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Page 80
As the event proved, in the course Allen pursued, he was right. Because,
though at first nothing was talked of by his captors, and nothing
anticipated by himself, but his ignominious execution, or at the least,
prolonged and squalid incarceration, nevertheless, these threats and
prospects evaporated, and by his facetious scorn for scorn, under the
extremest sufferings, he finally wrung repentant usage from his foes;
and in the end, being liberated from his irons, and walking the
quarter-deck where before he had been thrust into the hold, was carried
back to America, and in due time, at New York, honorably included in a
regular exchange of prisoners.
It was not without strange interest that Israel had been an eye-witness
of the scenes on the Castle Green. Neither was this interest abated by
the painful necessity of concealing, for the present, from his brave
countryman and fellow-mountaineer, the fact of a friend being nigh. When
at last the throng was dismissed, walking towards the town with the
rest, he heard that there were some forty or more Americans, privates,
confined on the cliff. Upon this, inventing a pretence, he turned back,
loitering around the walls for any chance glimpse of the captives.
Presently, while looking up at a grated embrasure in the tower, he
started at a voice from it familiarly hailing him:
"Potter, is that you? In God's name how came you here?"
At these words, a sentry below had his eye on our astonished
adventurer. Bringing his piece to bear, he bade him stand. Next moment
Israel was under arrest. Being brought into the presence of the forty
prisoners, where they lay in litters of mouldy straw, strewn with gnawed
bones, as in a kennel, he recognized among them one Singles, now
Sergeant Singles, the man who, upon our hero's return home from his last
Cape Horn voyage, he had found wedded to his mountain Jenny. Instantly a
rush of emotions filled him. Not as when Damon found Pythias. But far
stranger, because very different. For not only had this Singles been an
alien to Israel (so far as actual intercourse went), but impelled to it
by instinct, Israel had all but detested him, as a successful, and
perhaps insidious rival. Nor was it altogether unlikely that Singles had
reciprocated the feeling. But now, as if the Atlantic rolled, not
between two continents, but two worlds--this, and the next--these alien
souls, oblivious to hate, melted down into one.
At such a juncture, it was hard to maintain a disguise, especially when
it involved the seeming rejection of advances like the Sergeant's.
Still, converting his real amazement into affected surprise, Israel, in
presence of the sentries, declared to Singles that he (Singles) must
labor under some unaccountable delusion; for he (Potter) was no Yankee
rebel, thank Heaven, but a true man to his king; in short, an honest
Englishman, born in Kent, and now serving his country, and doing what
damage he might to her foes, by being first captain of a carronade on
board a letter of marque, that moment in the harbor.
For a moment the captive stood astounded, but observing Israel more
narrowly, detecting his latent look, and bethinking him of the useless
peril he had thoughtlessly caused to a countryman, no doubt unfortunate
as himself, Singles took his cue, and pretending sullenly to apologize
for his error, put on a disappointed and crest-fallen air. Nevertheless,
it was not without much difficulty, and after many supplemental
scrutinies and inquisitions from a board of officers before whom he was
subsequently brought, that our wanderer was finally permitted to quit
the cliff.
This luckless adventure not only nipped in the bud a little scheme he
had been revolving, for materially befriending Ethan Allen and his
comrades, but resulted in making his further stay at Falmouth perilous
in the extreme. And as if this were not enough, next day, while hanging
over the side, painting the hull, in trepidation of a visit from the
castle soldiers, rumor came to the ship that the man-of-war in the haven
purposed impressing one-third of the letter of marque's crew; though,
indeed, the latter vessel was preparing for a second cruise. Being on
board a private armed ship, Israel had little dreamed of its liability
to the same governmental hardships with the meanest merchantman. But the
system of impressment is no respecter either of pity or person.
His mind was soon determined. Unlike his shipmates, braving immediate
and lonely hazard, rather than wait for a collective and ultimate one,
he cunningly dropped himself overboard the same night, and after the
narrowest risk from the muskets of the man-of-war's sentries (whose
gangways he had to pass), succeeded in swimming to shore, where he fell
exhausted, but recovering, fled inland, doubly hunted by the thought,
that whether as an Englishman, or whether as an American, he would, if
caught, be now equally subject to enslavement.
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