Explore "A Volunteer with Pike" by Robert Ames Bennet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Delighted as I should have been, and was, to receive such a missive from my lady, its effect was to rouse in me all the greater longing to see her and win from her dear lips the admission that she loved me. In this thought I now forgot all else. Even the demand of patriotism that I should exert every effort on behalf of my country found me deaf.
I stilled my conscience with the argument that if I, the accredited spy, should devote my whole effort to a personal affair, it would tend to divert attention from the splendid work of Pike. Every day saw important additions to his notes and memoranda, and he had already hit upon the ingenious plan of securing the notes in tight rolls inside waxed wrappings and packing them down into the barrel of one of the muskets of the men, who were quartered in the same building as ourselves. As the gun's muzzle was of course kept plugged with its tampion, there was no danger of discovery, and with five more barrels to fill, we felt that whenever the Governor-General chose to release the Lieutenant and his men, they would be able to march out of the territories of His Most Catholic Majesty fairly _loaded_ with information against the tyrant.