When I listened again, Major Simcoe was saying: “Your word is sufficient, of course, Mr. Castner. But for the sake of the formalities, a statement from this officer you speak of would sit well on the records of this court.” “I anticipated that,” said Castner promptly. “Under an assurance of safe-conduct back to his own lines, the officer has accompanied me to New York.” Then, to one of his men: “Warnock, bring the Continental captain in.” The man went out, and when next the door was opened, I saw what I was fully expecting to see. Seytoun came in, blinking at the lights, his bloated face flushing purple, and his shifty eyes looking anywhere save in my direction. “Will you be good enough to answer a few questions, Captain Seytoun?” said Simcoe, taking a most gentlemanly tone with this double-dyed renegade and villain. “You have offered Lieutenant Castner a corroboration of the charge against Captain Richard Page; namely, the fact set forth by the man James Askew: that Captain Page came to New York as a spy and a kidnapper. Is this true?” “It is,” muttered my accuser in a low tone. “Upon what grounds do you assert this, Captain Seytoun?” cut in one of Knyphausen’s aides. “It is the common talk in our camps.” “You lie, Captain Seytoun--like the father of lies after whom you are named,” I said coolly; for now I remembered Askew’s story of his escape from the guard house at Tappan, and could easily add two and two together. Simcoe would have put me down with harsh bluster; but now Phillips, cold-eyed and haughty, intervened suddenly. “Can you impeach the witness, Captain Page?” he demanded. “I can. By his own confession, James Askew lay under sentence of death in General Washington’s camp at Tappan. He escaped by the connivance of the officer of the guard. The bribe he offered and paid was the sharing of a certain secret with that villain who stands there, and the secret was this highly incredible story upon which you have convicted me, General Phillips. This man knows nothing but that which the spy, Askew, told him, and for aught that can be proved now, the story may well have been nothing more than a tissue of falsehoods, made up for the spy’s own purpose,” I answered boldly. Seytoun might have outfaced me in this, if he had been endowed with the right kind of brazen courage: it was but my word against his. But his face was an open confession of guilt, and I think they all saw it, though, as I say, his testimony was a mere matter of court-martial routine--my fate had been predetermined long before. A silence fell upon the room, and it was Major Simcoe who broke it.