Читать книгу The Carolinian онлайн

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Whilst still reading, Moultrie swore softly once or twice. When he had done, he came slowly back, his brow rumpled in thought. Silently he handed back the papers to the waiting Latimer, who had meanwhile taken a chair near the table in mid-apartment. Then, still in silence, the Colonel took up one from a bundle of pipes on that same table, and slowly filled it with leaf from a pewter box.

'Faith,' he grumbled at last, 'you don't lack evidence for your assumption. Nobody outside of the committee so much as suspected that you were here in April. God knows the place is crawling with spies. There was a fellow named Kirkland, serving in the militia, whom we suspect of acting as Lord William's agent with the back-country tories. We durstn't touch him until he was so imprudent as to desert, and come down to Charles Town with another rogue named Cheney. But before ever we can lay hands on him, Lord William puts him safely aboard a man-o'-war out there in the roads. Cheney was less lucky. We've got him. Though, gadslife, I don't know what we're to do with him, for unfortunately he isn't a deserter. But that he's a spy only a fool could doubt.'