University of Virginia Library

68. CHAPTER LXVIII.
FURTHER ADVENTURES.

Bim and Fink led their party quietly up the canal, and
awaited the flight of the hours, when the inhabitants of the
city, not on duty, should be steeped in unconscious slumber.
Fink, however, could not remain inactive; and

although he had spent but two or three days in the
Capital previous to its evacuation by the Federal army,
yet his practised eye had indexed all its prominent landmarks,
and now he was capable, even in the obscurity of
night, of finding his way without difficulty to any remembered
point. He wandered forth, therefore, to reconnoitre.
Finding the street deserted and quiet in the vicinity of
Lord Slysir's quarters, he contented himself for the present
with extinguishing the lamp in front of the door, and then
proceeded westward towards the White House, knowing
very well that all the approaches to the Despot's Palace
were strictly guarded by soldiers. But Fink had the
faculty of creeping unperceived even into the camp of
watchful Indians; and hence he did not doubt his ability
to escape the observation of a regiment of half-drunken
novices in the art of nocturnal perambulation. He had no
difficulty in finding access to the Palace; every external
portion of which he scrutinized with attention. In the
rear, and near the western extremity of the building, one
or two lights could be distinguished in the second story;
and once he perceived Ruffleton himself, with a lamp in his
hand, move across a window. He was in his night clothes,
and doubtless just retiring to bed. Fink was constrained
to abandon the hope, which had momentarily animated him,
of capturing the Despot. But, as he was turning away,
with an intention to escape in the direction of the canal from
the lawn in the rear of the Palace, sounds from one of the
basement rooms met his ear. He drew near the open window
from which they seemed to proceed, and listened.
Footsteps next attracted his attention, and soon after a man
and woman entered the pantry, for such it was, the latter
leading the way with a burning candle in her hand.

“Go! Be off!” said she, “and get your money, or I'll
inform on you. I'll tell General Ruffleton that you are a
Randolph man, and have been working on a ship at the
Navy Yard!”

“You won't do any such foolish thing, Mrs. Punt!” was
the reply.

“I will, I tell you! If I sacrifice my own husband in his
cause, he'll be bound to reward me for it.”

“You're an unnatural woman. President Randolph will
pay me. He's an honorable man.”

“Then go and get your money, and I'll be reconciled!”

“Yes, and if what the cook tells me is true, you'll be
easily reconciled if I never return!”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, I'm getting suspicious you've been casting sheep's
eyes at that Jim Ready at the door! If he don't take care
I'll give him a black eye. He didn't want to let me in, and
I had to get an order from the Colonel!”

“How did you get the order?”

“I told him you was my wife, and then he gave it quick
enough!”

“You see I am a person of consequence!”

“I don't want my wife to be a person of consequence
among the Colonels and doorkeepers! She don't belong
to their circle.”

“Don't talk about circles! I tell you many a rich lady
would give her ears to occupy my place—and if I had a
husband worth a cent, I could make a man of him.”

“And that's what the cook said. Well, I'm worth a hundred
dollars, for I know President Randolph will pay me.”

“Where are you going now?”

“To Senator Langdon's.”

“Senator Langdon's! Why he's gone.”

“But his house has stayed, and Dick Clusky was left to
take care of the things. I slept with him last night, and he
invited me to come back to-night, if I couldn't find lodgings
here.”

“If you stayed here, we should all be guillotined for it.
It's against positive orders. But aint Dick's mother, Maud,
left behind?”

“Yes, she's now Lord Slysir's cook, and as proud as ever.
She thinks his Lordship's going to marry Miss Edith, and
then the fine house will belong to him.”

“She must be a fool! And perhaps she thinks she's making
a conquest of you—and perhaps she is—”

“What! that old wrinkled dishclout? Good night!”
Saying this, Punt turned his back on his inappeasable wife,
and passed through the window near which Fink was
standing.

Coming out of a lighted room, Punt's vision was imperfect.
He ran against a stone pillar, then stumbled among
the flower pots, and fell to the earth.

“Let a friend help you up,” said Fink, in a low tone, and
at the same time assisting Punt to rise.

“I thank you, stranger,” said Punt; “and you are a
friend indeed. If you had been an enemy, you'd have
been more likely to keep me down than to help me up.”

“Yes, I'm your friend, because I've heard my friend Captain
Bim speak about you. I know he wants to see you
very much.”

“Captain Bim! Where is he?”

“He's not far off. Would you like to see him?”

“Indeed I would, if he's not too far off, and if it wouldn't
take me too long to go to him. Dick Clusky is waiting to
let me in at Lord Slysir's.”

“If you choose you can see Captain Bim in five
minutes.”

“That'll suit. Have you got a passport?”

“Yes—but it would be best for us to go singly. I'll
meet you at the lower corner of the Treasury Building.”

“Very well.”

“Don't fail!”

“No danger of that. You helped me up when I was
down!”

Punt then pursued his way out, passing through the brilliant
gaslight from the tall lamps, and exhibiting his passport
unsolicited to all the sleepy sentinels. And when he
arrived at the place of rendezvous he was very much surprised
to find Captain Fink awaiting him.

It was not long before Fink and Punt arrived at the
boats in the canal.

“Captain Bim!” said Fink, standing directly over the
boat containing the Captain.

“By George, I was napping!” said Bim.

“And if I had been an enemy,” said Fink, “you would
never have waked up in this world. But come out and see
one of your old friends I have brought you.”

“Captain Fink!” exclaimed Bim, scrambling up the wall,
“if you've captured Lord Slysir by yourself, and without
my assistance, you have perpetrated a very unfriendly and
unofficer-like action, and I shall call you to an account for
it, if you have a white eyebrow.”

“Come and see for yourself,” said Fink, laughing, and
patting Punt on the shoulder.

“How are you, Captain Bim?” said Punt, seizing the
Captain's hand.

“Very well, I thank you,” said Bim, “but you are not
Lord Slysir, I think.”

“I should rather think not,” said Punt. “I am a ship-carpenter
by trade, and was once a sergeant in Captain
Bim's company at the battle of Bladensburg.”

“It's Punt! How are you, Punt? I'm glad to see you,
Punt!” said Bim. “And, Punt, I'm glad you ain't Lord
Slysir.”

“Well,” said Punt, “I can't say I'm glad, too, because
his Lordship is in very comfortable quarters; and as he's a
bachelor, he can't be harassed by a contrary wife. I'm
going to his Lordship's house from here, and Dick Clusky
is waiting to let me in.”

“You are, are you?” exclaimed Bim. “So am I, and so
are a dozen or so of us. And if you sleep there this night,
it's more than Lord Slysir himself is fated to do.”

“What do you mean, Captain?”

“I mean to take Lord Slysir prisoner, or die in the
attempt.”

“Never say die!” said Fink.

“Then I know you'll do it,” said Punt; “for you never
fail; and I can tell you it won't be a difficult thing to accomplish,
particularly if I help you to get in.”

“That's exactly the thing I intended you to do,” said
Fink.

“It's a capital idea,” said Bim.

“It is, by jingo!” said Punt. “But if they found it out,
the awful guillotine would be my lot. Will you take me
with you? I want to go to President Randolph to get my
wages, and if they believe I was made a prisoner with the
great Lord, I can snap my fingers at the guillotine. And
when I get my wages, and go back, the fearful Protector
won't suspect anything.”

“Go back?” asked Fink.

“What will you want to return for?” demanded Bim.

“Why, Mrs. Punt is now a great lady at the White
House, and can make my fortune. The chances of promotion,
by having access to the kitchen there, are not to be
despised by anybody. That's what Mr. Windvane told me,
and he's to guide me. He says immense influence may

be gained through the kitchen, and he's to help me engineer,
as he calls it.”

“That's enough! It's about time now for us to be moving;
you shall lead, Captain Fink, as we agreed.”

Fink placed the men in single file, instructing them particularly
to “tread” in each other's “tracks,” so that the
whole company would make but one sound at each step;
and that this might be the more certainly done, he required
every man to grasp the skirt of the coat of the one in front
of him. Then placing himself at the head of the line, and
putting the fringe of his hunting-shirt in the hand of Bim,
he ordered every one to life his right foot.

“Now, march!” said he, and away they strode.

But they had not gone twenty paces before Bim paused
so abruptly that they all stumbled against each other, and
several came near falling.

“What's the matter now?” demanded Fink.

“An idea just struck me,” said Bim.

“An idea! And it struck so hard as to come nigh knocking
us down! I hope such things aint going to hit us
often!”

“But listen!” said Bim. “I haven't been so much about
head-quarters for nothing. I've learned something of diplomacy—”

“What's that?” asked Fink.

“It's a weapon that sometimes kills without letting a
person know what hurts him. It makes bargains and breaks
them; and sometimes causes an enemy to kill himself—”

“Oh, that's nothing out in the prairies. It's not new to
us. We do it every day—”

“Do what?”

“Why, when we catch a rattlesnake alive, we scratch his
tail and make him bite himself. That's certain death.”

“That's it! That's diplomacy! Now here's my idea,
but Willy put it in my head. We'll make Dick Clusky say
Lord Slysir ran off with Miss Alice, and that'll make Ruffleton
bite himself! He'll fall out with the British, as sure as
a gun! And then we'll tell his Lordship that Ruffleton gave
us the wink to capture him, to get him out of his way—and
that'll make him as mad as a hornet at Ruffleton.”

“Captain!” said Fink, “that's a great idea. I don't
wonder at its staggering us! But the latter end of it ain't

perfect. How will we manage it when Lord Slysir sees the
President's daughter at our head-quarters?”

“Hey! I didn't think of that! But we'll leave it for
another idea, and it'll come. Yes! we aint to know anything
about Miss Alice's escape. Remember that. And
when he sees her, and learns all about it, of course he'll be
all the better pleased!”

“That's natural, too!”

“But,” said Punt, who was next behind Bim, “I rather
think his Lordship has a hankering after Miss Edith—at
least that's what Dick says.”

“True, again!” said Bim. “Go ahead, Captain Fink. It's
our duty to act, not think. I forgot that military maxim.”
Fink led the way through the silent streets, until the party
arrived in front of the mansion.