Dear Mr. Deal:Colonel Gay has thought it necessary, for military reasons, to revoke my pass; and I shall, therefore, be obliged hereafter to communicate with you by letter only.I wish, if there are negroes enough remaining in the quarters, that you would start immediately a seedling orchard of white Rare-ripe peaches from my orchard here. I have permission to send the pits to you by the military post-rider who passes my house. I will send you twenty every day as my peaches ripen. Pleaseprepare for planting. I hope your rheumatism is better.Yours very truly,Evelyn Carryl.
Dear Mr. Deal:
Colonel Gay has thought it necessary, for military reasons, to revoke my pass; and I shall, therefore, be obliged hereafter to communicate with you by letter only.
I wish, if there are negroes enough remaining in the quarters, that you would start immediately a seedling orchard of white Rare-ripe peaches from my orchard here. I have permission to send the pits to you by the military post-rider who passes my house. I will send you twenty every day as my peaches ripen. Pleaseprepare for planting. I hope your rheumatism is better.
Yours very truly,
Evelyn Carryl.
The Messenger’s dark eyes lifted dreamily to the Colonel:
“You gave her permission to send the pits by your post-rider?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling; “but I always look overthemmyself. You know the wedding gown of the fairy princess was hidden in a grape seed.”
“You arequitesure about the pits?”
“Perfectly.”
“Oh! When does the next batch of twenty go?”
“In about an hour. Miss Carryl puts them in a bag and gives them to my messenger who brings them to me. Then I inspect every pit, tie up the bag, seal it, and give it to my messenger. When he takes the mail to the outposts he rides on for half a mile and leaves the sealed bag at Deal’s farm.”
“Does your messenger know what is in the bag?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
She nodded, amused, saying carelessly:
“Of course you trust your post-rider?”
“Absolutely.”
The Special Messenger swung her foot absently to and fro, and presently opened another letter:
Dear Mr. Deal:I am sending you twenty more peach pits for planting. What you write me about the bees is satisfactory. I have received the bees you sent. There is no reason why you should not make the exchange with Mr. Enderly, as it will benefit our hives as well as Mr. Enderly’s to cross his Golden Indias with my Blacks.
Dear Mr. Deal:
I am sending you twenty more peach pits for planting. What you write me about the bees is satisfactory. I have received the bees you sent. There is no reason why you should not make the exchange with Mr. Enderly, as it will benefit our hives as well as Mr. Enderly’s to cross his Golden Indias with my Blacks.
The Messenger studied the letter thoughtfully; askance, the officer watched the delicate play of expression on her absorbed young face, perhaps a trifle incredulous that so distractingly pretty a woman could be quite as intelligent as people believed.
She looked up at him quietly.
“So you gave Deal permission to send some bees to Miss Carryl and write her a letter?”
“Once. I had the letter brought to me and I sent her a copy. Here it is—the original.”
He produced Deal’s letter from the dispatch pouch, and the Messenger read:
Miss Evelyn Carryl,Osage Court House.Respected Miss:I send you the bees. I seen Mr. Enderly at Sandy River he says he is very wishful for to swap bees to cross the breed I says it shorely can be done if you say so I got the pits and am studyin’ how to plant. The fruit is a rottin’ can’t the Yankees at Osage buy some truck nohow off’n me? So no more with respect fromJohn Deal,Supt.
Miss Evelyn Carryl,Osage Court House.Respected Miss:
I send you the bees. I seen Mr. Enderly at Sandy River he says he is very wishful for to swap bees to cross the breed I says it shorely can be done if you say so I got the pits and am studyin’ how to plant. The fruit is a rottin’ can’t the Yankees at Osage buy some truck nohow off’n me? So no more with respect from
John Deal,
Supt.
“That seems rather harmless, doesn’t it?” asked the Colonel wearily.
“I don’t—know. IthinkI’ll take a look at John Deal’s beehives.”
“Hisbeehives!”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know—exactly. I was always fond of bees. They’re so useful”—she looked up artlessly—“so clever—quite wonderful, Colonel. Have you ever read anything about bees—how they live and conduct themselves?”
The Colonel eyed her narrowly; shelaughed, sprang up from the military chest, and handed back his letters.
“You have already formed your theory?” he inquired with a faintly patronizing air, under which keen disappointment betrayed itself where the grim, drooping mouth tightened.
“Yes, I have. There’s a link missing, but—I may find that before night. You can give me—howlong?”
“The Bucktails leave at nine. See here, Messenger! With all the civility and respect due you, I——”
“You are bitterly disappointed in me,” she finished coolly. “I don’t blame you, Colonel Gay.”
He was abashed at that, but unconvinced.
“Why do you suspect this Miss Carryl and this man, Deal, when I’ve showed you how impossible it is that they could send out information?”
“Somehow,” she said quietly, “theydosend it—if they are the only two people who have had passes, and who now are permitted to correspond.”
“But you saw the letters——”
“So did you, Colonel.”
“I did!” he said emphatically; “andthere’s nothing dangerous in them. As for the peach pits——”
“Oh, I’ll take your word for them, too,” she said, laughing. “When is your post-rider due?”
“In a few minutes, now.”
She began to pace backward and forward, the smile still lightly etched on her lips. The officer watched her; puckers of disappointed anxiety creased his forehead; he bit at his pipestem, and thought of the Bucktails. Certainly Stuart would hear of their going; surely before the northern reënforcements arrived the gray riders would come thundering into Osage Court House. Fire, pillage, countless stores wasted, trains destroyed, miles of railroads rendered useless. What, in Heaven’s name, could his superiors be thinking of, to run such risk with one of the bases of supplies? Somewhere—somewhere, not far from corps headquarters, sat incompetency enthroned—gross negligence—under a pair of starred shoulder straps. And, musing bitterly, he thought he knew to whom those shoulder straps belonged.
“The damn fool!” he muttered, biting at his pipe.
“Colonel,” said the Messenger cheerily, “I am going to take the mail to the outposts to-day.”
“As you like,” he said, without interest.
“I want, also, a pass for Miss Carryl.”
“To pass our lines?”
“To passout. She will not care to return.”
“Certainly,” he said with amiable curiosity.
He scratched off the order and she took it.
“Ask for anything you desire,” he said, smiling.
“Then may I have this tent to myself for a little while? And would you be kind enough to send for my saddlebags and my own horse.”
The Colonel went to the tent flap, spoke to the trooper on guard. When he came back he said that it was beginning to rain.
“Hard?” she asked, troubled.
“No; just a fine, warm drizzle. It won’t last.”
“All the better!” she cried, brightening; and it seemed to the young officer as though the sun had gleamed for an instant on the tent wall. But it was only the radiant charm of her, transfiguring, with its youthful brilliancy, the dull light in the tent; and, presently, theColonel went away, leaving her very busy with her saddlebags.
There was a cavalry trooper’s uniform in one bag; she undressed hurriedly and put it on. Over this she threw a long, blue army cloak, turned up the collar, and, twisting her hair tightly around her head, pulled over it the gray, slouch campaign hat, with its crossed sabres of gilt and its yellow braid.
It was a boyish-looking rider who mounted at the Colonel’s tent and went cantering away through the warm, misty rain, mail pouch and sabre flopping.
There was no need for her to inquire the way. She knew Waycross, the Carryl home, and John Deal’s farm as well as she knew her own home in Sandy River.
The drizzle had laid the dust and washed clean the roadside grass and bushes; birds called expectantly from fence and thorny thicket, as the sun whitened through the mist above; butterflies, clinging to dewy sprays, opened their brilliant wings in anticipation; swallows and martins were already soaring upward again; a clean, sweet, fragrant vapor rose from earth and shrub.
Ahead of her, back from the road, at theend of its private avenue of splendid oaks, an old house glimmered through the trees; and the Special Messenger’s eyes were fixed on it steadily as she rode.
Pillar, portico, and porch glistened white amid the leaves; Cherokee roses covered the gallery lattice; an old negro was pretending to mow the unkempt lawn with a sickle, but whenever the wet grass stuck to the blade he sat down to examine the landscape and shake his aged head at the futility of all things mundane. The clatter of the Special Messenger’s horse aroused him; at the same instant a graceful woman, dressed in black, came to the edge of the porch and stood there as though waiting.
The big gateway was open; under arched branches the Messenger galloped down the long drive and drew bridle, touching the brim of her slouch hat. And the Southern woman looked into the Messenger’s eyes without recognition.
Miss Carryl was fair, yellow-haired and blue-eyed—blonder for the dull contrast of the mourning she wore—and her voice was as colorless as her skin when she bade the trooper good afternoon.
All she could see of this cloaked cavalryman was two dark, youthful eyes above the upturned collar of the cloak, shadowed, too, by the wet hat brim, drooping under gilded crossed sabres.
“You are not the usual mail-carrier?” she asked languidly.
“No, ma’am”—in a nasal voice.
“Colonel Gay sent you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Carryl turned, lifted a small salt sack, and offered it to the Messenger, who leaned wide from her saddle and took it in one hand.
“You are to take this bag to the Deal farm. Colonel Gay has told you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. And there is no letter to-day. Will you have a few peaches to eat on the way? I always give the mail-carrier some of my peaches to eat.”
Miss Carryl lifted a big, blue china bowl full of superb, white, rare-ripe peaches, and, coming to the veranda’s edge, motioned the Messenger to open the saddlebags. Into it she poured a number of peaches.
“They are perfectly ripe,” she said; “I hope you will like them.”
“Thank’y, ma’am.”
“And, Soldier,” she turned to add with careless grace, “if you would be kind enough to drop the pits back into the saddlebag and give them to Mr. Deal he would be glad of them for planting.”
“Yes’m; I will——”
“How many peaches did I give you? Have you enough?”
“Plenty, ma’am; you gave me seven, ma’am.”
“Seven? Take two more—I insist—that makes nine, I think. Good day; and thank you.”
But the Messenger did not hear; there was something far more interesting to occupy her mind—a row of straw-thatched beehives under the fruit trees at the eastern end of the house.
From moment to moment, homing or outgoing bees sped like bullets across her line of vision; the hives were busy now that a gleam of pale sunshine lay across the grass. One bee, leaving the hive, came humming around the Cherokee roses. The Messenger saw the little insect alight and begin to scramble about, plundering the pollen-powdered blossom. The bee was a yellow one.
Suddenly the Messenger gathered bridle and touched her hat; and away she spurred, putting her horse to a dead run.
Passing the inner lines, she halted to give and receive the password, then tossed a bunch of letters to the corporal, and spurred forward. Halted by the outer pickets, she exchanged amenities again, rid herself of the remainder of the mail, and rode forward, loosening the revolver in her holster. Then she ate her first peach.
It was delicious—a delicate, dripping, snow-white pulp, stained with pink where the pit rested. There was nothing suspicious about that pit, or any of the others when she broke the fragrant fruit in halves and carefully investigated. Then she tore off the seal and opened the bag and examined each of the twenty dry pits within. Not one had been tampered with.
Her horse had been walking along the moist, fragrant road; a few moments later she passed the last cavalry picket, and at the same moment she caught sight of John Deal’s farm.
The house was neat and white and small; orchards stretched in every direction; a fewbeehives stood under the fruit trees near a well.
A big, good-humored looking man came out into the path as the Messenger drew bridle, greeted the horse with a caress and its rider with a pleasant salute.
“I’m very much obliged to you,” he said, taking the sack of pits. “I reckon we’re bound to have more fine weather. What’s this—some peach pits from Miss Carryl?”
“Nine,” nodded the Messenger.
“Nine! I’ll have nine fine young trees this time three years, I reckon. Thank you, suh. How’s things over to the Co’t House?”
“Troops arriving all the while,” said the Messenger carelessly.
“Comin’in?”
“Lots.”
“Sho! I heard they was sendin’ ’em East.”
“Oh, some. We’ve got to have elbow-room. Can’t pack two army corps into Osage Court House.”
“Two a’my co’ps, suh?”
“More or less.”
John Deal balanced the sack in the palm of one work-worn hand and looked hard at the Messenger. He could see only her eyes.
"'Turn around,' said the Special Messenger."“‘Turn around,’ said the Special Messenger.”
“Reckon you ain’t the same trooper as come yesterday.”
“No.”
“What might be yoh regiment?”
The Messenger was looking hard at the beehives. The door of one of the hives, a new one, was shut.
“What regiment did you say, suh?” repeated Deal, showing his teeth in a friendly grin; and suddenly froze rigid as he found himself inspecting the round, smoky muzzle of a six-shooter.
“Turn around,” said the Special Messenger. Her voice was even and passionless.
John Deal turned.
“Cross your hands behind your back. Quickly, please! Now back up to this horse. Closer!”
There was a glimmer, a click; and the man stood handcuffed.
“Sit down on the grass with your back against that tree. Make yourself comfortable.”
Deal squatted awkwardly, settled, and turned a pallid face to the Messenger.
“What’n hell’s this mean?” he demanded.
“Don’t move and don’t shout,” said theMessenger. “If you do I’ll have to gag you. I’m only going over there to take a look at your bees.”
The pallor on the man’s face was dreadful, but he continued to stare at the Messenger coolly enough.
“It’s a damned outrage!” he began thickly. “I had a pass from your Colonel——”
“If you don’t keep quiet I’ll have to tie up your face,” observed the Messenger, dismounting and flinging aside her cloak.
Then, as she walked toward the little row of beehives, carrying only her riding whip, the farmer’s eyes grew round and a dull flush empurpled his face and neck.
“By God!” he gasped; “it’sher!” and said not another word.
She advanced cautiously toward the hives; very carefully, with the butt of her whip, she closed the sliding door over every exit, then seated herself in the grass within arm’s length of the hives and, crossing her spurred boots, leaned forward, expectant, motionless.
A bee arrived, plunder-laden, dropped on the sill and began to walk toward the closed entrance of his hive. Finding it blocked, the insect buzzed angrily. Another bee whizzedby her and lit on the sill of another hive; another came, another, and another.
Very gingerly, as each insect alighted, she raised the sliding door and let it enter. Deal watched her, fascinated.
An hour passed; she had admitted hundreds of bees, always closing the door behind each new arrival. Then something darted through the range of her vision and alighted, buzzing awkwardly on the sill of a hive—an ordinary, yellow-brown honey bee, yet differing from the others in that its thighs seemed to be snow-white.
Quick as a flash the Messenger leaned forward and caught the insect in her gloved fingers, holding it by the wings flat over the back.
Its abdomen dilated and twisted, and the tiny sting was thrust out, vainly searching the enemy; but the Messenger, drawing a pin from her jacket, deftly released the two white encumbrances from the insect’s thighs—two thin cylinders of finest tissue paper, and flung the angry insect high into the air. It circled, returned to the hive, and she let it in.
There was a groan from the manacled man under the trees; she gave him a rapid glance,shook her head in warning, and, leaning forward, deftly lifted a second white-thighed bee from the hive over which it was scrambling in a bewildered sort of way.
A third, fourth, and fifth bee arrived in quick succession; she robbed them all of their tissue-paper cylinders. Then for a while no more arrived, and she wondered whether her guess had been correct, that the nine peaches and wet pits meant to John Deal that nine bees were to be expected—eager home-comers, which he had sent to his mistress and which, as she required their services, she released, certain that they would find their old hives on John Deal’s farm and carry to him the messages she sent.
And they came at last—the sixth, seventh—then after a long interval the eighth—and, finally, the ninth bee whizzed up to the hive and fell, scrambling, its movements embarrassed by the tiny, tissue cylinders.
The Messenger waited another hour; there were no more messengers among the bees that arrived.
Then she opened every hive door, rose, walked over to the closed hive that stood apart and opened the door of that.
Ablackhoneybee crawled out, rose into the air, and started due south; another followed, then three, then a dozen; and then the hive vomited a swarm ofblackbees which sped southward.
Sandy River lay due south; also, the home-hive from which they had been taken and confined as prisoners; also, a certain famous officer lingered at Sandy River—one, General J. E. B. Stuart, very much interested in the beehives belonging to a friend of his, a Mr. Enderly.
When she had relieved each messenger-bee of its tissue-paper dispatch, she had taken the precaution to number each tiny cylinder, in order of its arrival, from one to nine. Now she counted them, looked over each message, laid them carefully away between the leaves of a pocket notebook, slipped it into the breast of her jacket, and, rising, walked over to John Deal.
“Here is the key to those handcuffs,” she said, hanging it around his neck by the bit of cord on which it was dangling. “Somebody at Sandy River will unlock them for you. But it would be better, Mr. Deal, if you remained outside our lines until this war is ended. Idon’t blame you—I’m sorry for you—and for your mistress.”
She set toe to stirrup, mounted easily, fastened her cloak around her.
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I hope nobody will injure your pretty farm. Good-by.”
Miss Carryl was standing at the end of the beautiful, oak-shaded avenue when the Messenger, arriving at full speed, drew bridle and whirled her horse.
Looking straight into the pretty Southern woman’s eyes, she said gravely:
“Miss Carryl, your bees have double stings. I am very sorry for you—very, very sorry. I hope your property will he respected while you are at Sandy River.”
“What do you mean?” asked Miss Carryl. Over her pale features a painful tremor played.
“You know what I mean. And I am afraid you had better go at once. John Deal is already on his way.”
There was a long silence. Miss Carryl found her voice at length.
“Thank you,” she said without a tremor. “Will I have any trouble in passing the Yankee lines?”
“Here is your passport. I had prepared it.”
As the Messenger bent over from the saddle to deliver the pass, somehow her hat, with its crossed gilt sabres, fell off. She caught it in one hand; a bright blush mantled throat and face.
The Southern woman looked up at the girl in the saddle, so dramatically revealed for what she was under the superb accusation of her hair.
“You?”
“Yes—God help us both!”
The silence was terrible.
“It scarcely surprises me,” murmured Miss Carryl with a steady smile. “I saw only your eyes before, but they seemed too beautiful for a boy’s.”
Then she bent her delicately-molded head and studied the passport. The Messenger, still blushing, drew her hat firmly over her forehead and fastened a loosened braid. Presently she took up her bridle.
“I will ask Colonel Gay’s protection for Waycross House,” she said in a low voice. “I am so dreadfully sorry that this has happened.”
“You need not be; I have only tried to dofor my people what you are doing for yours—but I should be glad of a guard for Waycross.Hisgrave is in the orchard there.” And with a quiet inclination of the head she turned away into the oak-bordered avenue, walking slowly toward the house which, in a few moments, she must leave forever.
In the late sunshine her bees flashed by, seeking the fragrant home-hives; long, ruddy bars of sunlight lay across grass and tree trunk; on the lawn the old servant still chopped at the unkempt grass, and the music of his sickle sounded pleasantly under the trees.
On these things the fair-haired Southern woman looked, and if her eye dimmed and her pale lip quivered there was nobody to see. And after a little while she went into the house, slowly, head held high, black skirt lifted, just clearing the threshold of her ancestors.
Then the Special Messenger, head hanging, wheeled her horse and rode slowly back to Osage Court House.
She passed the Colonel, who was dismounting just outside his tent, and saluted him without enthusiasm:
“The leak is stopped, sir. Miss Carryl isgoing to Sandy River; John Deal is on his way. They won’t come back—and, Colonel, won’t you give special orders that her house is not to be disturbed? She is an old school friend.”
The Colonel stared at her incredulously.
“I’m afraid you still have your doubts about that leak, sir.”
“Yes, I have.”
She dismounted wearily; an orderly took her horse, and without a word she and the Colonel entered the tent.
“They used bees for messengers,” she said; “that was the leak.”
“Bees?”
“Honey bees, Colonel.”
For a whole minute he was silent, then burst out:
“Good God!Bees!And if such a—an extraordinary performance were possible how didyouguess it?”
“Oh,” she said patiently, “I used them that way when I was a little girl. Bees, like pigeons, go back to their homes. Look, sir! Here, in order, are the dispatches, each traced in cipher on a tiny roll of tissue. They were tied to the bees’ thighs.”
And she spread them out in order under his amazed eyes; and this is what he saw when she pieced them together for him:
E I O2W2x I8W3[triangle] N I7W3xO I I6I5W3x E N I7I7I4I8I5O2N x I7I E x I4O2I2xN x H I5x I O2E xN x O x E x W N W3xW x I8E3X H N [crescent] xL x I3[triangle] O2X W3I5W3N W2x
I4I2x I8W3I7I4L I x N W3xI5O2H I x O2I4E I3W3xH N I7I7[circle+] W2
“That’s all very well,” he said, “but how about this hieroglyphic? Do you think anybody on earth is capable of reading such a thing?”
“Why not?”
“Canyou?”
“All such ciphers are solved by the same method.... Yes, Colonel, I can read it very easily.”
“Well, would you mind doing so?”
“Not in the slightest, sir. The key is extremely simple. I will show you.” And she picked up pencil and paper and wrote:
OneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEightNineTenElevenTwelveThirteenFourteenFifteenSixteenSeventeenEighteenNineteenTwenty
“Now,” she said, “taking the second letter in each word, we can parallel that column thus:
N equals the letter AW equals the letter BH equals the letter CO equals the letter DI equals the letter E
“Then, in the wordsixwe have the letterIagain as the second letter, so we call it I2. And, continuing, we have:
I2 equals the letter FE equals the letter GI3 equals the letter HI4 equals the letter IE2 equals the letter JL equals the letter KW2 equals the letter LH2 equals the letter MO2 equals the letter NI5 equals the letter OI6 equals the letter PE3 equals the letter QI7 equals the letter RI8 equals the letter SW3 equals the letter T
“Now, using these letters for the symbols in the cipher:
E I O2W2x I8W3[triangle] N I7W3xO I I6I5W3x E N I7I7I4I8I5O2N x I7I E x I4O2I2xN x H I5x I O2E xN x O x E x W N W3xW x I8E3X H N [crescent] xL x I3[triangle] O2X W3I5W3N W2x
I4I2x I8W3I7I4L I x N W3xI5O2H I x O2I4E I3W3xH N I7I7[circle+] W2
“We translate it freely thus, and I’ll underline only the words in the cipher:
Gen’l Stuart(Sandy River?)(The present)Depot Garrison(of Osage Court House is)One Reg(iment) (of)Inf(antry)One Co(mpany of)Eng(ineers)One Four G(un)Bat(tery)Two Sq(uadrons) (of)Cav(alry)Eleven Hun(dred men)TotalIf(you)strike(strike)at once(and at)night!(Signed)Carryl.
“Do you see, Colonel, how very simple it is, after all?”
The Colonel, red and astounded, hung over the paper, laboriously verifying the cipher and checking off each symbol with its alphabetical equivalent.
“What’s that mark?” he demanded; “this symbol——”
“It stands for the letter U, sir.”
“How do you know?”
The Messenger, seated sideways on the camp table, one small foot swinging, looked down and bit her lip.
“Must I tell you?”
“As you please. And I’ll say now that yoursolving this intricate and devilish cipher is, to me, a more utterly amazing performance than the rebel use of bees as messengers.”
She shook her head slowly.
“It need not amaze you.... I was born in Sandy River.... And in happier times—when my parents were living—I spent the school vacations there.... We had always kept bees.... There was—in those days—a boy. We were very young and—romantic. We exchanged vows—and bees—and messages in cipher.... I knew this cipher as soon as I saw it. I invented it—long ago—for him and me.”
“W-well,” stammered the bewildered Colonel, “I don’t see how——”
“I do, sir. Our girl and boy romance was a summer dream. One day he dreamed truer. So did the beautiful Miss Carryl.... And the pretty game I invented for him he taught in turn to his fiancée.... Well, he died in The Valley.... And I have just given his fiancée her passport. It would be very kind of you to station a guard at the Carryl place for its protection. Would you mind giving the order, sir?...Heis buried there.”
The Colonel, hands clasped behind him, walked to the tent door.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll give the order.”
A few moments later the drums of the Bucktails began beating the assembly.
VIITHE PASS
Her map, which at headquarters was supposed to be reliable, had grossly misled her; the road bore east instead of north, dwindling, as she advanced, to a rocky path among the foothills. She had taken the wrong turn at the forks; there was nothing to direct her any farther—no landmarks except the general trend of the watercourse, and the dull cinders of sunset fading to ashes in the west.
It was impossible now to turn back; Carrick’sflying column must be very close on her heels by this time—somewhere yonder in the dusk, paralleling her own course, with only a dark curtain of forest intervening.
So all that evening, and far into the starlit night, she struggled doggedly forward, leading her lamed horse over the mountain, dragging him through laurel thickets, tangles of azalea and rhododendron, thrashing across the swift mountain streams that tumbled out of starry, pine-clad heights, foaming athwart her trail with the rushing sound of forest winds.
For a while the clear radiance of the stars lighted the looming mountains; but when wastes of naked rock gave place to ragged woods, lakes and pits of darkness spread suddenly before her; every gully, every ravine brimmed level with treacherous shadows, masking the sheer fall of rock plunging downward into fathomless depths.
Again and again, as she skirted the unseen edges of destruction, chill winds from unsuspected deeps halted her; she dared not light the lantern, dared not halt, dared not even hesitate. And so, fighting down terror, she toiled on, dragging her disabled horse, until,just before dawn, the exhausted creature refused to stir another foot.
Desperate, breathless, trembling on the verge of exhaustion, with the last remnants of nervous strength she stripped saddle and bridle from the animal; then her nerves gave way and she buried her face against her horse’s reeking, heaving shoulders.
“I’ve got to go on, dear,” she whispered; “I’ll try to come back to you.... See what a pretty stream this is,” she added, half hysterically, “and such lots of fresh, sweet grass.... Oh, my little horse—my little horse! I’m so tired—so tired!”
The horse turned his gentle head, mumbling her shoulder with soft, dusty lips; she stifled a sob, lifted saddle, saddlebags, and bridle and carried them up the rocky bank of the stream to a little hollow. Here she dropped them, unstrapped her revolver and placed it with them, then drew from the saddlebags a homespun gown, sunbonnet, and a pair of coarse shoes, and laid them out on the moss.
Fatigue rendered her limbs unsteady; her fingers twitched as she fumbled with button and buckle, but at last spurred boots, stockings, jacket, and dusty riding skirt fell fromher; undergarments dropped in a circle around her bare feet; she stepped out of them, paused to twist up her dark hair tightly, then, crossing the moss to the stream’s edge, picked her way out among the boulders to the brimming rim of a pool.
In the exquisite shock of the water the blood whipped her skin; fatigue vanished through the crystal magic; shoulder-deep she waded, crimson-cheeked, then let herself drift, afloat, stretching out in ecstasy until every aching muscle thrilled with the delicious reaction.
Overhead, tree swallows darted through a sky of pink and saffron, pulsating with the promise of the sun; the tinted peak of a mountain, jaggedly mirrored in the unquiet pool, suddenly glowed crimson, and the reflections ran crisscross through the rocking water, lacing it with fiery needles.
She looked like some delicate dawn-sprite as she waded ashore—a slender, unreal shape in the rosy glow, while behind her, from the dim ravine, ghosts of the mountain mist floated, rising like a company of slim, white angels drifting to the sky.
All around her now the sweet, bewilderedmurmur of purple martins grew into sustained melody; thrush and mocking bird, thrasher and cardinal, sang from every leafy slope; and through the rushing music of bird and pouring waterfall the fairy drumming of the cock-o’-the-pines rang out in endless, elfin reveille.
While she was managing to dry herself and dress, her horse limped off into the grassy swale below to drink in the stream and feed among the tender grasses.
Before she drew on the homespun gown she tucked her linen map into an inner skirt pocket, flat against her right thigh; then, fastening on the shabby skirt, she rolled up her riding habit, laid it with lantern, revolver, saddle, bridle, boots, and bags, in the hollow and covered all over with heaps of fragrant dead leaves and branches. It was the best she could do, and the time was short.
Her horse raised his wise, gentle head, and looked across the stream at her as she hastened past, then limped stiffly toward her.
“Oh, I can’t stand it if you hobble after me!” she wailed under her breath. “Dearest—dearest—I will surely come back to you. Good-by—good-by!”
On the crest of the ridge she cast one swift,tearful glance behind. The horse, evidently feeling better, was rolling in the grass, all four hoofs waving at the sky. And she laughed through the tears, and drew from her pockets a morsel of dry bread which she had saved from the saddlebags. This she nibbled as she walked, taking her bearings from the sun and the sweep of the southern mountain slopes; and listening, always listening, for the jingle and clank of the Confederate flying battery that was surely following along somewhere on that parallel road which she had missed, hidden from her view only by a curtain of forest, the width of which she had no time to investigate. Nor did she know for certain that she had outstripped the Confederate column in the race for the pass—a desperate race, although the men of that flying column, which was hastening to turn the pass into a pitfall for the North, had not the faintest suspicion that the famous Special Messenger was racing with them to forestall them, or even that their secret was no longer a secret.
In hot haste from the south hills she had come to warn Benton’s division of the ambuscade preparing for it, riding by highway and byway, her heart in her mouth, taking everyperilous chance. And now, at the last moment, here in the West Virginian Mountains, almost within sight of the pass itself, disaster threatened—the human machine was giving out.
There were just two chances that Benton might yet be saved—that his leisurely advance had, by some miracle, already occupied the pass, or, if not, that she could get through and meet Benton in time to stop him.
She had been told that there was a cabin at the pass, and that the mountaineer who lived there was a Union man.
Thinking of these things as she crossed the ridge, she came suddenly into full view of the pass. It lay there just below her; there could be no mistake. A stony road wound along the stream, flanked by forest-clad heights; she recognized the timber bridge over the ravine, which had been described to her, the corduroy way across the swamp, the single, squat cabin crowning a half-cleared hillock. She realized at a glance the awful trap that this silent, deadly place could be turned into; for one rushing moment her widening eyes could almost see blue masses of men in disorder, crushed into that horrible defile; her earsseemed to ring with their death cries, the rippling roar of rifle fire. Then, with a sharp, indrawn breath, she hastened forward, taking the descent at a run. And at the same moment three gray-jacketed cavalrymen cantered into the road below, crossed the timber bridge at a gallop, and disappeared in the pass, carbines poised.
She had arrived a minute too late; the pass was closed!
Toiling breathlessly up the bushy hillock, crouching, bending, creeping across the stony open where scant grass grew in a meager garden, she reached the cabin. It was empty; a fire smoldered under a kettle in which potatoes were boiling; ash cakes crisped on the hearth, bacon sizzled in a frying pan set close to the embers.
But where was the tenant?
A shout from the road below brought her to the door; then she dropped flat on her stomach, crawled forward, and looked over the slope.
A red-haired old man, in his shirt sleeves, carrying a fishing pole, was running down the road, chased by two gray-jacketed troopers. He ran well, throwing away his pole and thestring of slimy fish he had been carrying; but, half way across the stream, they rode him down and caught him, driving their horses straight into the shallow flood; and a few moments later a fresh squad of cavalry trotted up, forced the prisoner to mount a led horse, and, surrounding him, galloped rapidly away southward.
The Special Messenger lay perfectly still and flat, watching, listening, waiting, coolly alert for a shadow of a chance to slip out and through the pass; but there was to be no such chance now, for a dozen troopers came into view, running their lean horses at top speed, and wheeled straight into the pass. A full squadron followed, their solid galloping waking clattering echoes among the rocks. Then her delicate ears caught a distant, ominous sound—nearer, louder, ringing, thudding, jarring, pounding—the racket of field artillery arriving at full speed.
And into sight dashed a flying battery, guns and limbers bouncing and thumping, whips cracking, chains crashing, the six-horse teams on a dead run.
An officer drew bridle and threw his horse on its haunches; the first team rushed on tothe pass with a clash and clank of wheels and chains, swung wide in a demi-tour, dropped a dully glistening gun, and then came trampling back. The second, third, and fourth teams, guns and caissons, swerved to the right of the hillock and came plunging up the bushy slope, horses straining and scrambling, trampling through the wretched garden to the level grass above.
One by one the gun teams swung in a half circle, each dropped its mud-spattered gun, the cannoneers sprang to unhook the trails, the frantic, half-maddened horses were lashed to the rear.
The Special Messenger rose quietly to her feet, and at the same instant a passing cannoneer turned and saw her in the doorway.
“Hey!” he exclaimed; “what you doin’ thar?”
A very young major, spurring up the slope, caught sight of her, too.
“This won’t do!” he began excitedly, pushing his sweating horse up to the door. “I’m sorry, but it won’t do—” He hesitated, perplexed, eyeing this slim, dark-eyed girl, who stood as though dazed there in her ragged homespun and naked feet.
Colonel Carrick, passing at a canter, turned in his saddle, calling out:
“Major Kent! Keep that woman here! It’s too late to send her back.”
The boy-major saluted, then turned to the girl again:
“Who are you?” he asked, vexed.
She seemed unable to reply.
A cannoneer said respectfully:
“Reckon the li’l gal’s jes’ natch’ally skeered o’ we-uns, Major, seein’ how the caval’y ketched her paw down thar in the crick.”
The Major said briefly:
“Your father is a Union man, but nobody is going to hurt him. I’d send you to the rear, too, but there’s no time now. Please go in and shut that door. I’ll see that nobody disturbs you.”
As she was closing the door the young Major called after her:
“Where’s the well?”
As she did not know she only stared at him as though terrified.
“All right,” he said, more gently. “Don’t be frightened. I’ll come back and talk to you in a little while.”
As she shut the door she saw the cannon atthe pass limber up, wheel, and go bumping up the hill to rejoin its bespattered fellows on the knoll.
An artilleryman came along and dropped a bundle of picks and shovels which he was carrying to the gunners, who had begun the emplacements; the boyish Major dismounted, subduing his excitement with a dignified frown; and for a while he was very fussy and very busy, aiding the battery captain in placing the guns and verifying the depression.
The position of the masked battery was simply devilish; every gun, hidden completely in the oak-scrub, was now trained on the pass.
Opposite, across the stream, long files of gray infantry were moving to cover among the trees; behind, a battalion arrived to support the guns; below, the cavalry had begun to leave the pass; troopers, dismounted, were carefully removing from the road all traces of their arrival.
Leaning there by the window, the Special Messenger counted the returning fours as troop after troop retired southward and disappeared around the bend of the road.
For a while the picks and shovels of the gunners sounded noisily; concealed riflemen,across the creek, were also busy intrenching. But by noon all sound had ceased in the sunny ravine; there was nothing to be seen from below; not a human voice echoed; not a pick-stroke; only the sweet, rushing sound of the stream filled the silence; only the shadows of the branches moved.
Warned again by the sentinels to close the battered window and keep the door shut, she still watched the gunners, through the dirty window panes, where they now lay under the bushes beside their guns. There was no conversation among them; some of the artillerymen seemed to be asleep; some sprawled belly-deep in the ferns, chewing twigs or idly scraping holes in the soil; a few lay about, eating the remnants of the morning’s scanty rations, chewing strips of bacon rind, and licking the last crumbs from the palms of their grimy hands.
Along the bush-hidden parapet of earth, heaps of ammunition lay—cannister and common shell. She recognized these, and, with a shudder, a long row of smaller projectiles on which soldiers were screwing copper caps—French hand grenades, brought in by blockade runners, and fashioned to explode on impact—soclose was to be the coming slaughter of her own people in the road below.
Toward one o’clock the gunners were served noon rations. She watched them eating for a while, then, nerveless, turned back into the single room of the cabin and opened the rear door—so gently and noiselessly that the boyish staff-major who was seated on the sill did not glance around until she spoke, asking his permission to remain there.
“You mustn’t open that door,” he said, looking up, surprised by the sweetness of the voice which he heard now for the first time.
“How can anybody see me from the pass?” she asked innocently. “That is what you are afraid of, isn’t it?”
He shot a perplexed and slightly suspicious glance at her, then the frowning importance faded from his beardless face; he bit a piece out of the soggy corncake he was holding and glanced up at her again, amiably conscious of her attractions; besides, her voice and manner had been a revelation. Evidently her father had had her educated at some valley school remote from these raw solitudes.
So he smiled at her, quite willing to be argued with and entertained; and at his suggestionshe shyly seated herself on the sill outside in the sunlight.
“Have you lived here long?” he asked encouragingly.
“Not very,” she said, eyes downcast, her clasped hands lying loosely over one knee. The soft, creamy-tinted fingers occupied his attention for a moment; the hand resembled the hand of “quality”; so did the ankle and delicate arch of her naked foot, half imprisoned in the coarse shoe under her skirt’s edge.
He had often heard that some of these mountaineers had pretty children; here, evidently, was a most fascinating example.
“Is your mother living?” he asked pleasantly.
“No, sir.”
He thought to himself that she must resemble her dead mother, because the man whom the cavalry had caught in the creek was a coarse-boned, red-headed ruffian, quite impossible to reconcile as the father of this dark-haired, dark-eyed, young forest creature, with her purely-molded limbs and figure and sensitive fashion of speaking. He turned to her curiously:
“So you have not always lived here on the mountain.”
“No, not always.”
“I suppose you spent a whole year away from home at boarding-school,” he suggested with patronizing politeness.
“Yes, six years at Edgewood,” she said in a low voice.
“What?” he exclaimed, repeating the name of the most fashionable Southern institute for young ladies. “Why, I had a sister there—Margaret Kent. Wereyouthere? And did you ever—er—see my sister?”
“I knew her,” said the Special Messenger absently.
He was very silent for a while, thinking to himself.
“It must have been her mother; that measly old man we caught in the creek is ‘poor white’ all through.” And, munching thoughtfully again on his soggy corncake, he pondered over the strange fate of this fascinating young girl, fashioned to slay the hearts of Southern chivalry—so young, so sweet, so soft of voice and manner, condemned to live life through alone in this shaggy solitude—fated, doubtless, to mate with some loose,lank, shambling, hawk-eyed rustic of the peaks—doomed to bear sickly children, and to fade and dry and wither in the full springtide of her youth and loveliness.
“It’s too bad,” he said fretfully, unconscious that he spoke aloud, unaware, too, that she had risen and was moving idly, with bent head, among the weeds of the truck garden—edging nearer, nearer, to a dark, round object about the size of a small apple, which had rolled into a furrow where the ground was all cut up by the wheel tracks of artillery and hoofs of heavy horses.
There was scarcely a chance that she could pick it up unobserved; her ragged skirts covered it; she bent forward as though to tie her shoe, but a sentinel was watching her, so she straightened up carelessly and stood, hands on her hips, dragging one foot idly to and fro, until she had covered the small, round object with sand and gravel.
That object was a loaded French hand grenade, fitted with percussion primer; and it lay last at the end of a long row of similar grenades along the shaded side of the house.
The sentry in the bushes had been watching her; and now he came out along the edgeof the laurel tangle, apparently to warn her away, but seeing a staff officer so near her he halted, satisfied that authority had been responsible for her movements. Besides, he had not noticed that a grenade was missing; neither had the major, who now rose and sauntered toward her, balancing his field glasses in one hand.
“There’s ammunition under these bushes,” he said pleasantly; “don’t go any nearer, please. Those grenadesmightexplode if anyone stumbled over them. They’re bad things to handle.”
“Will there be a battle here?” she asked, recoiling from the deadly little bombs.
The Major said, stroking the down on his short upper lip:
“There will probably be a skirmish. I do not dare let you leave this spot till the first shot is fired. But as soon as you hear it you had better run as fast as you can”—he pointed with his field glasses—“to that little ridge over there, and lie down behind the rocks on the other side. Do you understand?”
“Yes—I think so.”
“And you’ll lie there very still until it is—over?”
“I understand. May I go immediately and hide there?”
“Not yet,” he said gently.
“Why?”
“Because your father is a Union man.... And you are Union, too, are you not?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling; “are you afraid of me?”
A slight flush stained his smooth, sunburnt skin; then he laughed.
“A little afraid,” he admitted; “I find you dangerous, but not in the way you mean. I—I do not mean to offend you——”
But she smiled audaciously at him, looking prettier than ever; and his heart gave a surprised little jump at her unsuspected capabilities.
“Why are you afraid of me?” she asked, looking at him with her engaging little smile. In her eyes a bewitching brightness sparkled, partly veiled by the long lashes; and she laughed again, poised there in the sunshine, hands on her hips, delicately provoking his reply.
And, crossing the chasm which her coquetry had already bridged, he paid her the quick, reckless, boyish compliment she invited—a littleflowery, perhaps, possibly a trifle stilted, but very Southern; and she shrugged like a spoiled court beauty, nose uptilted, and swept him with a glance from half-closed lids, almost insolent.
The sentry in the holly and laurel thicket stared hard at them both. And he saw his major break off a snowy Cherokee rose and, bending at his slim, sashed waist, present the blossom with the courtly air inbred through many generations; and he saw a ragged mountaineer girl accept it with all the dainty and fastidious mockery of a coquette of the golden age, and fasten it where her faded bodice edged the creamy skin of her breast.
What the young major said to her after that, bending nearer and nearer, the sentry could not hear, for the major’s voice was very low, and the slow, smiling reply was lower still.
But the major straightened as though he had been shot through and through, and bowed and walked away among the weeds toward a group of officers under the trees, who were steadily watching the pass through their leveled field glasses.
Once the major turned around to look back:once she turned on the threshold. Her cheeks were pinker; her eyes sparkled.
The emotions of the Special Messenger were very genuine and rather easily excited.
But when she had closed the door, and leaned wearily against it, the color soon faded from her face and the sparkle died out in her dark eyes. Pale, alert, intelligent, she stood there minute after minute, searching the single room with anxious, purposeless eyes; then, driven into restless motion by the torturing tension of anxiety, she paced the loose boards like a tigress, up and down, head lowered, hands clasped against her mouth, worrying the fingers with the edge of her teeth.
Outside, through the dirty window glass, she could see sentries in the bushes, all looking steadily in the same direction; groups of officers under the trees still focused their glasses on the pass. By and by she saw some riflemen in butternut jeans climb into trees, rifles slung across their backs, and disappear far up in the foliage, still climbing.
Toward five o’clock, as she was eating the bacon and hoe cakes which she had found in the hut, two infantry officers opened the door, stared at her, then, without ceremony, drew arough ladder from the corner, set it outside, and the older officer climbed to the roof.
She heard him call down to the lieutenant below:
“No use; I can’t see any better up here.... They ought to set a signal man on that rock, yonder!”
Other officers came over; one or two spoke respectfully to her, but she did not answer. Finally they all cleared out; and she dragged a bench to the back door, which swung open a little way, and, alert against surprise, very cautiously drew from the inner pocket her linen contour map and studied it, glancing every second or two out through the crack in the door.
Nobody disturbed her; with hesitating forefinger she traced out what pretended to be a path dominating the northern entrance of the pass, counted the watercourses and gullies crossing the ascent, tried to fix the elevations in her mind.
As long as she dared she studied the soiled map, but, presently, a quick shadow fell across the threshold, and she thrust the map into the concealed pocket and sprang to open the door.
“Coming military events cast foreboding shadows,” she said, somewhat breathless.
“Am I a foreboding and military event?” asked the youthful major, laughing. “What do I threaten, please?”
“Single combat,” she said demurely, smiling at him under half-veiled lids. And the same little thrill passed through him again, and the quick color rose to his smooth, sunburnt face.
“I was ready to beat a retreat on sight,” he said; “now I surrender.”
“I make no prisoners,” she replied in airy disdain.
“You give no quarter?”
“None.... Why did you come back?”
“You said I might.”
“Did I? I had quite forgotten what I had said to you. When are you going to let me go?”
His face fell and he looked up at her, troubled.
“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” he said. “We dare not send you away under escort now, because horses’ feet make a noise, and some prowling Yankee vidette may be at this very moment hanging about the pass——”
“Oh,” she said, “you prefer to let me remain here and be shot?”
He said, reddening: “At the first volley you are to go with an escort across the ridge. I told you that, didn’t I?”
But she remained scornful, mute and obstinate, pretty head bent, twisting the folds of her faded skirt.
“Do you think I would let you remain here if there were any danger?” he asked in a lower voice.
“How long am I to be kept here?” she asked pettishly.
“Until the Yankees come through—and I can’t tell you when that will be, because I don’t know myself.”
“Are they in the pass?”
“We don’t know. Everybody is beginning to be worried. We can’t see very far into that ravine——”
“Then why don’t you go where youcansee?” she said with a shrug.
“Where?” he asked, surprised.
“Didn’t you know that there is a path above the pass?”
“A path!”
“Certainly. I can show you if you wish.You ought to be able to see to the north end of the pass—if I am not mistaken——”
“Wait a moment!” he said excitedly. “I want you to take me there—just a second, to speak to those officers—I’m coming back immediately——”
And he started on a run across the ravaged garden, holding his sabre close, midway, by the scabbard.
That was her chance. Picking up her faded sunbonnet, she stepped from the threshold, swinging it carelessly by one string. The sentries were looking after the major; she dropped her sunbonnet, stooped to recover it, and straightened up, the hidden hand grenade slipping from the crown of the bonnet into her bodice between her breasts.
A thousand eyes seemed watching her as, a trifle pale, she strolled on aimlessly, swinging the recovered sunbonnet; she listened, shivering, for the stern challenge to halt, the breathless shout of accusation, the pursuing trample of heavy boots. And at last, quaking in every limb, she ventured to lift her eyes. Nobody seemed to be looking her way; the artillery pickets were still watching the pass; the group of officers posted under the trees still focused their glasses in that direction; the young major was already returning across the garden toward her.