They were suffering the pangs of excessive hunger and thirst now, and gnawing roots and twigs by way of appeasing the terrible craving. It was obvious to Agatha that this night must make an end of her attempt in one way or another. She must reach the Confederate lines before the coming of another day, or both she and her companion must perish of hunger, or surrender themselves and be hanged. She suggested this thought to Martha, whose only answer was:
"Anyhow, you"se got your pistol, Miss Agatha."
There were still two miles or more to go before reaching the little patch of briars and young chestnut-trees just in front of the Fairfax Court-house village, which was Agatha"s objective. During her peddling trips, Martha had learned that Federal sharpshooters were thrown into this thicket every night, usually between midnight and morning, for the purpose of annoying the Confederate pickets, stationed not fifty yards away. She had learned, too, that nearly every morning, about daylight, the Confederates were accustomed to rid themselves of the annoyance by sending out a cavalry force to charge the thicket and clear it of its occupants. It was Agatha"s plan to hide herself and her maid there, and be captured by Stuart"s men when they should come.
But she could not enter the bushes until the sharpshooters should be in position. Otherwise they would be sure to discover her while placing themselves. As soon as the riflemen had crept to their posts, Agatha, favoured by the unusual darkness of a thickly clouded night, crept to a hiding-place just in rear of the men. There she and Martha lay upon the ground during long hours, well-nigh famished, and suffering severely from cold, for the autumn was now well advanced.
Unfortunately for Agatha"s plan, the Confederates had adopted new methods for this night. Instead of ordering cavalry to clear the thicket, they had decided to clear it with canister. Accordingly, a battery of artillery had been ordered to the front, and bivouacked half a mile in rear of Fairfax Court-house. Thence just before daylight two guns had been dragged forward by prolonge ropes, and stationed under the trees of a little grove about fifty yards in front of the cover from which the Federal sharpshooters were occasionally firing.
Just at dawn, these two guns suddenly and furiously opened upon the bushes with canister in double charges.
The effect was terrific. The bushes were mown down as with a scythe, and it seemed impossible to the two women that any human being should survive the iron hailstorm for a single minute. The sharpshooters scurried away precipitately, one of them actually stumbling over Agatha"s prostrate form, which he probably took to be that of some comrade slain. But Agatha and her maid remained, and the fearful fire continued. They remained because there was nothing else for them to do.
They could not retreat. They could not surrender. They were starving.
They must go forward or die.
Then the courage and daring of her race came to Agatha"s soul, and she resolved to make a last desperate attempt to save herself, not by running away from the fire,--which would be worse than useless,--but by running into it. The danger in doing this was scarcely greater, in fact, though it seemed so, than that involved in lying still, but it requires an extraordinary courage for one unarmed and not inspired by the desperate all-daring spirit of battle, to rush upon guns that are belching canister in half-gallon charges, at the rate of three or four times a minute.
The sharpshooters were completely gone now, and nothing lay between the young woman and her friends except a canister-swept open s.p.a.ce fifty yards in width. This the heroic girl--baffled of all other resource--determined to dare. Directing Martha to follow her closely, she rose and in the gray of the dawn ran like a deer toward the bellowing guns. Fortunately, some one at the guns caught sight of the fleet-footed pair when they had covered about half the distance, and, in the increasing light, saw them to be women. Instantly the order, "Cease firing!" was given, and the clamorous cannon were hushed, but a heavy musketry fire from the enemy broke forth just as Agatha and her maid fell exhausted between the guns. A voice of command rang out:
"Pick up those women, quick, and carry them out of the fire!" Half a dozen of the men responded, and strong arms carried the nearly lifeless women to a small depression just in rear, where they were screened from the now slowly slackening shower of bullets.
When the fire had completely ceased, Captain Baillie Pegram ordered his guns, "By hand to the rear," and rode back to inquire concerning his captives. It was then that he discovered for the first time who the fugitives were, and the horror with which he realised what he supposed to be the situation, set him reeling in his saddle.
He had heard nothing of Agatha"s mission to the north, of course. He now knew only that she had been hiding within the enemy"s lines, and only one interpretation of that fact seemed possible. Agatha Ronald--the woman he loved, the woman upon whose integrity and Virginianism he would have staked his life without a second thought--had turned traitor! He did not pause to ask himself how, in such a case, she had come to be in the thicket among the sharpshooters. He was too greatly stunned to think of that, or otherwise to reason clearly.
Nor did he question her, except to ask if she or her maid had been wounded, and when she a.s.sured him of their safety, he said:
"I don"t know whether to thank G.o.d for that or not. It might have been better, perhaps, if both had fallen."
Agatha heard the remark, and understood in part at least the thought that lay behind it. But she did not reply. She only said, feebly:
"We are starving."
"Bring two horses, quickly," Baillie commanded. "Lieutenant Mills, take the guns back to the bivouac. Our work here is done."
Then turning to Agatha, he explained:
"We have no rations here; can you manage to ride as far as our bivouac?
It is only half a mile away, and we"ll find something to eat there."
Agatha"s exhaustion was so great that she could scarcely sit up, but she summoned all her resolution and managed to hold herself in place on the McClellan saddle which alone was available for her use. Martha was carried by the men on an improvised litter.
At the bivouac, no food was found except a pone or two of coa.r.s.e corn bread and a few slices of uncooked bacon. But the delicate girl and her maid devoured these almost greedily, eating the bacon raw in soldier fashion, for, of course, no fires were allowed upon the picket-line.
Food and rest quickly revived Agatha, and Baillie remembered certain very peremptory orders he had received as to his course of procedure should "any woman whatever" come into his lines.
"I must escort you presently to a safer place than this," he said.
"Am I to go under _compulsion_, Captain Pegram," the girl asked, "or of my own _accord_?"
"With that," he answered, "I am afraid I have nothing to do. My sole concern is to take you out of danger. It is not my business to ask you questions as to how you have come into danger in a way so peculiar."
"And yet," she replied, "that is a matter that I suppose requires _inquiry_, and I am ready for the _ordeal_."
The moment she spoke that word, which was the fourth in the series that Stuart had given her, and the one he had selected as a test for this day, Baillie Pegram flinched as if he had been struck, while his face turned white. Hoping that her use of the word had been accidental, or that the emphasis she had placed upon it had been unintended, he asked:
"What did you say?"
"I said," she responded, very deliberately, "that I am ready for the _ordeal_."
The look of consternation on Baillie"s face deepened. Without replying, he walked away in an agitation of mind which he felt must be hidden from others at all costs. Pacing back and forth under screen of some bushes, he tried to think the matter out. Under his orders, he must arrest Agatha and take her to Stuart, who had been more than usually anxious, as Baillie knew, to capture this particular prisoner. But to do that, he felt, must mean Agatha"s disgrace and shameful death, and the staining of an ancient and honoured name. Yet what else could he do?
"Would to G.o.d!" he exclaimed, under his breath, "that my canister had done its work better!"
Then he fell into silence again, questioning himself in the vain hope of finding a way through the blind wall of circ.u.mstances.
"Agatha," he thought, "has been with the enemy, and has been trying to get back again in order to render them some further traitorous service.
Stuart has obviously learned all about the conspiracy in which she had been engaged. That is why he has been so eager for her arrest. That is how he knew what signal-words she would use in her endeavour to find some fellow conspirator among us. But why did she use the word to me.
Surely the conspiracy cannot have become so wide-spread among us that she deemed _me_ a person likely to be engaged in it. Perhaps she spoke for other ears than mine, hoping to find a traitor among those who stood by.
"And the worst of it is that I still love her. Knowing her treachery and her shame, I still cannot change my att.i.tude of mind. What shall I do? I could turn traitor for her sake. I could manage to secure her escape, and then give myself up, confess my crime, and accept the shameful death that it would merit."
For the s.p.a.ce of a minute he lingered over this idea of supreme self-sacrifice with which the devil seemed to be luring him to destruction. Then he cast it aside, and reproached himself for having let it enter his mind.
"No love is worth a man"s honour," he thought. "A better way would be to kill her myself, and then commit suicide. No, not that. Suicide is the coward"s way out; and killing her would only reveal and emphasise her crime."
Just then one of his men approached him, and announced that orders had come for the battery"s return to its camp. Baillie walked back to the bivouac, and said to his lieutenant:
"Take command and march to the camp at once. I have some personal orders to execute."
With that prompt.i.tude which all men serving under Stuart learned to regard as one of the cardinal virtues, the lieutenant had the battery mounted and in motion within a few minutes. Not until it had made the turn in the road did Baillie approach Agatha. Then he faced her, and staring with strained and bloodshot eyes into her face, he abruptly said:
"I love you, Agatha Ronald. In spite of what you have done, that fact remains. I love you!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""_I love you, Agatha Ronald_""]
"This is neither the time nor place in which to tell me so," she interrupted. Then, after a brief moment of hesitation, she broke down and burst into tears. It was only a very few moments before she controlled herself, and forced herself to speak clearly, though she did so with manifest difficulty.
"Please forget what you have just said," she began. "I realise your position. I understand. I think I know what you have been thinking. You have contemplated a crime for my sake,--the highest crime of all. For my sake you have been tempted to sacrifice not only your life--which to a brave man means little--but your honour, which is more precious to a brave man than all else in the world. Tell me, please, and tell me quickly, that you have put that temptation aside--that you have utterly repudiated the horrible thought."
"I have done so certainly," he replied, in a hard voice. "But why do you care so much for that?"
"Why? Because your honour--all honour--is precious to me, and I could not respect you if you had consented to the thought of dishonour even in your mind. I should loathe and detest your soul if for my sake or any sake you could have done that. No, don"t interrupt me, please," seeing that he was trying to speak, "let me finish. I, too, am under orders, one of which is to keep my lips sealed. But under such circ.u.mstances as these I may disobey my orders without dishonour. I am not a soldier.
Let me tell you a little, then, so that you may not suffer on my account. No harm will come to me when you take me, as you must, to General Stuart. I am here by his own orders, and I was over there,"
motioning toward the enemy"s lines, "with his full knowledge and consent. There. That is all I may tell you."
The strong man turned deathly pale under the shock of the relief that the young woman"s words brought to his mind. For a moment Agatha thought that he would fall, but recovering himself, he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Thank G.o.d!"
and those were the only words he spoke for a s.p.a.ce.