“Certainly it was, Mr. Middleton,” the admiral said.  “There can be no question about that.”

“I wonder that you even suggested such a thing, Captain Walsham,” the general remarked.  “This was not a private affair.  The whole success of the enterprise was jeopardized.”

“It was, sir,” James said quietly; “but you must remember that, at the time I asked Mr. Middleton to tear up the note, it had ceased to be jeopardized, for I had got fairly away.  I am under great obligations to Mr. Linthorne, and would do much to save him pain.  I regarded this act, not as one of treason against the country, but as one of personal enmity to myself, and I am sure that Lieutenant Horton, himself, did not think of the harm that his letter might do to the cause, but was blinded by his passion against me.”

“Your conduct does credit to your heart, Captain Walsham, if not to your head,” General Wolfe said.

The admiral rang the bell.

“Tell Lieutenant Horton that I wish to speak to him, and order a corporal, with a file of marines, to be at the door.”

The messenger found Lieutenant Horton pacing the quarterdeck with hurried steps.  On the receipt of the message, instead of going directly to the admiral’s cabin, he ran down below, caught something from a shelf by his berth, placed it in the breast of his coat, and then went to the admiral’s cabin.  The corporal, with the two marines, had already taken his station there.  The young officer drew a deep breath, and entered.

A deadly fear had seized him, from the moment he saw the signal of James Walsham, although it seemed impossible to him that his treachery could have been discovered.  The sudden summons at this hour of the night confirmed his fears, and it was with a face almost as pale as death that he entered the cabin.

“Lieutenant Horton,” the admiral said, “you are accused of having assisted in the escape of the pilot, who was our prisoner on board this ship.  You are further accused of releasing him with the special purpose that the plans which General Wolfe had laid, to obtain information, might be thwarted.”

“Who accuses me?” Richard Horton asked.  “Captain Walsham is my enemy.  He has for years intrigued against me, and sought to do me harm.  He was the companion of smugglers, and was captured by the Thetis, and had the choice of being sent to prison, and tried for his share in the killing of some of the coast guards, or of going before the mast.  I was a lieutenant in the Thetis at the time, and I suppose, because I did not then interfere on his behalf, he has now trumped up this accusation against me, an accusation I defy him to prove.”

“You are mistaken, Lieutenant Horton,” the admiral said.  “Captain Walsham is not your accuser.  Nay, more, he has himself committed a grave dereliction of duty in trying to screen you, and by endeavouring to destroy the principal evidence against you.  Mr. Middleton overheard a conversation between the Canadian pilot and the French general, and the former described how he had been liberated by an English officer, who assisted him to escape by a rope from the porthole in his cabin.”