"
"Out upon thee for a reviler and scoffer of goodness!" said Birch,
moving slowly, and with a due observance of clerical dignity, down the
road, followed by the imaginary Caesar. "But I leave thee, and that
behind me that will prove thy condemnation, and take from thee a hearty
and joyful deliverance."
"Damn him," muttered the trooper. "The fellow rides like a stake, and
his legs stick out like the cocks of his hat. I wish I had him below
these hills, where the law is not over-particular, I'd---"
"Corporal of the guard!--corporal of the guard!" shouted the sentinel in
the passage to the chambers, "corporal of the guard!--corporal of
the guard!"
The subaltern flew up the narrow stairway that led to the room of the
prisoner, and demanded the meaning of the outcry.
The soldier was standing at the open door of the apartment, looking in
with a suspicious eye on the supposed British officer. On observing his
lieutenant, he fell back with habitual respect, and replied, with an air
of puzzled thought,--
"I don't know, sir; but just now the prisoner looked queer. Ever since
the preacher has left him, he don't look as he used to do--but," gazing
intently over the shoulder of his officer, "it must be him, too! There
is the same powdered head, and the darn in the coat, where he was hit
the day we had the last brush with the enemy.
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