He sat down at his writing-table and put his head in his hands. After another interval of silence, he looked up to say: “You have sufficiently accounted for yourself and Sergeant Champe, Captain; now I shall try to account for the two men who escaped in the stolen boat. Come with me.” I followed to the other end of the long room, mystified in my turn. But my heart was pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer when he snatched the bed-curtains aside and pointed to the unmistakable mud stains on the coverlet--traces left by Champe: traces which, in the darkness, we had not seen, and which we could not have removed if we had seen. “Those men whom you found and lost, Captain Page: they came here, either before or after you mounted guard in the street. Their purpose is plain. They entered the house through a window in the rear, leaving these mud stains all the way along. They came here to abduct me, sir, and but for the fortunate circumstance of my absence, they might have succeeded.” My expression of horrified surprise did not need to be feigned. “What a frightfully narrow escape!” I exclaimed, but I was thinking of ours rather than his. “It was,” he said impressively. “But the plot was even subtler than you think. Have you guessed why its execution was delayed until last night? The time was chosen when the Loyal Americans--my own legion--was well out of the way; only two of my own men were known to be ashore, and these two--yourself and Sergeant Champe--were to be frightened by this carefully spread rumor and threat of arrest so that you would both run away, disappear, and so lend color to the later story that you two had surprised me in my bed and carried me off.” “Good heavens!” I ejaculated. “But that inculpates--” “Quite true,” he agreed gravely. “It inculpates a British officer; a man who has been forced upon me as an aide; a man who hates and despises me as heartily as Mr. Washington does. Captain Page, if you could have seen the face of the officer, who sat before the fire last night in the boat-builder’s house, you would have seen the face of Lieutenant Charles Castner!” XVIII IN WHICH THE WIND KEEPS REVELS WHEN Arnold gave me his climax by pronouncing Castner’s name, I saw at once to what conclusion he had been working all through my story of the night’s happenings. He had imagined Castner and some accomplice of his under my figuring of the two who were really Champe and myself. It must not be set down as hypocrisy if I say that I was sorry. While it was doubtless true that Castner was doing his best to convict us of treachery, I knew that he believed Askew’s story, and that in seeking to have us apprehended he was merely doing what appeared to be--and what certainly was--his plain soldier duty. For that reason it pained me to see him involved, even in a traitor’s imaginings; but there was no help for it.