for him! It was weighing pretty heavily upon Castner, who was merely an honest soldier trying to do his duty as he saw it, but I could hardly afford to defend the lieutenant. “Whatever the lieutenant’s object may have been, I think that I have had a narrow escape,” I said, which was truth of the truth. “But you spoke of mysteries: I think you will say there are more and greater ones when you hear what I have to tell you, General Arnold. You missed me yesterday afternoon?” “I did. And that gave more color to Castner’s charges. Also, it was reported that Sergeant Champe had not rejoined his ship, and that you had been seen together, earlier in the day. Also, again, that neither of you could be found, though the order for your arrest went straight to the outposts as soon as it was issued. I take it you are prepared to explain all these seemingly suspicious coincidences, Captain?” He said it almost anxiously, though the anxiety was more for the humbling of Castner than for any other reason, I thought. “I am, fully,” I replied. “To begin at the beginning, Sergeant Champe did not return to his ship yesterday morning because he failed to find a boat going down to the fleet in the lower bay. Quite naturally, he drifted into a tap-room, the bar of a sailor’s groggery at the waterside. While he was there, and still sober enough to have his wits about him, a man in citizen’s clothes stood at the bar trying to make a bargain with the tavern-keeper for a boat. The sergeant heard all that was said. A boat was required which would carry three men, two of them would row, and it must be exceedingly light and speedy.” “Ha!” said my listener; “three men, and only two to row. The third man might be a prisoner, eh, Captain Page?” “Possibly,” I answered, smiling inwardly at the readiness with which he followed me. Then I went on, keeping as scrupulously within the bounds of fact as if I expected to be called to account for every word--not because I was afraid to lie, but because nothing but the point of view needed to be concealed. “When the man left the tavern, the sergeant, as you may say, trod in his very footsteps. The long jaunt ended at the house of a Dutch boat-builder on the eastern shore. The man in citizen’s clothes went in, and, a little later, the sergeant thought he heard sounds of a struggle. Be that as it may, the man came presently out of the house and made his way back to the neighborhood of Fort George, where he disappeared. Whereupon the sergeant dutifully hunted me out and told me his story.” “This was in the morning, you say?” queried Arnold, most deeply interested, as I could see.