Now he was free of the shadows of the prison walls. Before him stretched a wide street running down to the town, and to the right was a meadow, upon which were some trees, with benches under them. As he concluded that it would be better not to trust his disguise any further until after dark, he walked over to one of the benches, and, still in the sight of the sentry, sat down and pretended to scribble something in the note-book. In a few minutes the sun had sunk below a bank of clouds in the west, and getting to his feet he walked toward a little lane, intending to follow it until he could turn into the main street some distance below. But here his good fortune deserted him. On the very first corner stood a man with a basket on his arm. It was a huckster who had been allowed the privilege of selling oranges and small cakes in the prison-yard. Maybe the sense of security had caused the captain to forget to imitate the doctor’s step. At all events, as he approached the man with the basket the latter turned and looked at him intently; then, after he had passed, the huckster walked quickly up the lane, and when he had reached the common started at a run for the prison gate. “That Yankee pirate Conyngham is loose!” he cried. “I just met him yonder at the corner.” “You’re mad, man!” returned the sentry. “That was the doctor; he just passed out.” “It was not,” replied the orangeman hastily. “I know him well; it was Conyngham in disguise.” The sentry was about to call back into the guard-room when an officer appeared. To him the excited orangeman repeated the news. “We’ll see about this!” was the officer’s reply, and he despatched a messenger at once to Conyngham’s cell. The fellow returned on the run. “It is true, captain!” he cried. “Conyngham is not in his cell or the yard, and the doctor is calling the sick list in the French division.” An instant later a drum rolled and a scurrying squad of red-coated soldiers hastened at double-quick down the main street toward the town. They found the supposed doctor conversing with a merchant, at the door of his shop, from whom he was asking directions and the time of the next coach going to London, for there Conyngham knew of friends who would help him, and the big city was the safest hiding-place, as shall be hereinafter proved. It was useless to offer resistance, and without a word he surrendered and was marched back to the prison gate. That night, shorn of his good clothes and in double irons, he was placed once more in the “Black Hole.” He dreamed that some one had restored to him the lost commission, and that instead of being confined as a pirate and a man supposed to be guilty of high treason, he had been treated as an officer should be and accorded the privileges of his position; but he awoke cold and stiff, with the knowledge that his captors would now be harder upon him than ever, and, as he wrote in his own diary, it was “a dismal prospect” again. CHAPTER XVII FREEDOM