Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/228

 pionage, and like the Saxon king amusing himself with his harp in the camp of the foe, secretly unstrung the sinews of the enemy's strength.

"A delay of several days intervened, ere Champé found it practicable to elude his attendants, and go in search of this unknown coadjutor. It was beneath the cover of a gloomy evening, when rain fell in torrents, that he ventured cautiously to open the door of a small dwelling in the suburbs of the city. A man was there, hovering over a miserable fire, and hastily stripping the feathers from some dead poultry. A basket of eggs, as if for the market of the next day, stood near him on a bench. He started at the British uniform, and playing with the long hair which hung over his eyes, said in the tone of an idiot—

"Here's fine fowls, your honour,—fine for the spit, Sir. Will, you buy some fresh eggs? three for sixpence."

"Then lifting the basket, he ran with childish haste to exhibit it to the stranger. Champé fixed upon him his keen black eye, and repeated with deep intonation the watch-word which had been given him by Lee. Instantaneously the half bent form became erect, and the fidgeting, wandering movements of idiocy were exchanged for the light of an intelligent countenance. Securely bolting the door, he drew a chair for Champé, and listened to his brief conversation with deep emotion. As he gave him, at parting, the letter to be conveyed to the American camp, he would fain have put into his hand a piece of gold. But the spy, as if touched by the spear of Ithuriel,