“I confess it,” I said, striving to keep the keen joy of the success of my stratagem out of the words. “In all the twistings and turnings of the last three days, the sergeant has been merely a well terrified common soldier acting under compulsion coupled with threats to have him hanged for a spy if he refused to obey me. It was I who plotted to keep him ashore when he came as your letter carrier, Major Simcoe; and in all subsequent matters, he has straitly obeyed my orders, doing what he was told to do in the fear of death, and disobeying me only in the final critical moment I have just been telling you about.” It was here that I was made to feel the curious prickings that come upon getting the credit for a good deed when the credit is not fairly earned. “You know that the sergeant denounced you, and pointed out the place of your concealment to Lieutenant Castner?” queried the major of Sir Henry’s staff. “I do, and I applaud his resolution, sir. That is the kind of loyalty I should be rejoiced to discover in my own men. He but did his duty, as he saw it.” Then this major, whose name I have never known, rose up in his place and gripped my hand most heartily. “You are a true man and a gentleman, Captain Richard Page, notwithstanding the fact that we shall have to hang you presently,” he said, with bluff good nature; and I thanked him gravely, with that curious prickling that I speak of tingling in my finger-ends. After this, Major Simcoe asked if I had anything further to say before I should be remanded under guard, and I rose and said I had, if the gentlemen present would bear with me. At General Phillips’s nod, I went on. “One thing I wish to say is this: as Lieutenant Castner has explained, the spy, James Askew, went to his long account by an accident. But Mr. Castner’s sword has merely saved your hangman an item in his day’s work. I had speech with Askew two days since, as he may or may not have confessed to Lieutenant Castner. In the course of that interview he admitted to me, inadvertently, that he was the man who sold Major André to those who took him.” The effect of this little shot was quite what I had expected. There were deep and bitter oaths of satisfaction at Askew’s death, and more than one word of thanks to me for setting this matter, which had been in doubt, finally at rest. This emboldened me to go on, for I had a boon to ask. “That is one thing, General Phillips,” I said, addressing the highest authority I could reach. “Another is in the nature of a condemned man’s final request. I have an unfinished engagement with Captain Howard Seytoun, an engagement entered into before I left the camp at Tappan, and I pray you to grant me a short quarter-hour with him on the fort parade or in a guarded room, under such restrictions as you may see fit to impose.”