"What do you mean?" I cried. "Do not tell me that you have delivered yourself voluntarily into the hands of your enemies!"
He hung his head in silence before the indignation of my glance.
"Ingrate," I cried, "thus to thwart and to betray me."
"The price was too great," he said, doggedly, but the fear in his eyes was unmistakable. Meantime, Corporal Flickers had found his tongue, and was now engaged in giving the peculiar history of the capture to his commander.
"It's God's truth, sir, that that's the rebel," he began, in a tone that implied that he was trying hard to set all his own doubts at rest upon that point. Rubbing his eyes with renewed vigour, he repeated: "Yes, sir, that's 'im, I'll take my solemn oath. But it's passing funny how I took 'im. I was asleep in my room and a-dreamin' of my Mary, when I feels a hand quite sudding like upon my arm. At that I cocks up my eyes, and sees a light afore me, and a man's figger a-bending across my bed. Like blue blazes, sir, I leaps to my feet, for I sees it is the rebel, and I takes 'im by 'is throat. But he was the most accommodatin' rebel that you ever saw, for he stood quiet as a mouse, and says that I had done exactly what he had wakened me to do, for he was tired of being hunted for his life, and would I bring him straight to you, sir. I told 'im I would an' all, and I done it lively, as you can see, sir, for I only stayed to put my breeches and my
