"But, Mr Lincoln, there is evidence enough against them without me," I cried, all a-sweat again.
"Well, perhaps there may be, but a little more won't hurt, if it makes certain of them. After all, that was why you sailed with them, why you risked your hide as an agent, wasn't it?" He was smiling down at me. "To bring them to book, to strike another blow against the slave trade?"
"Oh, of course, to be sure, but … well … er …"
"You're perhaps reluctant to go back to New Orleans because you feel it may be unsafe for you, after … recent events?."
"Exactly! You're absolutely right, sir …"
"Have no fear of that," says he. "No one is going to connect the eminently respectable Lieutenant Comber, R.N., with all those goings on far away up the river. That was the work of some scoundrel called Arnold FitzPrescott or Prescott FitzArnold or someone. And if anyone did connect them, I can assure you there would be no lack of influence working on your behalf to keep you out of trouble — there are enough sympathetic ears in high places in the federal government to see to that at need. Provided, of course, that you are doing your duty by that same government — and, incidentally, by your own."
By George, this was desperate; I had to talk him out of it somehow, without raising more suspicions of me than he had already.
"Even so, Mr Lincoln, I'm sure it would be best if I could proceed home directly. The case against the Balliol College can surely be proved without my help."
"Well, I daresay, but that's not the point any longer. This is quite a delicate situation, you know. See here: I've stood up for you tonight — and for that girl — helped you both to break my country's laws, and broken 'em myself, in a just, fine cause which I believe to be in my country's true interest. And if it ever got out — which I pray to the Lord it won't — there is enough antislavery sentiment in our federal government to ensure that it would all be winked at, and no more said. But they're not going to wink if I, a Congressman, help a witness in an important case to avoid his duty. That's why I'm bound to send you back to Orleans. Believe me, you have nothing to fear there — you can say your piece in the witness box, and then go home as fast as my distant influence and that of grateful friends will send you."
Aye, and wait till the Balliol College scoundrels denounce me as Flashman, their fellow-slaver, posing as a dead man, thinks I; we'll see how much influence is exerted on my behalf then. I made a last effort.
"Mr Lincoln," says I, "believe me that nothing would give me more satisfaction than to accede to your request —"
"Capital," says he, "because that's what you're going to do." He regarded me quizzically. "Why you should be reluctant beats me-I begin to wonder if there's an outraged husband waiting for you in Orleans, or something of that order. If so, tell him to go to blazes — I daresay you've done that before."
There was one I could cheerfully have consigned to blazes, as I lay there going hot and cold, chewing my nether lip. I have damnable luck, truly — how many poor devils have had to try and wriggle clear in arguments with folk like Lincoln and Bismarck? He had me with my short hairs fast in the mangle, and I daren't protest any longer. What the devil was I to say, with those dark caverns of eyes smiling down at me?
"I doubt if it's anything as simple as an outraged husband, though," says he. "However, you don't choose to tell me, and I don't choose to press you. I owe you that much, on behalf of Randolph and the girl Cassy — in return you owe it to me to go to Orleans." He stood beside the bed, that odd quirk to his mouth, watching me. "Come, Mr Comber, it isn't very much, after all — and it's in the cause dear to your heart, remember."
There was nothing else for it, and I tried to keep the despair out of my voice as I agreed.
"So that's settled," says he cheerily. "You can go south again, but by a safe eastern route. I'll speak to Judge Payne, and see that a hint reaches Governor Bebb. We'll arrange for a U.S. marshal to accompany you. You'll be safe that way, and you won't run the risk of straying again." He was positively benign, the long villain; I could have sworn he was enjoying himself. "The trouble with you jolly tars is you don't seem to find your way on land any too well."
He talked a little more, and then picked up his hat, shook hands, and went over to the door.
"Good luck in New Orleans, Mr Comber — or whatever your name is. In the unlikely event that we ever meet again, try and find out for me what club-hauling is, won't you?" He pulled on his gloves. "And God bless you for what you did for that girl."
It was some consolation to think that I'd fooled Mr Lincoln some of the time, at least; he believed I had a spark of decency, apparently. So I thought it best to respond with a few modest and manly phrases about saving an innocent soul from bondage, but he interrupted me with his hand on the door.
"Keep it for the recording angel," says he. "I've a feeling you're going to need it."
And then he was gone, and I was not to see him again until that fateful night fifteen years later when, as President of the United States, he bribed and coerced me into ruining my military reputation (which mattered something) and risking my neck (which mattered a great deal) in order to save his Union from disaster (which didn't matter at all — not to me, anyway). But that's another tale, for another day.
That night in Portsmouth he left me in a fine frustrated fury. After all my struggling and running and ingenuity, I was going to be shipped back to New Orleans — and inevitably a prison cell, or worse. I couldn't even run any more, what with my behind laid open, and there would be a marshal to see that I got safe into the clutches of the American Navy, too. By George, I was angry; I could have broken Lincoln's long neck for him. You'd have thought, after all I'd done for his precious abolitionist cause — albeit against my will and better judgment — that he'd have had the decency to let me go my ways, and given me a pound or two out of the poor box to boot. But politicians are all the same; there's no trusting them whatever, not only because they're knaves, but because they're even more inconsistent than women. Selfish brutes, too.
At least, though, I was still alive, and fairly full of sin and impudence, when I might easily have been dead or chained on an Alabama plantation, or rotting at the bottom of the Mississippi or the Ohio. For the future, although it looked pretty horrid, I would just have to wait and see, and take my chance — if it came.
I was allowed up next day, and sat in state on the edge of a chair, with my wounded cheek over the edge, and various people came to see me — abolitionists, of course, who wanted to shake the hero's hand, and in the case of the older ladies of the community, to kiss his weathered brow. They came secretly, because like all towns thereabouts Portsmouth was split between pro-slavers and abolitionists, and my whereabouts was known only to a safe few. They brought me gingerbread and good wishes, and one of them said I was a saint; normally I'd have basked in it, as I'd done on other occasions, but the thought of Orleans took the fun out of it.
One of my visitors I even assailed with a thrown boot; he was a small boy, I suspect a child of the house, who came in when I was alone and asked: "Is it right you got shot up the ass, mister? Say, can I see?" I missed him, unfortunately.