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- 6837
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.594Z
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- 6772
- text
- the rest, he heard that there were some forty or more Americans,
privates, confined on the cliff. Upon this, inventing a pretence, he
turned back, loitering around the walls for any chance glimpse of the
captives. Presently, while looking up at a grated embrasure in the
tower, he started at a voice from it familiarly hailing him:
“Potter, is that you? In God’s name how came you here?”
At these words, a sentry below had his eye on our astonished
adventurer. Bringing his piece to bear, he bade him stand. Next moment
Israel was under arrest. Being brought into the presence of the forty
prisoners, where they lay in litters of mouldy straw, strewn with
gnawed bones, as in a kennel, he recognized among them one Singles, now
Sergeant Singles, the man who, upon our hero’s return home from his
last Cape Horn voyage, he had found wedded to his mountain Jenny.
Instantly a rush of emotions filled him. Not as when Damon found
Pythias. But far stranger, because very different. For not only had
this Singles been an alien to Israel (so far as actual intercourse
went), but impelled to it by instinct, Israel had all but detested him,
as a successful, and perhaps insidious rival. Nor was it altogether
unlikely that Singles had reciprocated the feeling. But now, as if the
Atlantic rolled, not between two continents, but two worlds—this, and
the next—these alien souls, oblivious to hate, melted down into one.
At such a juncture, it was hard to maintain a disguise, especially when
it involved the seeming rejection of advances like the Sergeant’s.
Still, converting his real amazement into affected surprise, Israel, in
presence of the sentries, declared to Singles that he (Singles) must
labor under some unaccountable delusion; for he (Potter) was no Yankee
rebel, thank Heaven, but a true man to his king; in short, an honest
Englishman, born in Kent, and now serving his country, and doing what
damage he might to her foes, by being first captain of a carronade on
board a letter of marque, that moment in the harbor.
For a moment the captive stood astounded, but observing Israel more
narrowly, detecting his latent look, and bethinking him of the useless
peril he had thoughtlessly caused to a countryman, no doubt unfortunate
as himself, Singles took his cue, and pretending sullenly to apologize
for his error, put on a disappointed and crest-fallen air.
Nevertheless, it was not without much difficulty, and after many
supplemental scrutinies and inquisitions from a board of officers
before whom he was subsequently brought, that our wanderer was finally
permitted to quit the cliff.
This luckless adventure not only nipped in the bud a little scheme he
had been revolving, for materially befriending Ethan Allen and his
comrades, but resulted in making his further stay at Falmouth perilous
in the extreme. And as if this were not enough, next day, while hanging
over the side, painting the hull, in trepidation of a visit from the
castle soldiers, rumor came to the ship that the man-of-war in the
haven purposed impressing one-third of the letter of marque’s crew;
though, indeed, the latter vessel was preparing for a second cruise.
Being on board a private armed ship, Israel had little dreamed of its
liability to the same governmental hardships with the meanest
merchantman. But the system of impressment is no respecter either of
pity or person.
His mind was soon determined. Unlike his shipmates, braving immediate
and lonely hazard, rather than wait for a collective and ultimate one,
he cunningly dropped himself overboard the same night, and after the
narrowest risk from the muskets of the man-of-war’s sentries (whose
gangways he had to pass), succeeded in swimming to shore, where he fell
exhausted, but recovering, fled inland, doubly hunted by the thought,
that whether as an Englishman, or whether as an American, he would, if
caught, be now equally subject to enslavement.
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