“One boy has lung fever and every night I hear him sobbing.  His sorrow travels like fire among the weaker men.  I have heard a number of cold, half-starved, homesick lads crying like women in the middle of the night.  It makes me feel like letting go myself.  There is one man who swears like a trooper when it begins.  I suppose that I shall be as hysterical as the rest of them in time.  I don’t believe General Howe knows what is going on here.  The jail is run by American Tories, who are wreaking their hatred on us.”

Jack sent a line to the rector of the Church of England, where he had seen Preston and Lady Howe, inviting him to call, but saw him not, and no word came from him.  Letters were entrusted to Mr. Pinhorn for Preston, Margaret and General Sir Benjamin Hare with handsome payment for their delivery, but they waited in vain for an answer.

“They’s suthin’ wrong ’bout this ’ere business,” said Solomon.  “You’ll find that ol’ Pinhorn has got a pair o’ split hoofs under his luther.”

One day Jack was sent for by Mr. Pinhorn and conducted to his office.

“Honor!  Good luck!  Relief!” was the threefold exclamation with which the young man was greeted.

“What do you mean?” Jack inquired.

“General Howe!  You!  Message to Mr. Washington!  To-night!”

“Do you mean General Washington?”

“No.  Mister!  Title not recognized here!"’

“I shall take no message to ‘Mr.’  Washington,” Jack answered.  “If I did, I am sure that he would not receive it.”

Mr. Pinhorn’s face expressed a high degree of astonishment.

“Pride!  Error!  Persistent error!” he exclaimed.  “Never mind!  Details can be fixed.  You are to go to-night.  Return to-morrow!”

The prospect of getting away from his misery even for a day or two was alluring.

“Let me have the details in writing and I will let you know at once,” he answered.

The plan was soon delivered.  Jack was to pass the lines on the northeast front in the vicinity of Breed’s Hill with a British sergeant, under a white flag, and proceed to Washington’s headquarters.

“Looks kind o’ neevarious,” said Solomon when they were out in the jail yard together.  “Looks like ye might be grabbed in the jaws o’ a trap.  Nobody’s name is signed to this ‘ere paper.  There’s nothin’ behind the hull thing but ol’ Pinhorn an’—­who?  I’m skeered o’ Mr. Who?  Pinhorn an’ Who an’ a Dark Night!  There’s a pardnership!  Kind o’ well mated!  They want ye to put yer life in their hands.  What fer?  Wal, ye know it ’pears to me they’d be apt to be car’less with it.  It’s jest possible that there’s some feller who’ll be happier if you was rubbed off the slate.  War is goin’ on an’ you belong to that breed o’ pups they call rebels.  A dead rebel don’t cause no hard feelin’s in the British army.  Now, Jack, you stay where ye be.  ’Tain’t a fust rate place, but it’s better’n a hole in the ground.  Suthin’ is goin’ to happen—­you mark my words, boy.  I kind o’ think Margaret is gittin’ anxious to talk with me an’ kin’t be kept erway no longer.  Mebbe the British army is goin’ to move.  Ye know fer two days an’ nights we been hearin’ cannon fire.”