I hope you will honor me by taking up your abode in my house during your stay here; but may I ask you not to allow my wife, who is inquisitive by nature, to see the list with which I furnish you?
Women are ever meddling in matters which concern them not." "I understand," the officer said with a wink, "there are names on the list of which your wife would not approve.

I have known the same thing happen before.

But never fear, the list shall be kept safe; and, indeed, it were better that nothing were said of my business in the town, for if this get abroad, some of those whose conscience may tell them that they will be likely to be chosen for service might very well slip off and be out of the way until they hear that I and my men have left." Two days later, when, as the evening was falling, Jack Stilwell was walking up from the wharf, where he had been watching the unlading of the vessel in which he was to sail, he came upon a group of four or five soldiers standing at a corner.

Then a voice, which he recognized as that of the foreman, Richard Carson, said: "That is your man, officer;" and the soldiers made a sudden rush upon him.
Taken by surprise he nevertheless struggled desperately, but a heavy blow with a staff fell on the back of his head, and for a time he knew nothing more.

When he recovered his consciousness he was lying almost in complete darkness, but by the faint gleam of the lantern he discovered that he was in the hold of a ship.