ime you were gone to make room for Richard Jennifer; and
I laid a hand upon the tasseled rope. But when I would have rung, all
the man-pride, of race and of soldier training, rose up to bid me fight
for space to strike one good blow in freedom's cause by way of
leave-taking.

So, as it had been an afterthought, I said: "A word further with you
first, my Lord, and then, if you please, I will call the guard. All you
remember is true, save as to the principal fact. So far from being a spy
in intent, or even a partizan of either side, I was at the time but
newly come into the province, knowing little of the cause of quarrel and
caring still less. But Captain Falconnet and Colonel Tarleton did their
earnest best to make a rebel of me out of hand."

"Ah? But the proof of all this, Captain Ireton."

"The best I can offer is the present fact of my coming to place myself
at your Lordship's disposal, being moved thereto by your Lordship's own
desire expressed in an order sent some weeks since to Sir Francis
Falconnet."

"So?--then you knew of that order?"

"Captain Falconnet showed it to me after I was condemned and the firing
squad was drawn up to snuff me out."

My Lord Charles gave me the courtier smile that so endeared him to his
soldiers,--he was well-loved of his men,--and bade me sit.

"The plot thickens, as Mr. Richardson would say. Let me have your story,
Captain Ireton. I would rejoice to know why Captain Sir Francis
Falconnet saw fit to disobey his orders."

I was clear of the lee shore and the breakers at last, but I was fain to
believe that not Machiavelli himself could hope to weather the storm in
the open. How much or how little did Lord Cornwallis remember of Colonel
Tarleton's report? How explicit had that report been?--was there any
mention in it of my eavesdropping at the conference between Captain John
Stuart and the baronet; of my attempt to warn the over-mountain men
against the Indian-arming? Could I hope to tell his Lordship a tale so
near the truth as to be unassailable by Tarleton and his officers, by
Gilbert Stair and the spiteful little pettifogger, and yet so deftly
garbled as to keep my neck out of the halter for the time being?

All these questions thronged upon me as a mob to pull cool reason from
her seat, and I could only play the part of the trapped rat and snap
back at them. Yet my Lord Cornwallis was waiting for his answer, and a
single moment's hesitation might breed suspicion.

Y