The Cavalier

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"General Austin believes it is. You're being used to bait a trap,
Richard."

I laughed a gay disdain. "Who is Lucius; is he Charlotte's husband?"

The reply came slowly. "No; her husband is quite another man; this
man's wife has been dead for years. No, Charlotte Oliver lives
in--hark!"

The sound we had heard was only some stir of nature in her sleep. "I
must go," I said.

"Oh, no, no! I cannot let you!" She clutched the hand she had been
stroking.

"Coralie! Coralie Rothvelt!"--my cry was an honest one--"you tempt me
beyond human endurance."

She threw my hand from her. "I know I do! I'm so unworthy to do it that
I wouldn't have believed I could. You thought I was Charlotte
Oliver--Heavens! boy, if you should breathe the atmosphere Charlotte
Oliver has to live in! But understand again, for your soul's comfort,
you haven't tempted me. Go, if you must; go, take your chances; and if
you're spared ever to see your dear, dear little mother--"

"My mother! Do you know my mother?"

"Tell her I tried to keep my promise to her."

"You promised her--what did you promise her?"

"Only to take care of you whenever I had the chance. Go, now, you must!"

"And was care for me your only motive in--"

"No; no, Richard, I wanted, and I still want, you to take care of me!
But go, now, go! at once or not at all! Good-bye!" She laughed and
fluttered away. I sprang upon my horse and sped into the forest.

Another mile, another half; then my horror and dismay broke into gesture
and speech, and over and over I reviled myself as a fool, a traitorous
fool, to be fooled into confession of my errand! I moaned with physical
pain; every fatigue of the long day now levied payment, and my back,
knees, shoulders, ached cruelly. But my heart ached most, and I bowed in
the saddle and cried--

"What have I done, oh, what have I done? My secret! my general's, my
country's secret! That woman has got it--bought it with flatteries and
lies! She has drawn it from my befouled soul like a charge from a gun!"

For a moment I quite forgot how evident it was that she had gathered
earlier inklings of it from some one else. Suddenly my thought was of
something far more startling. It stopped my breath; I halted; I held my
temples; I stared. What would she do with a secret she had taken such
hazards to extort? Ah! she'd carry it straight to market--why not? She
would give it to the enemy! Before my closed eyes came a vision of the
issue--disaster to our arms; bleeding, maiming, death, and widows' and
orphans' tears.

"My God! she shall not!" I cried, and whirled about and galloped back.

At the edge of the wood, where we had parted, I tied my horse, and crept
along the moonlight shadows of the melon-patch to the stable. The door
was ajar. In the interior gloom I passed my hands over the necks and
heads of what I recognized to be the pair of small mules I had seen at
Gallatin. Near a third stall were pegs for saddle and bridle, but they
were empty. So was the stall; the mare was gone.

"Gone to the Yankees at Fayette!" I moaned, and hurried back to my
horse. To attempt to overtake one within those few miles would only make
failure complete, and I scurried once more into the north with such a
burden of alarm and anguish as I had never before known.

XVIII

THE JAYHAWKERS

IT was well that I was on the Federal captain's horse. He knew this sort
of work and could do it quicker and more quietly than mine. Mine would
have whinnied for the camp and watched for short cuts to it. Another
advantage was the moon, and the hour was hardly beyond midnight when I
saw a light in a window and heard the scraping of a fiddle. At the edge
of a clearing enclosed by a worm fence I came to a row of slave-cabins.
Mongrel dogs barked through the fence, and in one angle of it a young
white man with long straight hair showed himself so abruptly as to
startle my horse. Only the one cabin was lighted, and thence came the
rhythmic shuffle of bare-footed dancers while the fiddle played "I lay
ten dollars down." There were three couples on the floor, and I saw--for
the excited dogs had pushed the door open--that two of the men were
white, though but one wore shoes. On him the light fell revealingly as
he and the yellow girl before him passed each other in the dance and
faced again. He was decidedly blond. The other man, though silhouetted
against the glare of burning pine-knots, I knew to be white by the
flapping of his lank locks about his cheeks as he lent his eyes to the
improvisation of his steps. His partner was a young black girl. I
burned with scorn, and doubtless showed it, although I only asked whose
plantation this was.

"This-yeh pla-ace?" The rustic dragged his words lazily, chewed tobacco
with his whole face, and looked my uniform over from cap to spur. "They
say this-yeh place belong to a man which his name Lu-ucius Ol-i-veh."

So! I honestly wished myself back in my old rags, until I reflected that
my handsome mount was enough to get me all the damage these wretches
could offer. Still I thought it safest to show an overbearing frown.

"To what command do you fellows belong?"

He spurted a pint to reply, "Fishe's batt'ry."

"Oh! And where is the battery?"

"You sa-ay 'Whah is it?'--ow batt'ry"--he champed noisily--"I dunno.
Does you? Whah is it?"

"It's twenty miles off; why are you not with it? What are you doing
here?"

"You sa-ay 'What we a-doin' hyuh?' Well, suh, I mought sa-ay we ain't
a-doin' nuth'n'; but I"--he squirted again--"_will_ sa-ay that so fah as
you _see_ what we a-doin', you _kin_ see, an' welcome; an' so fah as you
don't see, it ain't none o' yo' damn' busi-ness."

"Oh, that's all right, I was only asking a friendly question."

"Yaas; well, that's all right, too, suh; I uz on'y a-givin' you a
frien'ly aynsweh. I hope you like it."

Our intercourse became more amiable and the fellow dragged in his advice
that I spend the rest of the night at the house of Mr. Oliver. His
acquaintance with that gentleman seemed to grow while we talked, and
broke into bloom like a magician's rosebush. He described him as a kind
old bird who made hospitality to strangers his meat and drink. A
conjecture darted into my mind. "Why, yes! that is his married son, is
he not, yonder in the cabin; the one with the fair hair?"

"Who?--eh,--ole man Ol-i-veh? You sa--ay 'Is that his ma'-ied son, in
yondeh; the one 'ith the fah hah? '--Eh,--no--o, suh,--eh,--yass,
suh,--yass! Oh, yass, suh, thass his--tha'--thass his ma'ied son, in
thah; yass, suh, the one 'ith the fah hah; yass, suh. I thought you
meant the yetheh one."

"I don't believe," said I, "I'd better put myself on the old gentleman
when the mistress of the house is away."

"_She_ ain't awa-ay."

"Is she not! Isn't she the Mrs. Oliver--Charlotte Oliver--who is such
friends--she and her husband, I mean, of course,--"

"_Uv_ co'se!" The reptile giggled, squirted and nodded.

"--With General Austin," I continued, "--and with Lieutenant Ferry?"

"She air!" He was pleased. "Yass, we all good frien's togetheh."

"But if she--oh, yes!--Yes, to be sure; she could easily have got here
yesterday afternoon."

"Thass thess when she arrove!" It was fascinating to watch the animal's
cunning play across his face. The fiddle's tune changed and the dance
quickened.

"I naturally thought," resumed I, with a smile meant to refer to the
blond dancer, "that the madam _must_ be away somewhere."

My hearer grinned. "Oh, that ain't no sign. Boys will be boys. You know
that, yo'se'f. An' o' co'se she know it. Oh, yass, she at home."

"Well, I reckon I'll stop all night." I began to move on. His eyes
followed greedily.

"Sa-ay! I'll wrastle you fo' them-ah clo'es."

I waved a pleasant refusal and rode toward the house.

XIX

ASLEEP IN THE DEATH-TRAP

The dwelling was entirely dark. I came close in the bright moonlight and
hallooed. At my second hail the door came a small way open, and after a
brief parley a man's voice bade me put up my horse and come in. The
stable was a few steps to the right and rear. Returning, I took care to
notice the form of the house: a hall from front to rear; one front and
one rear room on each side of it; above the whole a low attic, probably
occupied by the slave housemaids.

I was met in the bare unpainted hall by a dropsical man of nearly sixty,
holding a dim candle, a wax-myrtle dip wrapped on a corncob. He had a
retreating chin, a throat-latch beard and a roving eye; stepped with one
foot and slid with the other, spoke in a dejected voice, and had very
poor use of his right hand. I followed him to the rear corner chamber,
the one nearest the stable, feeling that, poor as the choice was, I
should rather have him for my robber and murderer than those villains
down at the quarters. I detained him in conversation while I drew off my
boots and threw my jacket upon the back of a chair in such a way as to
let my despatch be seen. The toss was a lucky one; the document, sealed
with red wax, stuck out arrogantly from an inside pocket. Then, asking
lively questions the while as if to conceal a blunder and its
correction, I moved quickly between him and it and slipped the missive
under a pillow of the fourpost bedstead.

He was not wordy, and he tarried but a moment, yet he explained his
paralysis. In the dreary monotone of a chronic sour temper he related
that some Confederates, about a year before, had come here impressing
horses, and their officer, on being called by him "no gentleman," had
struck him behind the ear with the butt of a carbine. I asked what
punishment the officer received, and I noticed the plural pronoun as he
icily replied, "We didn't enter any complaint."

I said with genuine warmth that if he would give me that man's
name--etc.

He waited on the threshold with his dropsical back to me for my last
word, and then, still in the same attitude, droned, "O-oh, he's dead.
And anyhow," he finished out of sight in the hall, "that's not our way."

I sat on the edge of the bed, in the moonlight, wishing I knew what
their way was. I considered my small stock of facts. The one that
appalled me most was the inward guilt which I brought with me to this
ordeal. I wanted to say my childhood prayers and I could not. For I
could not repent; at least the _emotion_ of repentance would not come.
Moreover, every now and then there leapt across this blackness of guilt
a forked lightning of fright, as I realized that I could no more plan
than I could pray. No doubt Coralie Rothvelt, by this time in Fayette,
was telling some Federal commander that a certain Confederate courier,
now asleep at the house of Lucius Oliver, had let slip to her the fact
that his despatches were written to be captured, and that, read with
that knowledge, they would be of guiding value. What mine host himself
might have in view for me I could not guess, but most likely those three
rapscallions down at the quarters were already plotting my murder. So
now for a counterplot--alas! the counterplot would not unfold for me!

I rallied all my wits. Here was an open window. Through it the moonlight
poured in upon the lower half of the bed. If I should lie with my eyes
in the shadow of the headboard no one entering by the door opposite
could see that I was looking. Good! but what to do when the time should
come--ah me!--and "Oh, God!" and "Oh, God!" again. Ought I, now, to let
the enemy get the despatch, or must I not rather keep it from him at
whatever risk of death or disgrace? Ah! if I might only fight, and let
the outcome decide for me! And why not? Yes, I would fight! And oh! how
I would fight! If by fighting too well I should keep the despatch, why,
that, as matters now stood, was likely to be the very best for my
country's cause. On the other hand, should I fight till I fell dead or
senseless and only then lose it, surely then it would be counted genuine
and retain all its value to mislead. Oh, yes,--I could contrive nothing
better--I would fight!

I drew the counterpane aside, lay down under it revolver in hand, and
then, for the first time since I had put on the glorious gray, found I
could not face the thought of death. I grew steadily, penetratingly,
excruciatingly cold, and presently--to the singular satisfaction of my
conscience--began to shake from head to foot with a nervous chill. It
was agonizing, but it was so much better than the spiritual chill of
which it took the place! I felt as though I should never be warm again.
Yet the attack slowly passed away, and with my finger once more close to
the trigger, I lay trying to use my brain, when, without prayer or plan,
I solved the riddle, what I should do, by doing the only thing I knew I
ought not to do. I slept.

XX

CHARLOTTE OLIVER

An envelope sealed with sealing-wax, unless it has also a wrapping of
twine or tape whose only knot is under the seal, can be opened without
breaking the seal. Gholson had once told me this. Hold a thin, sharp
knife-blade to the spout of a boiling tea-kettle; then press the
blade's edge under the edge of the seal. Repeat this operation many
times. The wax will yield but a hair's-breadth each time, but a
hair's-breadth counts, and in a few minutes the seal will be lifted
entire. A touch of glue or paste will fasten it down again, and a seal
so tampered with need betray the fact only to an eye already suspicious.

As I say, I slept. The door between me and the hall had a lock, but no
key; another door, letting from my room to the room in front of it, had
no lock, but was bolted. I slept heavily and for an hour or more. Then I
was aware of something being moved--slowly--slyly--by littles--under my
pillow. The pillow was in a case of new unbleached cotton. When I first
lay down, the cotton had so smelt of its newness that I thought it was
enough, of itself, to keep me awake. Now this odor was veiled by
another; a delicate perfume; a perfume I knew, and which brought again
to me all the incidents of the night, and all their woe. I looked, and
there, so close to the bedside that she could see my eyes as plainly as
I saw hers, stood Coralie Rothvelt. In the door that opened into the
hall were two young officers, staff swells, in the handsomest Federal
blue. The moonlight lay in a broad flood between them and me. It
silvered Miss Rothvelt from the crown of her hat to the floor, and
brightened the earnest animation of her lovely face as she daintily
tiptoed backward with one hand delicately poised in the air behind her,
and the other still in the last pose of withdrawing from under the
pillow--empty!

My problem was indeed simplified. The despatch had been stolen, opened,
read, re-sealed and returned. All I now had to do was to lie here till
daybreak and then get away if I could, deliver the despatch to Ned
Ferry, and tell him--ah! what?--how much? Oh, my bemired soul, how much
must I tell? My shame I might bear; I might wash it out in blood at the
battle's front; but my perfidy! how much was it perfidy to withhold; how
much was it perfidy to confess?

The heaviness of my soul, by reacting upon my frame and counterfeiting
sleep better than I could have done it in cold blood, saved me, I fancy,
from death or a northern prison. When I guessed my three visitors were
gone I stirred, as in slumber, a trifle nearer the window, and for some
minutes lay with my face half buried in the pillow. So lying, there
stole to my ear a footfall. My finger felt the trigger, my lids lifted
alertly, and as alertly reclosed. Outside the window one of the
officers, rising by some slender foothold, had been looking in upon me,
and in sinking down again and turning away had snapped a twig. He
glanced back just as I opened my eyes, but once more my head was in
shadow and the moonlight between us. When I peeped again he was
moving away.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes dragged by. Counting them helped me to lie
still. Then I caught another pregnant sound, a mumbling of male voices
in the adjoining front room. I waited a bit, hearkening laboriously, and
then ever so gradually I slid from the bed, put on everything except my
boots, and moved by inches to the door between the two rooms. It was
very thin; "a good sounding-board," thought I as I listened for life or
death and hoped my ear was the only one against it.

The discussion warmed and I began to catch words and meanings. Oftenest
they were old Lucius Oliver's, whose bad temper made him incautious.
While his son and the other two jayhawkers obstinately pressed their
scheme he kept saying, sourly, "That's--not--our--wa-ay!"

At length he lost all prudence. "Nn--o!--Nnno--o, sir! Not in this house
you don't; and not on this place! Wait till he's off my land; I'm not
goin' to have the infernal rebels a-turpentinin' my house and a-burnin'
it over my head. What _air_ you three skunks in such a sweat to git
found out for, like a pack o' daymn' fools! I've swone to heaven and
hell to git even ef revenge can ever git me even, and this ain't the way
to git even. It's not--our--wa-ay!"

His son's attitude exasperated him. "_You_ know this ain't ever been our
way; you'd say so, yourself, ef you wa'n't skin full o' china-ball
whiskey! What in all hell is the reason we can't do him as we've always
done the others?"

"Oh, shut your dirty face!" replied the son, while one of his cronies
warned both against being overheard. But when this one added something
further the old man snarled:

"What's that about the horse?--The horse might git away and be evidence
ag'inst us?--What?--Oh, now give the true reason; you want the horse,
that's all! You two lickskillets air in this thing pyo'ly for the
stealin's. Me and my son ain't bushwhackers, we're gentlemen! At least
I'm one. Our game's revenge!"

Not because of this speech, but of a soft rubbing sound on the
window-sill behind me, my heart turned cold. Yet there I saw a most
welcome sight. Against the outer edge of the sill an unseen hand was
moving a forked stick to and fro. The tip of one of its tines was slit,
in the slit was a white paper, and in the fork hung the bridle of my
horse. I glided to the window. But there bethinking me how many a man
had put his head out at just such a place and never got it back, I made
a long sidewise reach, secured the paper, and read it.

It was the envelope which had contained Coralie Rothvelt's pass. Its
four flaps were spread open, and on the inside was scrawled in a large
black writing the following:

_Yankees gone, completely fooled. Do not stir till day, then ride for
your life. We're not thwarting Lieutenant Ferry's plan, we're only
improving upon it. When you report to him don't let blame fall upon the
father and son whose roof this night saves you from a bloody death. Do
this for the sake of her who is risking her life to save yours. We serve
one cause; be wary--be brave--be true_.

I stood equally amazed and alert. The voices still growled in the next
room, and my horse's bridle still hung before the window. I peered out;
there stood the priceless beast. I came a sly step nearer, and lo! in
his shadow, flattened against the house, face outward, was Coralie
Rothvelt comically holding the forked stick at a present-arms.
Throbbing with a grateful, craving allegiance, I seized the rein. Then I
bent low out the window and with my free hand touched her face as it
turned upward into a beam of moonlight. She pressed my fingers to her
lips, and then let me draw her hand as far as it could come and cover it
with kisses. Then she drew me down and whispered "You'll do what
I've asked?"

When I said I would try she looked distressfully unassured and I added
"I'll do whatever risks no life but mine."

Her face spoke passionate thanks. "That's all I can ask!" she said,
whispered "When you go--_keep the plain road,"_--and vanished.

I sat by the window, capped, booted, belted, my bridle in one hand,
revolver in the other. In all the house, now, there was no sound, and
without there was a stillness only more vast. I could not tell whether
certain sensations in my ear were given by insects in the grass and
trees or merely by my overwrought nerves and tired neck. The moon sailed
high, the air was at last comfortably cool, my horse stood and slept. I
thought it must be half-past two.

"Now it must be three." Miss Rothvelt's writing lay in my bosom beside
my despatch. At each half-hour I re-read it. At three-and-a-half I
happened to glance at the original superscription. A thought flashed
upon me. I stared at her name, and began to mark off its letters one by
one and to arrange them in a new order. I took C from Coralie and h from
Rothvelt; after them I wrote a from Coralie and r from Rothvelt, l and o
from Coralie and two t's and an e from Rothvelt, and behold, Charlotte!
while the remaining letters gave me Oliver.

Ah! where had my wits been? Yet without a suspicion that she was
Charlotte Oliver one might have let the anagram go unsuspected for a
lifetime. Evidently it concealed nothing from General Austin or Ned
Ferry; most likely it was only the name she used in passing through the
lines. At any rate I was convinced she was a good Confederate, and my
heart rose.

But why, then, this ardent zeal to save the necks of the two traitors
"whose roof this night--" etc.? Manifestly she was moved by passion, not
duty; love drove her on; but surely not love for them. "No," I guessed
in a reverent whisper, "but love for Ned Ferry." It must have been
through grace of some of her nobility and his, caught in my heart even
before I was quite sure of it in theirs, that I sat and framed the
following theory: Ned Ferry, loving Charlotte Oliver, yet coerced by his
sense of a soldier's duty, had put passion's dictates wholly aside and
had set about to bring these murderers to justice; doing this though he
knew that she could never with honor or happiness to either of them
become the wife of a man who had made her a widow, while she, aware of
his love, a love so true that he would not breathe it to her while this
hideous marriage held her, had ridden perilously in the dead of night to
circumvent his plans if, with honor to both of them, it could be done.

The half-hour dragged round to four. My horse roused up but kept as
quiet as a clever dog. I heard a light sound in the hall; first a step
and then a slide, then a step again and then a slide; Lucius Oliver was
coming toward my door. The cords gathered in my throat and my finger
stole to the trigger; Heaven only knew what noiseless feet might be
following behind that loathsome shuffle. It reached the door and was
still. And now the door opened, softly, slowly, and the paralytic stood
looking in. The moonlight had swung almost out of the room, but a band
of it fell glittering upon the revolver lying in my lap with my fingers
on it, each exactly in place. Also it lighted my other hand, on the
window-sill, with the bridle in it. Old Lucius was alone. In the gloom I
could not see his venom gathering, but I could almost smell it.

XXI

THE FIGHT ON THE BRIDGE

"Good-morning," I murmured.

"Good-morning," he responded, tardily and grimly. "Well, you _air_ in a
hurry."

"Not at all, sir. I'm sorry to seem so; it's not the tip-top of
courtesy,--"

"No, it ain't too stinkin' polite."

"True; but neither are the enemy, and they're early risers, you know."

"Well, good Lord! don't hang back for my sake!"

I put on an offended esteem. "My dear sir, you've no call to take
offence at me. I'm waiting because my business is too--well, if I must
explain, it's--it's too important to be risked except by good safe
daylight; that's all."

[Illustration: "Well, you _air_ in a hurry!"]

Oh, he wasn't taking offence. His reptile temper crawled into hiding,
and when I said day was breaking, he said he would show me my way.

"Why, I keep the plain road, don't I?"

No, he would not; only wagons went that way, to cross the creek by a
small bridge. I could cut off nearly two miles by taking the bridle-path
that turned sharply down into the thick woods of the creek-bottom about
a quarter of a mile from the house and crossed the stream at a sandy
ford. "Ride round," he said, "and I'll show you from the front of
the house."

Thence he pointed out a distant sycamore looming high against the soft
dawn. There was the fence-corner at which the bridle-path left the road.
He icily declined pay for my lodging. "We never charge a Confederate
soldier for anything; that's not our way."

Day came swiftly. By the time I could trot down to the sycamore it was
perfectly light even in the shade of an old cotton-gin house close
inside the corner of the small field around which I was to turn. The
vast arms of its horse-power press, spreading rigidly downward, offered
the only weird aspect that lingered in the lovely morning. I have a
later and shuddering memory of it, but now the dewy air was full of
sweet odors, the squirrel barked from the woods, the woodpecker tapped,
and the lark, the cardinal and the mocking-bird were singing all around.
The lint-box of the old cotton-press was covered with wet
morning-glories. I took the bridle-path between the woods and the field
and very soon was down in the dense forest beyond them. But the moment
I was hid from house and clearing I turned my horse square to the left,
stooped to his neck, and made straight through the pathless tangle.

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