Chapter V: Part 5

"They are usually very generous fellows--impulsive, affectionate, and loyal to such friendships as they know. If you discovered any wrong being done to me, or heard any unjust accusation made against me, you'd resist and resent instantly. But you'd know precisely how far and in what direction to carry your resentment, while these fellows do not know anything except the instincts of a righteous wrath. There isn't a man in Skinner's Battery who wouldn't be quick to stand for me and by me. But in doing so he would calmly kill the man who injured me, and never be able to understand why he must be hanged for doing so.

"Most of them have been made hardened criminals solely by society's blundering way of dealing with them. It has sent them to jail, for small first offences, committed in ignorance perhaps. It has thus declared war upon them, and with the instincts of manhood they have taken up the gage of battle. In other words, it is my sincere belief that quite nine in ten of the criminal class are criminal only because of society's neglect at first and blundering afterward. They need education and discipline; we give them resentful punishment instead, and there is a world of difference between the two things.

"However, I did not mean to deliver a lecture on penology. And after all I am no longer one of the ruffians, you know. All the officers of the battery are gentlemen, while none of the men happens to be anything of the kind. There is, therefore, as sharp a line of demarcation drawn in our battery, between officers and enlisted men, as there is in any regular army. This makes things pleasant for the officers, and I fancy they are not unpleasant for the men. It is a case of aristocracy where the upper class enjoys itself and the lower class is content. It is quite different from service in an ordinary Confederate company of volunteers. There the enlisted men are socially quite as good as their officers and sometimes distinctly better. Under such circumstances it is difficult to maintain more of distinction and discipline than the enlisted men may voluntarily consent to. Socially, with us Southern people, it is quite as honourable to be an enlisted man in such a battery as yours as to be a commissioned officer. That's a good enough thing in its way, but it isn't military, and it is distinctly bad for the service."

"I don't know so well about that," said Baillie. "We have at least the advantage of knowing that, discipline or no discipline, every man in the ranks, equally with every officer, has a personal reputation at home to sustain by good conduct. Even your desperadoes couldn't fight better than the young fellows I had with me on the skirmish-line at Manassas, though they had never had anything resembling discipline to sustain them. Every man of them knew that if he 'flunked' he could never go home again--unless all flunked at once and so kept each other company. That very nearly happened while we were falling back across Bull Run."

"Precisely. And it happened to the whole Federal army a few hours later. Discipline, with a ready pistol-shot behind it, would have prevented that in both cases. 'Man's a queer animal,' you know, if you remember your reading, and one of the queerest things about him is that when he has once accustomed himself to accept orders unquestioningly, and to obey them blindly, as every soldier does in drilling, he becomes far more afraid of mere orders than he is of the heaviest fire. Personal courage and high spirit among the men are admirable in their way, but for the purposes of battle, discipline and the habit of blind obedience are very much more trustworthy. If you want to make soldiers of men, you must teach them, morning, noon, and night, that blind, unquestioning obedience is the only virtue they can cultivate. That isn't good for the personal characters of the men, of course, but it is necessary in the case of soldiers, and our volunteers will all of them have to learn the lesson before this war is over. More's the pity, for I can't imagine how a whole nation of men so trained to submission can ever again become a nation of--oh, confound it! I'm running off again into a psychological speculation. Fortunately, here comes a letter for you."

A servant approached, bearing upon a tray a missive from The Oaks ladies, which had been delivered at the house a few minutes earlier. The grand dames assured Mr. Baillie Pegram of their highest respect and esteem, but suggested that, to the very great satisfaction of the anxiety they had so long felt on his account, they were convinced by his assurances to that effect, that he was now so far advanced on the road to complete recovery as perhaps to excuse them from the necessity of making their thrice a week journey to Warlock to inquire concerning his welfare. If they were mistaken in this assumption, would not Mr. Baillie Pegram kindly notify them? And if the daily inquiries which they intended to make hereafter through a trusty servant, should at any moment bring to them news of a relapse, they would instantly resume their personal and most solicitous inquiries.

To this Baillie laughingly wrote a reply equally formal, in which he assured the good ladies that their tender concern for him during his illness had been a chief factor in a recovery which was now practically complete.

Meantime Sam had come with the mail-pouch from the post-office, and it held two letters for Baillie.

One of these was a formal and official communication from the War Department, informing him that upon General J. E. B. Stuart's recommendation, he had been appointed captain of artillery with authority to raise a mounted battery of from fifty to one hundred men, for service with the cavalry. His commission, dating from the day of his wound at Manassas, accompanied the document, and with it an order for him to proceed, as soon as he should be fit for service, to enlist and organise the company thus authorised, and to make the proper requisitions for arms and equipments.

Baillie's second letter was a personal one from Stuart. It was scribbled in pencil on the envelopes of some old letters and such other fragments of paper as the cavalier could command at some picket-post. It read:

"I have asked the War Department to commission you as a captain, to raise a company of mounted artillery to serve with me in front. I understand that you have a healthy liking for the front. The War Department lets me choose my own men for this service, and I have chosen you first, for several reasons. One is that you know what to do with a gun. Another is that you fought so well at Manassas. Another is that you are very strongly recommended to me by a person whose judgment is absolutely conclusive to my mind.

"Now get to work as quickly as you can. Enrol fifty or seventy-five, or better still a hundred men if you can find them. Put them in camp and instruct them, and report to me the moment you are ready. Make requisition for guns--six of them if you can secure a hundred men--and drill your men at the piece. For a hundred men in _mounted_ artillery you will need about 170 horses--100 for the cannoniers to ride and 70 for the guns, etc. There is likely to be your difficulty. Can't you help yourself out a bit? I am told that you have influence. Can't you persuade your neighbours to contribute some at least of the horses you need? The quicker your battery is horsed the quicker you'll get a chance to practise your men in gunnery with the enemy for a target. Please send me a personal line, telling me how soon you will be ready to join me. It will take a month or two, of course, but I hope it won't take more."

Twelve hours later Baillie Pegram sent an answer to General Stuart's letter. In it he said:

"Thank you. I'll have the men and the horses within twenty-four hours. If the guns are promptly forthcoming on my requisition, I'll be ready within two days to receive orders to join you. As for drill, I can attend to that in front of Washington as well as in camp of instruction at Richmond."

But before sending that note, which delighted Stuart's soul when it came, Baillie Pegram had done a world of earnest work.

First of all there was the problem of getting the men. The able-bodied citizens of the county had already volunteered for the most part, but some were still waiting for one reason or another, and Baillie, who knew everybody, sent hurried notes to all of these, by special negro messengers, asking each to send an immediate reply to him at the Court-house. On this service he employed all his young negroes, mounting them on all his mules. The men appealed to responded almost to a man, for the master of Warlock was a man under whose command his neighbours eagerly wanted to serve, and Baillie found more than half of them awaiting him at the county seat, when he got there in mid-afternoon.

Still better, he found a messenger there from one of the men whom he had summoned. This messenger came from a camp at a little distance, where were assembled about sixty or seventy men and boys peculiarly situated. These men and boys had belonged to a company composed mainly of college students, which had gone out with the earliest volunteers. The company had been captured at Rich Mountain, and the men composing it had been sent home on parole. Within the two days preceding Baillie Pegram's call for volunteers, official notification had come of the discharge of all these men from parole by virtue of an exchange of prisoners. Thereupon the men, thus left free to volunteer again, had met in camp to consider what should be done. Their company had been officially disbanded, and there were now not enough of them left to secure its reorganisation. When Baillie Pegram's call for volunteers came, therefore, the men were called together, and in pursuance of a resolution, unanimously adopted, a messenger was sent to the Court-house to say that sixty-two men of the disbanded company offered themselves for enrolment under Captain Pegram, and that they would report for duty on the following morning at the Court-house.

Thus before four o'clock Baillie was assured of his hundred men or more. The next problem was to secure horses. He called together such of his men as were present, and said:

"Each of you is mounted. We shall need your horses. The government will have them valued, and will pay the assessed price for any that may die in the service. It will pay monthly for their services. How many of you will enlist your horses as well as yourselves, as all our cavalrymen have done?"

The response was general, and many of the planters offered additional horses on the same terms, so that, before night fell Baillie Pegram had more than a hundred men and about a hundred and thirty horses secured. Forty or fifty more horses must be had, but Baillie knew how to secure them, and so he sent off his note to Stuart. Then he turned to Marshall Pollard, and said:

"I want you to go to Richmond by the midnight train, old fellow, and return by the noonday train to-morrow. I've a mind to complete this business at a stroke. I've a few thousand dollars in bank and a few thousand more in the hands of my commission merchant. The money is worth its face now. Heaven only knows what it will be worth a year hence. I'm going to spend it now for the rest of the horses I need, and I want you to go to Richmond and bring it to me. In the meanwhile I'll bargain with a drover who is not very far away, for the horses."

Then, weak as he was, Baillie planned to ride the dozen miles that lay between the Court-house and the point where the drover was camping with his horses, but one of his friends, who had just enlisted with him, bade him to go to the tavern and to bed, saying:

"I'll have the drover and his horses here before noon to-morrow, and I shall know something about the horses by that time, too, for I'll come back in company with them, and I'll keep my eyes open."

No sooner was Baillie comfortably stretched upon a lounge in his hotel room, than Sam presented himself.

"Mas' Baillie," the negro boy broke in, without waiting for his master to ask how he came to be there, "Mas' Baillie, you's a-gwine to be one o' de officers now, jes' as you ought to ha' been fust off. Now you'll need Sam wid you, won't you?"

"I'll need somebody, I suppose," the young man answered, with a laugh at Sam's enthusiasm, "but if I take you along where I am going, you'll stand a mighty good chance of getting a bullet-hole through you, or having your black head knocked off your shoulders by a shell. Have you thought of that?"

"Co'se I'se thought o' dat, an' I ain't de leas' bit afeard nuther. I'se a Pegram nigga from Warlock, I is, an' a Pegram nigga from Warlock ain't got no more business to be afeared o' bullets when his duty brings 'em in his way, dan a white folks Pegram hisself is. Ef ye'll jes' take Sam along of you, you sha'n't never have no 'casion to be shamed o' yer servant."

"Very well, Sam," answered the master; "now go back to Warlock, and tell your mammy you're going to the war. By the way, you may have that old velveteen and corduroy hunting suit of mine to wear. Get it from the closet in the chamber, and tell your mammy to shorten the trousers legs by seven or eight inches."

Sam was fairly dancing for joy, and as he mounted his mule for the homeward journey, he began to sing a dismal ditty which he had composed as an expression of his feelings at the time of his master's first departure from Warlock to serve as a soldier. Unhappily only a fragment of the song remains to us. It began:

"Dey ain't no sun in de mawning,
Dey ain't no moon shine in de night,
'Case the war's done come an' de mahstah's done gone,
Fer to git hisse'f killed in de fight.

"Oh, Moses!
Holy Moses!
Can't you come back 'cross de ribber?
Can't you let Gabrel blow his horn?"

What lines were to follow, and what words rhymed with "ribber" and "horn," we are not permitted to know. For at this point, Sam, whose self-education included a considerable proficiency in profanity, broke off his singing, reined in his mule, and said:

"Dat's too _dam_ dismal fer de 'casion!" Then addressing the mule, he reproachfully asked:

"What for you done let me sing dat? Don' you know Sam's a-gwine to de wah wid Mas' Baillie?"

As the mule made no reply, the conversation ceased at this point, and the remainder of the homeward journey was made in complete silence.

XV

_AGATHA'S VENTURE_

After a month or two of cautious correspondence with friends and others who were to aid her in carrying out her purpose, Agatha Ronald set out one day, and drove with Martha, her maid, to Winchester, where she had friends. After a week's stay there, she made her way to a little town on the Potomac, again taking up quarters with friends.

From this point, she communicated through her friends with intimates of theirs who lived in Maryland. Finally she had arrangements made by which a succession of houses was open to her, all of them the homes of people strongly in sympathy with the South. But she must first manage to get through the Federal lines unobserved, and in this a Federal commander unwittingly aided her. He threw a small force one day into the little town in which she was staying, meaning to hold possession of it as a part of the loosely drawn lines on the upper river. This left Agatha within Federal domain--a young gentlewoman visiting friends, and in no way attracting attention to herself. Presently she moved on into Maryland, and by short stages made her way to the house of a very ardent Southern family, near the Pennsylvania border. From there it was easy for her to go to Harrisburg, and thence by rail to Baltimore.

The chief purpose of her journey was now practically accomplished. She had established what she called her "underground railroad," with a multitude of stations, and a very roundabout route. But it would serve its purpose all the better for that, she thought, as the chief condition of its successful operation was that its existence should at no time be suspected.

In Baltimore, proceeding with the utmost caution, she put herself into indirect communication with a large number of "Dixie girls"--as young women in that city whose hearts were with the South were called. It would not do for her to meet these young women personally. That might excite suspicion, especially as most of them had brothers in the Southern army. But through others she succeeded in organising them secretly into a band prepared to do her work.

That work was the purchase of medicines--chiefly morphine and quinine--and the smuggling of them through the lines into the Confederacy for the use of the armies there. For it is one of the barbarisms of war which civilisation has not yet outgrown, that medicines, even those which are imperatively necessary for the saving of life and the prevention of suffering, are held to be as strictly contraband as gunpowder itself is.

Agatha's plan was to have her associates in Baltimore purchase medicines and surgical appliances in that city and elsewhere--buying only in small quantities in each case, in order to avoid suspicion, but buying large quantities in the aggregate--and forward them to her in Virginia by way of her underground railroad; that is to say, passing them from hand to hand over the route by which she had herself reached Baltimore.

Having perfected these arrangements, her next task was herself to get back to her home, whither she did not mean to go empty-handed. She had gowns made for herself and Martha, using two thicknesses of oiled silk as interlining. Between these she bestowed as much morphia as could be placed there without attracting attention.

This done, she was ready for her return journey, which presented extraordinary difficulty. She could not return by the way she had come, lest the purpose of her journey should be discovered, and her plans for the future be thwarted. She must find some other way.

At first she thought of making her way southward to the lower reaches of the Potomac, and depending upon chance for means of getting across the river there, but this was rendered impracticable by the news that the Confederates had retired from their advanced outposts to Manassas and Centreville, with the Fairfax Court-house line as their extreme advance position. This meant, of course, that they no longer held in any considerable force the posts along the lower river. Moreover, Agatha learned that both the Potomac below Washington, and the navigable part of the Rappahannock were closely patrolled now, by night and by day, by a numerous fleet of big and little Federal war-ships. There seemed no course open to her but to try in some way to get through to Stuart's pickets, if in any way or at any risk she could manage that. That she determined to attempt.

Her first step was to visit friends on the Potomac above Washington. There she learned minutely what the situation was. With some difficulty she secured permission to go as a guest to a house near Falls Church, in Virginia. She had hoped there to find Confederate picket-posts, and to work her way to some one of them by stealth or strategy, or by boldly taking risks. She found instead that the nearest Confederate outpost was at Fairfax Court-house, nine miles away, while the inner Federal lines lay on the route from Falls Church to Vienna, and stretched both ways from those points. Stuart was no longer at Mason's and Munson's Hills. With the approach of winter the Confederates had retired to their fortified line, and Stuart, with the cavalry, had established himself at Camp Cooper and other camps, three or four miles in rear of the Fairfax Court-house line, which now constituted his extreme advance.

Moreover, the Federal army, under McClellan's skilled and vigilant command, had been completely reorganised, drilled, disciplined, and converted from the chaotic mass described in his report--quoted in a former chapter--into an alert and trustworthy army, destined, during later campaigns, to cover itself with glory. At present, McClellan, who had no thought of advancing upon Centreville and Manassas, where the Confederates were strongly fortified, was at any rate manifesting spirit by continually pressing the Confederate outposts, and now and then making considerable demonstrations against them.

His inner picket-lines, as already explained, were drawn very near the house in which Agatha was sojourning. His advanced posts--where the skirmishing was frequent--were along the Fairfax Court-house line. Between these two lines lay eight or ten miles of thick and difficult country, held by the Federals, and scouted over every day, but not regularly picketed.

Thus, instead of a mile or two of difficulty, Agatha had before her ten miles of trouble, with a prospect of worse at the end of it.

Time and extraordinary care were necessary to meet these new difficulties. Agatha's first problem was to find out all she could of facts, to gather exact and trustworthy information. In this endeavour she had a shrewdly intelligent co-adjutor in Martha.

By way of avoiding suspicion--for the family with whom she was staying were known to be strongly Southern in their sympathies, and the Federal officers had begun to understand the devoted loyalty of the negroes to the families that owned them--Agatha established Martha in a cabin of her own a mile or more from the house. There Martha posed as a free negro woman, who was disposed to make a living for herself by selling fried chickens, biscuits, and pies to the Federal soldiers on the interior picket-lines, and a little later to those posted farther in advance.

Martha was a sagacious as well as a discreet person. At first she showed a timid reluctance to go farther toward the front than the inner lines from Falls Church to Vienna. While peddling her wares there, she took pains to learn all the foot-paths, and the location of all the picket-posts in that region. Then little by little she allowed herself to be persuaded to go farther toward the outer lines, for the soldiers found her fried chicken and her biscuits and her pies particularly alluring.

It was only after she had mastered both the topography of the country between, and the exact methods of its military occupation, that she so far overcame her assumed timidity as to push on with her basket to the picket-posts immediately in front of Fairfax Court-house itself. She raised her prices as she went, lest by selling out her stock in trade she should leave herself no excuse for going to the extreme front at all. For the same reason she came at last to pass by many posts where she had formerly had good customers, retaining her wares professedly for the sake of the higher prices that the men at the front gladly paid for something better to eat than the contents of their haversacks.

Within a week or two Martha had learned and reported to her mistress quite all that any officer on either side knew of the country, its roads, its foot-paths, its difficulties, and the opportunities it afforded. In the middle of every night, Martha made her way to her mistress, or her mistress made her way to Martha, until at last, Agatha, who had directed her inquiries, was equipped with all necessary information, and ready for her supreme endeavour. It involved much of danger and incredible difficulty. But the courageous young woman was prepared to meet both danger and difficulty with an equable mind. She knew now whither she was going and how, but the journey through a difficult country must be made wholly on foot and wholly by night.

Agatha was ready for the ordeal. As for Martha, the earth to the very ends of it held no terrors that could cause even hesitation on her part in the service of her mistress.

XVI

_CANISTER_

It was a little after midnight when Agatha and her maid, stripped of all belongings that could impede them on their way, set out on foot upon their perilous journey. Agatha was deliberately exposing herself to far worse dangers than any that the soldier is called upon to brave in the work of war. She could carry little in the way of food, and of course could not replenish her supplies until she should succeed in entering the Confederate lines, if indeed that purpose were not hopeless of accomplishment at all. But the danger of starvation which these conditions involved, was the very least of the perils she must encounter. At any moment of her stealthy progress she might be shot by a sentinel. Far worse than that, she might be seized with her tell-tale medicines upon her person, while hiding within the forbidden lines of the enemy. In that case, there would be no question whatever as to her status in military law, or as to her fate. If she should fall into the enemy's hands under such circumstances, by forcible capture or even by voluntary surrender, she must certainly be hanged as a spy. She was armed against that danger only by the possession of the means of instant self-destruction,--her little six-shooter.

It was comparatively easy for her to find her way during the first night, through the slender interior picket-line, and into the forbidden region that lay between that and the outposts in front. Every roadway leading toward the Confederate positions was, of course, securely guarded, and all of them were thus completely closed to Agatha's use. She must steal through the thickets of underbrush that lay between the roads, making such progress as she could without at any time placing herself within sight or hearing of a sentinel. Sometimes this involved prolonged waiting in constrained positions, and several times she narrowly missed discovery.

When morning came, the pair of women hid themselves between two logs that lay in a dense thicket, and there they remained throughout the daylight hours. There, too, before noon, they consumed the last fragments of their food.

During the next night they made small progress. They succeeded, indeed, in crossing a deep and muddy creek that lay in front of them, but it was only to find themselves confronted by a roadway, which ran athwart their line of march, and which, on this night, at least, was heavily picketed and constantly patrolled by scouting squads of cavalry.

Agatha crept on her hands and knees, and quite noiselessly, to a point from which she could make out the situation, and there the pair remained in hiding among the weeds and bushes that skirted an old and partially destroyed fence, until daylight came again.

With the daylight came a considerable thinning of the line of videttes in front, and toward nightfall, after a day of toilsome crawling back and forth in search of a way of escape, the two women succeeded in crossing the road unobserved. After crawling for a hundred yards or so beyond the road, they hid themselves as securely as they could, and waited for night to come again.

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 space 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 assured him of their safety, he said:

"I don't know whether to thank God 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 coarse 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 God!" 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 circumstances.

"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 attitude 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 space 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 promptitude 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!"

"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 circumstances 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 ejaculated, "Thank God!" and those were the only words he spoke for a space.

He presently ordered the horses brought, and helped Agatha to mount.

"Can you manage to ride a McClellan saddle?" he asked. "There is no other to be had."

"I suppose not," Agatha answered, with returning spirits. "I suppose the quartermaster's department does not issue side-saddles to the mounted artillery for the use of errant damsels whom they capture. But I can do very well on a cavalry saddle."

XVII

_AT HEADQUARTERS_

Agatha was well-nigh exhausted by the terrible strain she had endured. She could scarcely sustain herself in the saddle, as she and Baillie set out, her maid riding a-pillion behind her. She would have liked--if she had dared risk it--to keep the silence of extreme weariness during the journey to Stuart's headquarters, two or three miles away, but in fact she talked incessantly, in a hard, constrained voice, limiting the conversation strictly to external matters. She asked her companion about his battery, the number and character of his guns, how many men he might have under his command, the nature of his duties, and many other things, chatter about which served as a substitute for the more personal conversation that she was determined to avoid. She was fencing for position, and her purpose was plain enough to Baillie Pegram, but at the end of the ride the girl herself was more inscrutably a riddle to him than she had been before. For just as they arrived, and when it was too late for him to say any word in reply, she suddenly turned to him, and said:

"Before we part, Captain Pegram, I want to thank you for all you have done for me, and still more for what you have felt--I mean your wish to save me. I am very grateful, but--"

There she broke off, leaving him to torture himself with almost maddening conjectures as to what should have followed that bewildering "but."

At that moment Stuart, who had heard of the capture and was waiting, came hurriedly from the piazza of his headquarters to greet and welcome the arriving pair. With strong arms he lifted the girl from her saddle and placed her on her feet, as he might have done with an infant child. For he was a giant in strength, and his muscles were as obedient to his will as were the troopers who so eagerly followed him in every fray.

Seeing the girl's bedraggled condition, and understanding how sorely shaken her nerves must be, he made no reference to the circumstances of her coming, but cheerily said:

"I am doubly fortunate, Miss Agatha, in having you again for a visitor, and in having the ladies of my household with me just now; for God bless these Virginia women," addressing this part of his remark to Captain Pegram, "they are always with us when we need them."

With that he hurried Agatha into the house, and placed her in feminine charge, with orders that she should have food and rest and sleep, and especially that she should not be annoyed by any questionings until such time as she should herself desire to speak with him.

"You will remain with us to dinner, Captain Pegram, if you please. There are matters about which I wish to talk with you."

When the two were left alone, he said:

"Tell me, now, all you know about how Miss Agatha became your prisoner--the details, I mean."

When Baillie had finished the narrative, expressing wonder that the girl had passed unharmed through that hailstorm of canister, Stuart said, simply:

"I'm glad your gun practice was no better."

"So am I," the young man answered.

It was not until late in the afternoon that Stuart was summoned to meet his guest, who was also his prisoner. She had in the meantime divested herself and her maid of their burden, and the precious drug had been carefully packed for shipment under guard to Richmond. She had also slept long and well after her breakfast, and was now as fresh and as full of spirit as if she had known no hardship, and passed through no danger.

Before the dinner hour, Stuart had taken pains to send away all the members of his staff, each upon some errand manufactured for the occasion. At dinner there was no one present but his own family, Agatha, and Captain Baillie Pegram.

Stuart was all eagerness to learn not only the results, but the details of the perilous journey, and to that end he required Agatha to begin at the beginning and relate each day's experience. She did so, explaining the arrangements she had made for her underground railway, and telling him of a plan she had formed to give to that line a number of termini at various points in Virginia, each under charge of some trusty "Dixie girl," in order that there might be no interruption of the traffic, whatever the future movements of the two armies might be.

"It's the very crookedest railroad you ever heard of, General," she added, when her account of it was finished, "but I expect it to do a considerable traffic. I am to be its general freight agent, and I have impressed all my agents with the fact that the preservation of our secret is of far greater importance than the safe delivery of any one consignment of goods. They will take plenty of time at every step, and not risk discovery for the sake of speed."

"That is excellent. But I wish I had suggested to you to make some arrangement by which you might--"

"O, I did that," she interrupted. "I took a leaf out of your book. Of course, it will often be possible to get little letters through, but letters are very dangerous--at least, when they say anything. So I have taken your signal-words as my model, and laboriously constructed a system by which I can say the most dangerous things in a letter without seeming to say anything at all."

"By signal-words?"

"Yes, partly, but more in other ways."

"For example?"

"Well, if I send a foolish, chattering girl's note about nothing, and I happen to write it in a 'back hand,' that fact will tell my correspondent what I want to tell her. So if I write in an ordinary hand, that will mean something quite different. In the same way, if I write, 'My dear Mary,' it will signify one thing, while 'Dear Mary' will mean another; I've arranged fourteen different forms of address, each having its own particular meaning. The punctuation will mean something, too, and the way I sign myself, and the colour of my ink, and the occasional slight misspelling of a word--all these and a dozen other things are carefully arranged for, so that I can tell a friend pretty nearly anything I please, while seeming only to tell her the colour of my new gown--if I ever have a new gown again--or anything else of the kind that girls are fond of writing letters about."

"But you and all your correspondents must have copies of your code for all this. Isn't there great danger that one or another of them may be discovered?"

The girl laughed before answering.

"Even you, General Stuart, must have found out that it is difficult to discover what is in a young woman's mind. This code exists nowhere else in the world. We've all learned it by heart, and can recite it backward or forward or even sideways. No word of it has ever been written down on paper, or ever will be. You gentlemen are fond of saying that we women cannot keep a secret. You shall see how well we keep this."

"O, as to that," answered Stuart, "I never shared any such belief. Why, women keep secrets so well that we never know even what they think of us. Is not that so, Captain Pegram?"

"Yes, and perhaps it is fortunate for us, too, sometimes."

"But I did betray a secret to Captain Pegram this morning," Agatha continued, speaking gravely now. "He seemed so troubled at having to arrest me under the circumstances in which I seemed to have placed myself, that I relieved his mind by telling him I was acting under your orders, or, at least, with your consent."

"Perhaps you'd like to prefer charges against the captain? I dare say he was very stern and inconsiderate."

Instantly the girl flushed, and speaking with unusual seriousness, she answered:

"I beg to assure you, General Stuart, that Captain Pegram was altogether generous and kind to me--far more so than I had a right to expect. I can never sufficiently thank him."

To Baillie, this speech was inscrutable and bewildering. It might mean one thing, or another--much or little--according to the interpretation put upon the words. It might refer only to Baillie's care for her physical comfort and safety, or, as Baillie scarcely dared believe, it might obliquely include in its intent, an acknowledgment of the passionate declaration of love that he had been betrayed into making. It might be interpreted to mean that the words surprised from his lips were not unwelcome to her who had heard them. She had bidden him forget what he had said, but might it not be that she herself remembered and was not displeased with the recollection?

He resolved to ask her for the answer to that riddle at the earliest possible moment, but for the present he flushed crimson and kept silent.

Stuart, however, had accomplished his purpose. He had found out, or believed that he had found out, what he wished to know concerning the attitude of these two toward each other, and he was mightily pleased with the discovery. He abruptly changed the course of the conversation.

"When would you like to go to your home, Miss Agatha?"

"I should like to set out early to-morrow, General, if I may--if I am released from arrest."

"O, I shall not release you yet. You are much too dangerous a conspirator for that. I shall send you home under guard, and I have selected Captain Pegram to be your safe-keeper. I shall send him with you, under orders to remain at Willoughby for a week, keeping you under close surveillance. If at the end of that time he finds you sufficiently subdued, he will have orders to put you on parole, and return to his command. As he and you are 'almost strangers,' he will be a safer judge of the propriety of releasing you than any other officer I could send for that purpose."

The two were sorely embarrassed by this announcement, coming as it did without warning to either. Neither knew what to say, or whether the arrangement was welcome or unwelcome to the other. The sudden announcement of it, at any rate, was very embarrassing to both, and Pegram received it with a feeling of consternation for the moment. In the next instant, he realised the opportunity it would give him to renew the morning's conversation, and to learn definitely what Agatha's attitude toward him was to be after such a declaration as he had made. For whatever else happens, an avowal of that kind, made with such earnestness, never fails to work some change in a true woman's mind and soul. Baillie managed, with some difficulty, to say:

"I will be glad to carry out your orders, General."

Agatha said nothing. What she thought and felt, it would be idle to inquire.

XVIII

_A BRUSH AT THE FRONT_

A situation which might have become embarrassing, had it been prolonged, was relieved at that moment by the arrival of a courier who had come in hot haste with messages from the front.

The enemy was moving upon Fairfax Court-house in three columns and in strong force. The light of battle came into Stuart's eyes as he received the news, and he issued hurried orders to his staff-officers as one after another they came up at a gallop. To Agatha he said:

"Remain here, you and the other ladies, unless orders come for you to leave. I must borrow Captain Pegram from your service for a time, if I may."