ive him ten thousand greenbacks, to stop their
mouths and stuff their pockets, at nine in the morning.

"And to-morrow night we'll have them, sure! And, how say you, give _you_
shackles and a dungeon?" asks the Commandant, his mouth wreathing with
grim wrinkles.

"Anything you like. Anything to _blot out my record of treason_."

He has learned the words,--they are on his heart, not to be razed out
forever.

When he is gone, up and down the room goes the Commandant, as is his
fashion. He is playing a desperate game. The stake is awful. He holds
the ace of trumps,--but shall he risk the game upon it? At half past
eight he sits down and writes a dispatch to his General. In it he
says:--

"My force is, as you know, too weak and much overworked,--only eight
hundred men, all told, to guard between eight and nine thousand
prisoners. I am certainly not justified in waiting to take risks, and
mean to arrest these officers, if possible, before morning."

The dispatch goes off, but still the Commandant is undecided. If he
strikes to-night, Hines may escape, for the fox has a hole out of town,
and may keep under cover till morning. He is the king-devil, and much
the Commandant wants to cage him. Besides, he holds the bag, and the
Texan will go out of prison a penniless man among strangers. Those ten
thousand greenbacks are lawful prize, and should be the country's dower
with the maiden. But are not republics grateful? Did not one give a
mansion to General McClellan? Ah, Captain Hines, that was lucky for you,
for, beyond a doubt, it saved your bacon!

The Commandant goes back to camp, sends for the police, and gets his
blue-coats ready. At two o'clock they swoop to the prey, and before
daybreak a hundred birds are in the talons of the eagle. Such another
haul of buzzards and night-hawks never was made since Gabriel caged the
Devil and the dark angels.[F]

At the Richmond House Grenfell was taken in bed with the Texan. They
were clapped into irons, and driven off to the prison together. A
fortnight later, the Texan, relating these details to a stranger, while
the Commandant was sitting by at his desk writing, said,--

"Words cannot describe my relief when those handcuffs were put upon us.
At times before, the sense of responsibility almost overpowered me. Then
I felt like a man who has just come into a fortune. The wonder to me now
is, how the Colonel could have trusted so much to a Rebel."

"Trusted!" echoed the Commanda