Having shown me his mind, Arnold next proceeded to lay his commands upon me; and now I saw how his good angel, if he ever had one, had deserted him entirely. “With Sergeant Champe for your subordinate, you will constitute yourself my bodyguard from this time on until we join the army in the fleet, Captain Page,” he said, when we had thrashed out the matter of the attempt upon his liberty to the final straw. “The convoy frigate will return in two or three days at the farthest, but until I go aboard, I wish to be assured of the presence of men upon whom I can rely.” If I bowed very low at this, it was only because I feared he might see and read the exultation in my face. Now, indeed, I thought, the Lord had delivered this traitor helpless into my hands. Alone in the house with him at night, and with the sunken boat raised and fitted for service, it would go hard with us now if we could not wring complete success out of all the foregone failures. Conning all this over afterward, it seemed passing strange that no hint of a rising obstacle, bigger than any we had yet encountered, came to me at that time. War and its cruel necessities are frightful levelers, breaking down many ideals and brushing aside all the finer scruples. Though I was far from recognizing it at the moment, the desire to carry out the kidnapping purpose had come to be a purely brutal obsession, recking nothing of the common humanities, and completely losing sight of the fact that Arnold, by his misguided trusting of us, no less than by his many kindnesses to me, was making an unconscious appeal too strong to be disregarded. But at that moment there was nothing in me to which the appeal could address itself; nor could there be until an angel from heaven should bring me the fire to re-light the candle which the war-winds had blown so gustily into extinguishment. When I was released and suffered to go below-stairs, I could scarcely wait to get Champe thoroughly awake before beginning to coach him in the new part he must play. But when he sensed the astounding turn things had taken, his loud guffaws made me clap a hand over his mouth. “Silence, you oaf!” I commanded. “One unguarded word--one lifting of an eyelid too few or too many--and the balance tips the other way. I tell you, John Champe, I have been through the valley of the hot plow-shares itself since I left you snoring here!” And then I told him of Arnold’s discoveries, and how, in our breaking and entering, we had left a trail a blind man could follow when we thought we were leaving none at all. He was sober enough when I finished, and, soldier-like, asked for his orders. I told him he might sleep again till I called him; that he must be fresh for the night. “Then you are still for trying it on, Captain Dick?--in spite of everything?” “It would be flying in the face of Providence not to try, and keep on trying until we succeed. We are many miles nearer the goal by what I have just told you, Sergeant.”