‘That was at first, sir,’ stammered Hopkins. ‘Afterwards I had every reason to believe that’——
‘Silence!’ raged Shields. ‘Your carelessness has effected enough already without your offering lame explanations. Heaven only knows what the consequences of this wretched fiasco will be to us.—Corporal!’
But before the general could issue his order, whatever it was, Hopkins, who had been groping about in the undergrowth, shouted excitedly: ‘Here are the oars and the rowlocks, general, just where I hid them. If the fellow has cut the boat adrift and gone in her, he can’t be far off.’
‘Can’t he?’ sneered Shields. ‘And how do you know, sir, that the rascal had not a boat of his own under the bank, and simply cut yours adrift to lessen the chances of pursuit?’
The bitter suggestion appeared to confound Hopkins for a moment, but he answered humbly: ‘Of course, general, we must allow for possibilities; but if I may be permitted to say so, if the fellow had no boat of his own, and swung out into the stream in mine before he noticed the absence of oars, the current would carry him rapidly down stream. He could not land either on one side or the other.’
‘No,’ sneered the general again; ‘and with a current like that, I think we might as well look for him at Harper’s Ferry by this time. Further, you seem to forget, sir, that the man had the use of his hands, and by clinging to the trees alongside the bank, might very well work the boat up stream in the direction of the enemy.—Moreover,’ he muttered vexedly to himself, ‘we have no proof that he ever left dry land. Such a fellow, in Federal uniform, too, might pass anywhere.—And I’ll be bound, sir,’ he flashed out at the miserable Hopkins, ‘that your carelessness has put him in possession of the countersign. Gad! I shall have him mounting guard outside my quarters to-night if I don’t take care. This must be seen to.—What was he like, sir? What was he like? Describe him.’
‘He was a tall, loosely made young man, sallow complexioned, and with a quantity of black, curling hair upon his cheeks and chin,’ answered Hopkins feebly, utterly taken aback by this new view of the situation.
General Shields started as if he had been stung. ‘By George!’ he said under his breath. ‘If I don’t believe that was the identical fellow I spoke with this morning, and who told me that rigmarole about the balloon. Perhaps I have been too hard upon Spriggs. I have been, if my suspicions are correct. And if so, this is a dangerous fellow. We must lay him by the heels without delay.—Corporal!’