The scene within the great fore-room of the house had been shifted, too.
A sentry was pacing back and forth before the door--a Hessian grenadier by the size and shako of him; and when the two trooper bailiffs thrust me in, and I had winked and blinked my eyes accustomed to the candle-light, I saw the table had been swept of its bottles and gla.s.ses, and around it, sitting as in council, were some half-score officers of the British light-horse with their colonel at the head.
As it chanced, this was my first sight near at hand Of that British commander whose name in after years the patriot mothers spoke to fright their children. He did not look a monster. As I recall him now, he was a short, square-bodied man, younger by some years than myself, and yet with an old campaigner"s head well set upon aggressive shoulders. His eyes were black and ferrety; and his face, well seasoned by the Carolina sun, was swart as any Arab"s. A man, I thought, who could be gentle-harsh or harsh-revengeful, as the mood should prompt; who could make well-turned courtier compliments to a lady and d.a.m.n a trooper in the self-same breath.
This was that Colonel Banastre Tarleton who gave no quarter to surrendered men; and when I looked into the sloe-black eyes I saw in them for me a waiting gibbet.
"So!" he rapped out, when I was haled before him. "You"re the spying rebel captain, eh? Are you alive enough to hang?"
His lack of courtesy rasped so sorely that I must needs give place to wrath and answer sharply that there was small doubt of it, since I could stand and curse him.
He scowled at that and cursed me back again as heartily as any fishwife. Then suddenly he changed his tune.
"They tell me you were in the service once and left it honorably. I am loath to hang a man who has worn the colors. Would it please you best to die a soldier"s death, Captain Ireton?"
I said it would, most surely.
He said I should have the boon if I would tell him what an officer on the Baron de Kalb"s staff should know: the strength of the Continentals, the general"s designs and dispositions, and I know not what besides. I think it was my laugh that made him stop short and d.a.m.n me roundly in the midst.
"By G.o.d, I"ll make you laugh another tune!" he swore. "You rebels are all of a piece, and clemency is wasted on you!"
"Your mercy comes too dear; you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton. If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would be too good for me."
"If that is your last word--But stay; I"ll give you an hour to think it over."
"It needs not an hour nor a minute," I replied. "If I knew aught about the Continental army--which I do not--I"d see you hanged in your own stirrup-leather before I"d tell you, Colonel Tarleton. Moreover, I marvel greatly--"
"At what?" he cut in rudely.
"At your informant"s lack of invention. He might have brought me straight from General Washington"s headquarters while he was about it.
"Twould be no greater lie than that he told you."
He heard me through, then fell to cursing me afresh, and would be sending an aide-de-camp hot-foot for Falconnet.
While the messenger was going and coming there was a chance for me to look around like a poor trapped animal in a pitfall, loath to die without a struggle, yet seeing not how any less inglorious end should offer. The eye-search went for little of encouragement; there was no chance either to fight or fly. But apart from this, the probing of the shadows revealed a thing that set me suddenly in a fever, first of rage, and then of apprehension.
As I have said, this gathering-room of our old house was in size like an ancient banquet hall. It had a gable to itself in breadth and height, and at the farther end there was a flight of some few steps to reach the older portion of the house beyond. The upper end of this low stair pierced the thick wall of the older house, and in the shadows of the niche thus formed I saw my lady Margery.
She was standing as one who looks and listens; and my rage-fit blazed out upon the descrying of a shadowy figure of a man behind her; a man I guessed in jealous wrath to be the baronet--a reasonless suspicion, since the volunteer captain would certainly have made his presence known when his colonel had called for him. But while my heart was yet afire my lady moved aside as if to have a better sight of us below; and then I saw it was the priest behind her.
While I was watching her, and we were waiting yet upon the aide-de-camp"s return, there was a stir without, and when it reached the door the sentry challenged. Some confab followed, and I overheard enough to tell me that a scouting party had come in, bringing a prisoner. The colonel bade me stand aside, and pa.s.sed the word to fetch the prisoner before him. When the thing was done I set my teeth upon a groan. For it was Richard Jennifer.
Luckily, he did not single me out among the bystanders, being fresh come from the night without to the glare of candle-light within; and while the swart-faced colonel plied him with questions I had a chance to look him up and down. Though his arm was still in its sling, he was seemingly the better of his wound. There was a glow of health and strength returning in cheek and eye, and I thought him handsomer than ever what time he stood forth boldly and fronted down the bullying colonel.
Knowing the Jennifer stock and its fine scorn of subterfuge, I feared it would go hard with Richard; and so, indeed, it had gone, lacking a word in season from an enemy. When Tarleton would have made him choose between the taking of the king"s oath and captivity in the hulks at Charleston, a burly Hessian captain at the table spoke the word in season.
"_Verdammt!_ mine Colonel; I vill know dis Mr. Yennifer. He is a prave yoong schalavags, and he is not gone out mit der rebels. Give him to me for mine plunders."
The colonel laughed and showed his teeth. Having one man to hang he could afford to be lenient with another.
"What will you do with him, Captain Lauswoulter? By the look of him he"d make but indifferent sausage-meat."
"Vat shall I do mit him? I shall make him mine best bows and send him home, py Gott! Ve did had some liddle troubles mit der cards, and ven mine foot was slipped on dis _verdammt_ grease-gra.s.s, he did not run me t"rough so like he might."
"Oh; an affair of honor? Well, we"ll count that in his favor. Take him away, Trelawny, and quarter yourself and twenty men upon him at Jennifer House. You have your parole, Mr. Jennifer; but by the Lord, if you break it by so much as a wink or a nod, Trelawny will hang you to your own ridge-pole."
Given a hearing, Jennifer would have spoiled it all by swearing hotly he had given no parole, but at the word the colonel roared him down like a bull of Bashan, and in the hubbub my brave lad was hustled out.
Though I was full to bursting with my news there was nothing I could do; and when it was fairly over and he was gone, I was right glad he had not seen me. For I knew well his steel-true loyalty, and that at sight of me in trouble he would have lost his slender chance of guarded liberty, and with it my last hope of sending word across the mountains; though, as for that, the hope was well-nigh dead at any rate.
While Jennifer"s guard and quota were mounting at the door the aide-de-camp returned, and that without the baronet. I caught but here and there a word of his report; enough to gather that the captain-knight was not yet in from posting out the sentries.
I made no doubt his absence was designed. He would have Margery believe that he had spared me honorably as an enemy wounded, and so had left me to the tender mercies of his colonel, well a.s.sured that Tarleton would not spare me. And this the colonel did not mean to do, as I was now to hear in brief.
"You put a bold front on, Captain Ireton, but "tis to no purpose, this time," he began. ""Tis charged against you that you rode here from the baron"s camp with your commission in your pocket, and came and went within our lines like any other spy. You are a soldier, sir, and you know that"s hanging. Yet I will hear you if you"ve anything to say."
I made so sure that I should hang in any case that it seemed foolish to answer, and so I saved my breath. Withal he was the terror of our Southland, this tyrant colonel gave me time to consider; and while he waited, grim and silent, the candles on the table guttered and ran down, and the dim light failed till I could no longer see the face of her I loved framed in the archway of the stair.
I thought it hard that I had seen my last of her sweet face thus through thickening shadows, as a dream might fade. Nevertheless, I would be glad that I had seen her thus, since otherwise, I thought, I must have gone without this last or any other sight of her.
It was while I was still straining my eyes for one more glimpse of her, and while the court room silence deepened dense upon us like the shadows, that Colonel Tarleton signed to those who guarded me. A hand was laid upon my shoulder, but when I would have turned to go with them a woman"s cry cut sharp into the stillness. Then, before any one could say a word or think a thought, my dauntless little lady stood beside me, her eyes alight and all her glorious beauty heightened in a blaze of generous emotion.
"For shame! Colonel Tarleton," she cried. "Do you come thus into my father"s house and take a wounded guest and hang him? You say he is a spy, but that he can not be, for he has lain abed in this same house a month or more. You shall not hang him!"
At this there was a mighty stir about the table, as you may guess; and some would smile, and some would snuff the candles for a better sight of her sweet face. And through it all, the while my heart went near to bursting at this fresh proof of her most fearless loyalty, I ground my teeth in wrath that all those men should look their fill and say by wink and nod and covert smile that this were somewhat more than hostess loyalty.
But it was the colonel"s mocking smile that lashed me sharpest; his smile and what he said; and yet not that so much as what he left to be inferred.
"Ha! How is this, Mistress Margery? Do you keep open house for the king"s enemies? That spells treason, my dear young lady, and hath an ugly look for you, besides."
"It should have no look at all, save that of hospitality, sir," she countered, bravely. "Surely I may plead for justice to a wounded man who was, and is, my father"s guest?"
"And yet he is a spy, and spies must hang."
"He is no spy."
The colonel"s bow made but a mock of true politeness.
"You should not make me contradict a lady, Mistress Margery. "Tis evident you have not all his confidence. He was captured red-handed in the act at yonder window, listening to that which he may never know and live to prate about. Besides, he killed a sentry for his chance to listen, and for that I"d hang him if he were my own father"s guest."
So much he said as mild as if he had not left his reading of the law to figure in our annals as King George"s butcher. Then in a sudden gust of rage he turned upon the priest, cursing him brutally and threatening vengeance for his bringing of the lady to the court room.
My brave one stood a moment, shocked as she had warrant for. Then, before the priest or I or any one could stop her, she ran to throw herself upon her knees at Colonel Tarleton"s feet--to kneel and plead for me as I would gladly have died a thousand deaths rather than have her plead; for life for me, or if not that, at least for some brief respite that the priest might shrive me.
And in the end she won the respite, though I did think it far too dearly bought. When he granted it the colonel lifted her and took her hand, bowing low over it with courtly deference. "For your sake, Mistress Margery, it shall be put off till morning," he said; then gave the order: At dawn they would march me out and hang me, and I would best be ready. For later than the sunrise of a new day the king himself might not delay my taking off.
"You know too much, my cursing Captain," was his parting word. "Were it not for Mistress Margery and my promise, you should not keep the breath to tell it over night."