I don’t know what might have come of this request if Seytoun had held his peace. The British officers of Sir Henry Clinton’s military family were great sticklers for the point of honor, notwithstanding the well-known opposition of the knight himself to the common practise of dueling. But Seytoun must needs draw himself up scornfully and say that he had no cause of quarrel sufficient to make him wish to give satisfaction to a condemned spy. At this, I went rage-mad, of course, like a hot-headed fool, and sprang across the intervening space and struck him; after which I was hustled off under guard, as I deserved to be for so greatly offending the dignity of the court; hustled out, and across the parade ground, and into a cold, bare barracks room, where Castner came to find me a few minutes later. “Well?” I said, rightly guessing that he was the bearer of news. “Your sentence has been passed, Captain Page, and now that I know you better, I am truly sorry to be General Phillips’s messenger. You are to be confined in a cell under the battlements of the fort until midnight, at which hour you will be taken to Gallows Hill and hanged. It is a terrible short road for you, Captain, and I begged them to make it a little longer, but--” He choked, and could say no more; and truly, I think I may say without boasting that I was sorrier for this clean-hearted, noble young fellow than I was for myself, just at the moment. But that sorrow, and my own, and all things else were quickly swept out of my mind by a most miserable anxiety for Beatrix. Had Simcoe’s troopers been ordered to the ships? There was one chance in a thousand that Castner might know, and I put the question to him as he was turning me over to the fort prison guard. “Tell me, Lieutenant,” I said hurriedly; “do you chance to know if the Queen’s Rangers have been given their embarking orders yet? You will betray no trust in telling a dead man.” He answered without hesitation. “They have been embarking this evening since supper,” he said, little thinking what a stone he rolled upon my soul in these few words. And then: “Is there anything else, Captain Page?” “Yes. From what was said in the court room yonder you doubtless gathered how much, or rather how little, Sergeant Champe has been to blame in all that he was made to bear a part in. Because you are a soldier and a gentleman, Lieutenant Castner, I know you have small respect for Benedict Arnold; but for the same reason I am sure you will say a word to him for this poor fellow who, after all, was your best means of bringing me to book. Will you say that word?” But now Castner swore savagely and said he would not--to Arnold, though if any move were made to question Champe he would come between as he could. “That is all I ask,” I interposed. “Champe is but an unlettered fellow, and if you were to put him upon the rack, he would be helpless. I shall hang the easier if you promise that he will be spared.”