Miss Harper"s keen eyes glittered. "You northerners hardly realize our feelings concerning the imprisonment of women, I think."
"My dear madam, you don"t realize ours. We don"t want to imprison women."
So there came a silence, and then a gay laugh as three of us at once asked if he had ever heard of Lieutenant Durand. "Durand!" he cried, and looked squarely around at me. I lifted the c.o.c.ked revolver, but he kept his fine eyes on mine and I rubbed my ear with my wrist. "What?" he said, "an elegant, Creole-seeming young fellow, very handsome? Why, that fellow saved my life this very afternoon."
The young ladies were in rapture. Miss Harper asked how he had done it.
"If I tell you that," said the Captain, "you won"t like me the least bit."
Whereat Cecile replied, "Ah--well! we cou"n" like you the leaz bit any-"ow."
"I suppose that"s so," laughed the officer. "I"ll tell you how it was. My guard were just about to hang me for saying I thought we had a right to make soldiers of the darkies, when your friend came galloping along, saw the thing, and rushed in and cut the halter with his sword. And when they demanded to know who and what he was, he told them Durand, and that they"d hear it again, for he should report them."
"Oh, sir," cried Estelle, whose eyes, brows, lashes and hair were all of the same luminous red-brown, and in whose cheeks the rose seemed always to burn through the olive, "how can you and your people seek to kill such men as that?"
"Such as which?" asked the Yankee, with a twinkle. "There were two kinds."
"But, o-oh! sir!" exclaimed the trio, when Miss Harper waved them to forbear. There was yet some daylight left as we trundled into a broad highroad and turned northward. We pa.s.sed a picket guard and then a whole regiment of cavalry going into camp. They scrambled to the sides of the road and stormed us with questions, chaffing us cruelly when I remained silent. "Lawd! look a" this-yeh Yank a-bringin" in ow desertehs!" "Hey, you big Yank, you jest let that po" little conscrip" go!"
Headquarters, we heard from a courier who said he was the third sent out to find us, were at the "Sessions house" two miles further on. We sent him galloping back there, and after a while here came Major Harper and three or four others of the staff, including Harry Helm. What a flood of mirthful compliment there was at sight of us and our captive; Harry was positively silly. In the series of introductions that followed he was left paired with Camille, and I said things to myself. Major Harper rode by the prisoner. "Well, Captain," he said, "you"ve had some experiences since you left me this morning. Don"t you want to give us your parole this time, temporarily, for an hour or so, and be more comfortable?"
"Thank you, Major," the Federal affably replied, "that would be a great relief to this most extraordinary youngster that I"ve brought with me." He gave it and we turned into a lofty grove whitened with our headquarters tents.
"Smith," said the Major, "your part is done, and well done. You needn"t report to me again to-night; the General wishes to see you a moment. Captain, will you go with this young man to General Austin"s tent?"
XII
IN THE GENERAL"S TENT
I went to Gholson. He told me I was relieved of my captive and bade me go care for my horse and return in half an hour. In going I pa.s.sed close by the Sessions plantation house. Every door and window was thrown wide to the night air, and preparations were in progress for a dance; and as I returned, a slave boy ran across my path, toward the house, bearing a flaming pine torch and followed by two ambulances filled with daughters of the neighborhood in clouds of white gauze. I found the General in fatigue dress. His new finery hung on the tent-pole at his back. Old Dismukes, the bull-necked colonel of the Arkansans, lounged on a camp-cot. Both smoked cigars.
The General asked me a number of idle questions and then said my prisoner had called me a good soldier. Old Dismukes smiled so broadly that I grew hot, believing the Yankee had told them of my tears.
"Smith," said the Colonel, and then smoked and smiled again till my brow beaded,--"tired?"
"No, sir."
"That"s a lie," he pleasantly remarked, and lay back, enjoying my silent wrath. "Send him, General," he added, "he"s your man."
The General looked at me between puffs of his cigar. "I hear you"ve ridden over fifty miles to-day."
"Yes, General." "If I give you a good fresh horse can you go twenty-three miles more by midnight?"
"Yes, General, if I don"t have to save the horse."
"The horse may have to save you," drawled the Arkansan.
"I think you know Lieutenant Durand?" asked the General, with a quizzical eye.
"Slightly."
"Well, Smith, on his suggestion approved by Major Harper, I have detailed another clerk to the Major."
Rills of perspiration tickled my back like flies. "Can"t one man do the work?"
"Yes, the new man is detailed in your place."
I almost leaped from the ground in consternation. My whole frame throbbed, my mouth fell open, my tongue was tied.
The man who had got me into this thing--this barrel--lifted the tent-flap. "Mr. Gholson," said the General, "write an order a.s.signing Smith to Ferry"s scouts."
The flap fell again and my panic was turned into a joy qualified only by a reduced esteem for my general as a judge of character.
Old Dismukes rose. "Good-night. Shall I send this boy that Yankee"s horse?"
"Oh I was forgetting that; yes, do!"
At the door the Colonel gave me a last look. "Good-night, Legs."
I dared not retort, but I looked so hard at his paunch that the General smiled. Then he asked me if I knew where we were then camped, and I said we were on the Meadville and Fayette road, near Franklin, twenty miles southeast of Fayette and--
"That will do. Now, beyond Fayette, about seven miles north, there"s a place--"
"Clifton?"
"Don"t interrupt me, Smith. Yes, Clifton. You"re not to reach there to-night--"
"I can do it, General."
"You can do as you"re told; understand?" I understood.
"The enemy are in Fayette to-night," he continued. "So when you get half-way to Fayette, just across Morgan"s Creek, you"ll take a dim fork on the right running north along the creek. Ever travel by the stars?"
I began to tell how well I knew the stars, but he stopped me. "Yes; well, keep straight north till you strike the road running east and west between Fayette and Union Church. You"ll find there a little polling-place called Wiggins. Turn west, toward Fayette, and on the north side of the main road, opposite the blacksmith"s shop, you"ll come to a small--"
"I see."
"What do you see?" His frown scared me to my finger-tips.
"Why, I suppose I"m to find there a road down Cole"s Creek to Clifton."
"Smith, if you interrupt me again, sir, you"ll find the road back to your regiment. Opposite that blacksmith"s shop you"ll see a white cottage. There"s a young lady stopping there to-night, a stranger, a traveller. The old lady who lives there has taken her in at my request. See that the young lady gets this envelope. It"s no great matter, merely a pa.s.s through our lines; but it"s your ostensible business till you get there; understand?"
I thought I did until I glanced at the superscription: Miss Coralie Rothvelt.