He had
better tell you, sir, his own way."
Captain Peters then took a seat at the table, while the midshipman
related his story, in nearly the same words in which he had told it to
James. When he told of the account the Canadian pilot had given of his
escape, the admiral exclaimed:
"But it seems altogether incredible. That some one has unbolted the
man's cabin from the outside seems manifest, and it is clear that
either gross treachery, or gross carelessness, enabled him to get free.
I own that, although the sergeant of marines declares positively that
he fastened the bolts, I think that he could not have done so, for
treachery seems almost out of the question. That an officer should have
done this seems impossible; and yet, what the man says about the cabin,
and being let out by a rope, would seem to show that it must have been
an officer."
"I am sorry to say, sir," Middleton said, "that the man gave proofs of
the truth of what he was saying. The officer, he said, gave him a
paper, which I heard and saw the general reading aloud. It was a
warning that Captain Walsham had purposely allowed himself to be
captured, and that he was, in fact, a spy. The French officer, in his
haste, laid down the paper on the table when he rushed out, and I had
just time to creep under the canvas, seize it, and make off with it.
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