walked the room
in silence. After a while, with a heavy heart, the detective said, "Good
night," and left him.

What passed with the Commandant during the next two hours I do not know.
He may have prayed,--he is a praying man,--and there was need of prayer,
for the torch was ready to burn millions of property, the knife whetted
to take thousands of lives. At the end of the two hours, a stranger was
ushered into the apartment where the Commandant was still pacing the
floor. From the lips and pen of this stranger I have what followed, and
I think it may be relied on.

He was a slim, light-haired young man, with fine, regular features, and
that indefinable air which denotes good breeding. Recognizing the
Commandant by the eagle on his shoulder, he said, "Can I see you alone,
Sir?"--"Certainly," answered the Union officer, motioning to his
secretary to leave the room. "I am a Colonel in the Rebel army," said
the stranger, "and have put my life into your hands, to warn you of the
most hellish plot in history."--"Your life is safe, Sir," replied the
other, "if your visit is an honest one. I shall be glad to hear what you
have to say. Be seated."

The Rebel officer took the proffered chair, and sat there till far into
the morning. In the limits of a magazine article I cannot attempt to
recount all that passed between them. The written statement the Rebel
Colonel has sent to me covers fourteen pages of closely written
foolscap; and my interview with him on the subject lasted five hours, by
a slow watch. He disclosed all that Judge Holt has made public, and a
great deal more. Sixty days previously he had left Richmond with verbal
dispatches from the Rebel Secretary of War to Jacob Thompson, the Rebel
agent in Canada. These dispatches had relation to a vast plot, designed
to wrap the West in flames, sever it from the East, and secure the
independence of the South. Months before, the plot had been concocted by
Jeff Davis at Richmond; and in May previous, Thompson, supplied with two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in sterling exchange, had been sent
to Canada to superintend its execution. This money was lodged in a bank
at Montreal, and had furnished the funds which fitted out the abortive
expeditions against Johnson's Island and Camp Douglas. The plot embraced
the order of "American Knights," which was spread all over the West, and
numbered five hundred thousand men, three hundred and fifty thousand of
whom were armed. A for