Our poor centinel, to whom the sight of this officer was not much
more welcome than the apparition, as he thought it, which he had
seen before, again related the dreadful story, and with many additions
of blood and fire; but he had the misfortune to gain no credit with
either of the last-mentioned persons: for the officer, though a very
religious man, was free from all terrors of this kind; besides, having
so lately left Jones in the condition we have seen, he had no
suspicion of his being dead. As for the landlady, though not over
religious, she had no kind of aversion to the doctrine of spirits; but
there was a circumstance in the tale which she well knew to be
false, as we shall inform the reader presently.
But whether Northerton was carried away in thunder or fire, or in
whatever other manner he was gone, it was now certain that his body
was no longer in custody. Upon this occasion the lieutenant formed a
conclusion not very different from what the serjeant is just mentioned
to have made before, and immediately ordered the centinel to be
taken prisoner. So that, by a strange reverse of fortune (though not
very uncommon in a military life), the guard became the guarded.
Chapter 15
The conclusion of the foregoing adventure
Besides the suspicion of sleep, the lieutenant harboured another and
worse doubt against the poor centinel, and this was, that of
treachery; for as he believed not one syllable of the apparition, so
he imagined the whole to be an invention formed only to impose upon
him, and that the fellow had in reality been bribed by Northerton to
let him escape.
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