THE MILL ON THE WATEREE
_With what a leaden and retarding weight
Does expectation load the wing of Time._
MASON.
The thing was done, for good or ill; it remained for me to make the best
of it. I was in Levi’s power, but I might still by firmness hold my own
for a time. Thinking of this, I turned a case on end, dusted it cooly
with the skirt of my coat and setting it near the fire, I sat down on it
and warmed myself. The men who had been left with me watched me
curiously but did not interfere. They were busy, cooking something in a
pot by the light of a wick burning in a bowl of green wax. Meantime, the
minutes passed slowly; very slowly, while I waited and listened for news
of the others. Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by before the clatter of
horses’ shoes on the stones of the paved yard told us that Pete had
started. A little later Constantia climbed the ladder, and appeared,
closely followed by Levi, and by another man who was doubtless one of
those who had slipped by me at the door.
The girl paused on reaching the floor, then deliberately she came
forward and chose a seat on the opposite side of the fire and as far
from mine as possible. Levi grinned. “Well, Major,” he said “Pete’s
gone, whip and spur! If you’ve sense enough you’ll wish him luck.”
“I do,” I said cooly, “but as that matter is not very pressing, and I am
hungry, uncommonly hungry—”
“It’ll be mighty pressing this time to-morrow,” he grinned. “You’ve
twenty-four hours, and may make the most of it! Then, if things don’t go
our way!”
“I understand,” I said. “But in the meantime, my man, I am more
interested in my supper. The lady, too, has been riding for six hours—”
“Oh, the lady?” he sneered. “You bear no malice it seems?”
“At any rate I will keep it until I am free,” I answered, carefully
averting my eyes from her.
“If that time comes?” he retorted.
“Just so,” I said.
I think it was his purpose to make me angry; but at this point one of
the others, the ruffian who had kept watch in the outer room on the
night of the outrage at the Bluff, struck in. “Make an end!” he growled
with an oath. “Isn’t it enough,” addressing me, “that you’ve the use of
your throat to-night that you must argy, argy, argy! Keep your breath to
cool your victuals, stranger—while you have it! And, curse me, you’re as
bad, Levi! Let’s have an end! And do you,” to the men at the fire, “get
on with that pork and hominy!”
The girl did not say a word. She sat somewhat apart wrapped in a cloak
and leaning forward. Her elbow rested on her knee, her chin on her hand,
her eyes were fixed on the fire. The pose was one of utter weariness and
dejection, but it was so natural, so unforced that she might have been
sitting in the room alone. She seemed to be unconscious not only of my
presence but of the presence of the men. And they, rough and desperate
as they were, stood evidently in awe of her. As they moved to and fro
about their cooking they passed close to her, and at times they swore.
But I could see that their ease was assumed. Her personality, her tragic
position, the respect in which women are held in the southern colonies,
were as a wall about her—for the present.
And what was she thinking, I wondered, as she sat, apparently as
heedless of me, as of the men who rubbed elbows with her? Was she
thinking only of her father and his peril, and of the chance which her
passing weakness had come so near to forfeiting? Was she weighing that
chance between hope and fear, and with no thought except of him who lay
in the prison house opposite the tavern at Winnsboro’? Or was she
dreaming of me as well as of her father? Thinking of me with pity, with
gratitude, with—love? Had I built the bridge? Had I crossed the gulf?
I could not say, seeing her so still, so remote, so passionless. At any
rate I could not be sure. The whole width of the hearth divided us, and
she sat with her face turned from me. Not a glance of her veiled eyes
sped my way, and apparently she was not conscious of my presence. So
that by and by that of which I had been confident a little earlier began
to seem doubtful, a dream, a mere delusion on my part.
And yet it might be true! It might be that I did exist for her, largely,
filling the room, shutting out her view of the men about us, encroaching
even on her sense of her father’s peril. It might be so. At any rate it
was to this question that my whole mind was directed—what was she
thinking of me? What were the thoughts behind that averted face? Was I
still the betrayer of her father? Or—or what was I?
Presently the men began to pour the mess which they had cooked into
rough bowls, and for a time the steam, savoury enough to the senses of a
hungry man, switched off my thoughts. I took note of the room, while I
awaited my turn. The smoke of the drift-wood fire, mingling with the fog
that eddied in from the marshes, hid the roof, but the air below was
tolerably clear. The men had propped their guns against the wall
opposite me and I counted them. There were five. An active man, I
thought, might have cast himself between the arms and their owners, and
snatching a gun might have held off the five—Levi, I knew, was a
white-livered cur. But a crippled man could not do this; nor, as I found
a moment later when one of the men thrust a bowl and a hunch of
corn-bread on my lap, could he with any success cut up tough pork with a
pocket-knife.
The cooking was coarse, but I was famished, and I wrestled manfully with
the difficulty. I did so to little purpose, however. The bowl slipped on
my knees, I could not steady it. A man sniggered, another laughed. They
stopped eating to look at me. At that I lost patience. “Will you cut it
for me?” I said, holding out the bowl to the nearest man.
He refused—the truth was my difficulty entertained their clownish souls.
“D—n me, cut your own victuals,” he answered churlishly. “Enough, that
I’ve cooked ’em for you.”
“Be thankful you’ve a throat to swallow ’em with!” said a second.
The others laughed; and at that, I who had taken with coolness their
threat to murder me, felt such a rage rise within me, helpless as I was,
that the tears stood in my eyes. I looked at Constantia.
There was the faintest stain of color in her cheeks, but apparently she
was unconscious of what was passing. Still and self-contained, she was
eating and drinking with the steady purpose of one who was set on
maintaining her strength. As quickly as anger had risen, it died in me,
and, alas, my heart sank with it. The men might jeer and taunt and
laugh, I no longer cared. I finished my meal as I could, heeding their
amusement as little as she did. For the savor had left the food. I saw
that I must have been mistaken. Yes, I must have been mistaken. She
could not care for me.
When all was eaten Levi went down with two of the men to set a guard,
and he was absent for some time. When he returned, wood was put on the
fire and the lamp was extinguished. For a time he and the men remained
apart talking in low voices, but soon, one by one, they left the group,
pulled cloaks or blankets about them and lay down—one of them across the
trap-door. Levi made the girl some offer of accommodation, but she
refused it, and dragging a second box to the fire, to eke out the first,
she made a rough couch, on which she sat with her feet raised and her
back against the wall. I lay on the opposite side of the fire, some way
from her; and at times I fancied that her eyes dwelt on me. But I could
not be sure, for her face, half shrouded by her cloak and in shadow, was
hard to distinguish; while I, when I looked that way, met the light.
If I had been sure that her eyes were upon me, if I had been sure that
she thought of me and thanked me, I could have faced the prospect more
lightly. But I had no certainty of this; I had, indeed, much reason to
doubt it, and I looked forward to a night of suspense. I foresaw that as
the warmth died in me and the small hours chilled my bones and damped my
resolution, I should repent of what I had done. A man snored, another
muttered in his sleep, the mosquitoes troubled me. At intervals a horse
moved restlessly in the stable below. A marsh-owl, hunting along the
river bank, tore the night from time to time with its shrill screech. I
had no hope of sleep.
The danger that is thrust on a man, he must meet. But the danger into
which, being no hero, he has thrust himself, is another matter. I knew
that long before morning, I should feel that I had cast away my life.
Thoughts of Osgodby and England, visions of home faces, now thousands of
miles away, would rise to reproach me. I should see—with that terrible
four o’clock in the morning clearness—that for a fancy, for a woman’s
whim, for a fantastic point of honor, I had done what I had no right to
do; I had sacrificed my life and all that I had valued a short time
back. I should remember that she had scarcely touched my hand in
friendship, had never listened to a word of love, never said even that
she forgave me!
But blessed be the soldier’s habit of making the best of the present! In
half an hour, before the strangeness of the situation had quite worn
off, before her near neighborhood, at another time so disturbing, had
grown familiar, before the owl’s sharp note had ceased to startle, I
dozed. And presently worn out by strain—for sorrow sleeps soundly—I fell
into a deep slumber which lasted until long after daylight.
When I awoke there were only two men in the room. They were chopping up
drift-wood in a corner, and it was the sound of their hatchets that had
roused me. The fire had burned low on the hearth, and my teeth
chattered. A fog filled the outer world, poured in through the windows,
laid a clammy touch on everything. Firelight had done much the night
before to redeem the squalor of the room; this morning, daylight showed
it in all its cold and grisly reality. And where was Constantia? Where
was Levi? I crossed the room to one of the windows and I looked out.
They might be below. But at a distance of five yards the eye plunged
into a sea of mist. I could see nothing, and I turned about, shivering,
the cold in my bones.
“You’re a mighty good sleeper,” one of the men said as I met his eye.
“I was tired.”
“Well, it would be more than I could manage!” he answered cryptically.
“Do you think they’ll let him go!”
“Captain Wilmer?”
He nodded. He was a shock-headed man in a frayed hunting shirt, buckskin
leggings and mocassins. A greasy ragged unshaven figure of a man.
“No,” I said, “I’m sure they will not. Would you?”
“D—d if I would,” he answered, grinning. “I never let a ’possum go yet
that I got a grip of! But you’ve spunk, I’ll say that!”
The other man turned and silenced him with an oath, but I marked the
speaker for the best-natured of the band. Something might be made of
him, at a pinch. Meanwhile the two, having finished their task, stirred
up the embers, piled on wood and started the fire. When they had done
this I crouched miserably enough over the blaze, while the two went
about getting a meal. I noticed that the guns had been removed. It
struck me that, were I only fifty yards away in this fog I should be
safe from pursuit. But how was I to win those fifty yards!
As I thought of this and with my mind’s eye measured the height from the
windows to the ground, I heard voices below, and after a short interval
Constantia came up the ladder, muffled in her cloak. She did not look in
my direction, but she came straight to the fire and stooped over it to
warm her hands. Then, hardly moving her lips, and choosing a moment when
the two men had turned their backs, “Be close to me,” she breathed “if
trouble comes. Keep away now.”
She moved some paces from me as soon as she had spoken, and when Levi
and the other two men appeared, we were standing on opposite sides of
the hearth. Levi cast a sharp glance at me; I think he had his
suspicions—God knows what had roused them when I had seen nothing! But
he only swore at the men for letting down the fire and at the fire for
giving no warmth, and at the morning for being cold. If ever there was
an ill-conditioned cur, he was one!
For me, I was no longer cold. Her words, her tone, tingled through my
veins, set my pulses beating, did all but give strength to my useless
arm. I could face anything now, I could face the worst now, and hope to
live through it.
My relief, indeed, was unspeakable. But apart from me—and I masked my
feelings—it was a gloomy party that, shivering in the aguish air,
gathered about the poor meal and ate and drank in a brutish fashion.
Constantia kept her old place on the farther side of the hearth, and
muffled in her cloak preserved a stern silence. Her face by the morning
light looked white and drawn, so that even in a lover’s eyes it lacked
something of its ordinary beauty. But the strain which she was putting
on herself did not appear until the meal was over, and we had risen from
our seats. Then when the men, stuffing their corn-cob pipes, had gone,
some to feed the horses, and some to lean yawning from the windows and
curse the fog, she began to walk up and down the room; while Levi
watched her openly and I in secret. To and fro, she paced, the hood of
her cloak drawn over her head, to and fro, this way and that,
restlessly; only breaking her march at intervals to glance from the
window and sigh, and so to resume her walk.
“There’ll be no news yet, ma’am,” Levi said after a time. He spoke with
servility but I guessed that he was suspicious and uneasy. I wondered if
he had intercepted some glance meant for me.
She gave him no answer by word or look. She continued to walk up and
down. Impatience seemed to be getting the better of her. She could not
be still.
“They’ll be having the message, about this time,” he said, glancing at
me in turn. “Not a minute earlier.”
I nodded. I had no doubt that he was right.
“Curse me,” he continued, “but as sure as there are snakes in Virginia,
you’re a cool fish, Major! You mightn’t have a tongue in your head. What
is it, I’d like to know, you have up your sleeve?”
I laughed. It was easy to laugh since she had spoken to me.
The man with the buckskin shirt was sitting on the sill of the farther
window, swinging his feet. He began to whistle. The girl stopped in her
walk, as if she had been struck. She looked at him with something in her
face that was equal to a man’s worst oath. Then, “oh, hush!” she said.
“Hush!”
The fellow stared at her in astonishment, but he ceased to whistle. She
stood. For a minute or two there was no sound in the room except the
bubbling of a foul pipe, no sound outside but the wailing cry of a
waterfowl. It was the mallard’s cry that she had heard, perhaps; for
presently she resumed her walk, Levi still watching her with a crafty
eye. If she was listening he was thinking, and it was then for the first
time that it struck me with something of a shock that he was not the man
to let me go—however Wilmer might fare. A bad thought that, to intrude
at this time!
One of the horses pawed restlessly in the room below, and the man who
had gone down to feed them, shouted a question from the foot of the
ladder. Levi answered him. The interruption this caused brought the same
look of impatience, of endurance, of sheer suffering to the girl’s face.
She stood, she turned to me; for the first time, as if she could no
longer control herself, she spoke to me openly. “What time is it?” she
asked.
“Half past ten,” I said. “I fear that you cannot expect news yet.” I was
moved indeed, moved to the heart with pity for her; and pained, in the
midst of my own anxiety, to think that she should pass intolerable hours
in expecting what could not come yet—and in my view would not come at
all. By and by things would be better. The sun would suck up the vapors,
we should breathe more freely, we should be able to look abroad, we
should see something if it were but the sun-lit marshes. As it was, the
grizzly room, the choking fog, the men, the suspense, set the worst face
on everything and filled me with loathing.
Presently a flight of birds passed the house with a whirring of wings
and a single note of alarm. The man at the window leant out to follow
them with his eye. He muttered something about a gun, and again there
was silence, while Constantia resumed her restless march, and Levi
followed her with his eyes.
A long, long quarter of an hour followed, and then the silence was
broken. Out of the fog came a faint whooping cry, distant and tremulous.
The girl was the first to hear it and she stood, as if turned to stone.
I saw her stiffen, I saw her eyes dilate, her lips grow white. Her gaze
met mine in an agony of questioning. For a moment she ceased to breathe,
so intently she listened. Then the cry rose again, still distant but
louder. She turned to the trap-door, as if to go down.
But her limbs failed her—at any rate Levi was before her. I suppose he
had studied her as closely as I had. He bounded to the head of the
ladder, and slipped down it, calling out to her that he would see what
it was, calling out to the remaining man to look to me. The girl, thus
forestalled, turned from the ladder, and went to the window. She leant
on the sill, and I saw that she was shaking from head to foot. “It is
Tom!” she murmured.
“Tom!” I exclaimed.
“Yes! Tom!” she said, her breath coming in sobs. “He has news. Oh, God
in His mercy grant that it be good news!”
We saw Levi and two of the men run from the house, and vanish in the fog
that hid the road. We heard the cry once more—it was near at hand
now—but there followed on it a confused outcry, a thudding of feet, a
shot—the flame of which for an instant rent the mist—a struggle. The
girl sank against me, and if I had not put my arm round her and
supported her, she would have fallen. “It was Tom!” she gasped. “It was
Tom!”
“Then there’s some foul play on foot!” I cried.
“Yes, foul play,” she whispered. “They’ll not let us have the news!
They’ll keep the news from us!” For a moment I thought that she would
collapse altogether, but as suddenly as she had given way, she
recovered. She drew a deep fluttering breath, released herself from my
arm, stood up. She glanced, pale and frowning, at the man who leant from
the other window. He, too, was striving to make out what was passing,
and from time to time he gave vent to his excitement in an oath. He had
forgotten us, and forgotten his duty, too, if it was to guard us. While
one might count five she considered him; then deftly, with her eyes
still fixed on him she drew a pistol from some hidden place in her
dress, and slipped it into my hand. “Can you use it?” she whispered.
“Yes,” I muttered.
Then, “Now!” she said.
I cocked it, saw that the priming was in its place, and took two steps
towards the man. “Halloa!” I cried.
He drew in his head and found himself covered by the pistol; a pistol is
a thing a one-armed man can use. “Go down!” I said. “Quick!” He opened
his mouth to speak. “Quick, my man, go down!” I repeated. “Or—that’s
better!” I said, as, still covered by the muzzle he moved unwillingly to
the head of the ladder, and began, swearing furiously, to descend. “Tell
your rogue of a leader,” I went on, “to come under the window and speak
to me!”
I should have followed the man down, seen him out, and barred the outer
door, thus securing the horses; but one of the gang was in the lower
doorway, and though his attention was fixed on the scene that was
passing outside I feared to lose all by trying to gain too much. Instead
I waited until our man’s head was below the level of the floor, then I
dropped the pistol and shut down the trap upon him. As quickly as I did
it, Constantia was at my elbow with the heaviest case she could drag
forward. We set it on the trap-door, furiously piled a second on the top
of it and a third on that. Then we looked at one another. Her eyes were
gloomy. “They have killed him!” she exclaimed. “They have killed Tom!”
“I hope not,” I said. “They may have fired to frighten him!”
“And the news!” she panted. She clasped her hands. “He brought news!”
The news? Ay, it was that which had done it! She was hungering,
thirsting, parched for the news, and they kept it from her! She could
have killed the men, for that! And yet, what news, I wondered, had she
in her mind? What news could she expect at this hour of the day, when
Pete could barely have delivered his message?
Still that was a small question beside the fact that I was out of the
snare, was free, was armed. And she was with me, one with me, leaning on
my care and protection. I looked round the dreary room; it was changed,
it was glorified, I could have shouted with joy. Only now when it had
passed from me did I gauge the depth of the shadow of death! Only now
did I measure, with a pistol in my hand, my fear of the rope!
True, we were still in peril, but my heart rose to meet the danger, and
exulted in it. I knew Levi to be a cur and his men were much of the same
kidney. I reckoned that we were hardly two miles from the main road
along which our patrols would be constantly passing in the day-time; nor
more than four miles as the crow flies, from the detachment at the
ferry. A little shooting on Levi’s part or ours would soon bring our
people about his ears.
Still, we must, for a time, depend on ourselves and our own resources,
and we had only one pistol and six cartridges. A second pistol was a
thing much to be desired. So while I kept watch at the window, the girl
at a word from me fell to ransacking the men’s blankets and saddle-bags.
The search proved fruitless, but by the time it had failed, the man had
taken my message. We heard an outburst of oaths, and the sound of feet
running along the road; a moment and several figures showed phantom-like
through the mist. There was a second outbreak of blasphemy, then for a
time, silence.
“The rascals are consulting,” I said. “That will not raise their
courage. Councils of war never fight.”
The girl did not answer and I looked at her. She was sitting on a box
rocking herself to and fro, her elbows on her knees, her face hidden in
her hands. Then I understood. Our defence, our safety, what was passing
here, these were small things to her. It was still the news, the news
that she craved, the news for which she pined, the news that she
coveted, as she rocked herself to and fro in an agony of impatience.
I thrust my head out of the window. “Are you coming?” I shouted.
At that Levi showed himself, timidly and at a distance. “What cursed
trick is this?” he shouted. “What’d she reckon to fetch us here for to
jockey us in this fashion? Do you hear, if you don’t come down, I’ll
burn the whole house and you in it! S’help me, if I won’t!”
“Then you’ll burn your horses,” I replied. “And bring our detachment
from the ferry on you. See? And see this, too, you cowardly rogue. Give
up the messenger you’ve seized! Give him up! Or we’ll raise such a
racket as shall bring my people on you quickly! We have your horses, and
you cannot recover them without coming under fire.”
This was true for we had found two knot-holes in the floor, that
commanded the stable below. I fancied that this would go some way
towards bringing them to terms, for I knew that in the eyes of such men
as these their horses ranked after their own skins.
Levi was silent a moment, digesting the information. Then, “What is all
this?” he asked plaintively. “What messenger d’you want? We’ve none of
your messengers.”
“The messenger is Tom, Captain Wilmer’s negro,” I answered. “We know
that you’ve seized him. It’s no use lying to us.”
“I’ll come up and talk,” he said.
“No, you won’t!” I replied, scenting a trap. “If you come too close I’ll
put a bullet through you. I’ll give you five minutes to decide. Move
off!”
He drew off sullenly, and disappeared round the corner of the house.
The girl still rocked herself to and fro, and after a moment of thought
I left the window—at some risk—and touched her on the shoulder. “If it
were bad news,” I said, “they would not have kept it from you.”
She looked up at me, a light in her eyes. “Say it again,” she said.
I repeated it. “If I could believe that!” she cried, and clapped her
hands to her face.
“I can see no other meaning in it,” I argued. “If he brought bad news,
would he come so early?”
She stood up. “I must know!” she cried passionately. “I must know! I
will go down! I will make them tell me! I will wring it from them! Am I
to hide here while they know all?” And falling impetuously upon the
litter which we had piled upon the trap-door she dragged away the
uppermost case, heavy as it was, before I could hinder her. She seized
the next, and strove to move it.
I was between two fires. I had left the window unguarded, and I could
not tell what was passing outside. On the other hand I could not let her
go down and place herself in the power of these miscreants, who, unless
they were fools, would hold her as a hostage for my surrender. I caught
her by the arm. “Don’t!” I cried. “You are mad!”
But she would not listen, she persisted. She struggled with me, and I
had only one arm. I had to use my full strength. I dragged her away at
last, and in the excitement, having the unguarded window on my mind and
the fear of what the men might do while she kept me thus, I shook her—I
shook her angrily.
“Come back to your senses!” I said. “I am not going to let you do it! Do
you hear! You are not going down!”
“I must!” she cried, struggling with me.
“You will not!” I said.
She ceased to struggle at that, and appeared to come to herself. Then—I
still held her firmly by the arm—a blush dyed her face to the roots of
her hair. Her eyes fell. “Let me go,” she muttered.
“Will you do as I say?” I cried. “Will you be guided?”
“Yes,” she said, her lips quivering. There were tears in her eyes.
“And give up this mad idea?”
“Yes.”
“That is better,” I replied. “Then put that case back, if you please.
The news will be neither better nor worse because you do not hear it.”
And I let her go, and turned quickly to the window, intent, as far as
appearances went, upon Levi and the gang.
But if there had been anything to note, if Levi had made a move at that
moment, I doubt if I should have seen it. The contest had not taken two
minutes, but it had changed all our relations. The struggle and her
surrender, the contact between us—our hands had hardly met hitherto—had
put the spark to a train that in my case was already laid. My blood was
in a tumult, my face as hot as hers, my heart beat furiously. What her
feelings were I could only guess. But the tell-tale blood that had waved
its signal in her cheek, her sudden confusion, her drooping head, if
these did no more than own the man’s mastery, they were such an advance
on anything that had passed between us that it was no wonder that I
forgot the peril, Levi, the rogues, all.
A minute or two, during which I dared not look at her, brought me to my
senses. I saw that the mist was thinner, that the sun was beginning to
peer through it. Soon we should be able to look abroad, and Levi and his
men, surprised in the open and almost within view of the highway, might
find the boot on the other leg. My spirits rose; and again I remembered,
and they sank as quickly. The news! The news that she longed for so
hungrily, from which she expected so much. How could it be good? I knew
Rawdon too well, and the story of poor André was too fresh in my memory.
Besides, the men’s ultimatum could hardly have been delivered. And were
the news bad, as bad it must be, it mattered little what she felt for me
now. The feeling would not survive the shock.
I stole a glance at her. She was listening. Presently her eyes came to
meet mine. “Surely,” she urged, “the five minutes are past.”
“Yes,” I said, “they must be.” And looking warily out of the window I
shouted.
No one answered, no one appeared. But while I hung over the sill and
waited sounds that I did not understand came to my ears, vaguely at
first, but presently more clearly. It seemed to me that a struggle was
going on not far off. “I believe Tom has got away!” I exclaimed. “Or
they are fighting among themselves. Listen!”
The report of a gun startled us. The girl sprang to the window and
breathless, trembling with anxiety she leant far out; so far that I drew
her back. “Have a care!” I said. “They might take you for me!” Then,
“Who is this?” I asked.
A man had appeared at a little distance from us, and was approaching the
door. I knew at a glance that it was not Levi; Levi would have hailed me
from a distance or sneaked up under cover. This man came forward without
fear, a little switch in his hand. “It’s not Tom!” I said. The mist
blurred the man’s outline.
“Tom? No!” she answered looking at me piteously. Then, “Ask him! He
knows! He—” She could not finish. She clung to me. It was only later
that I took in the full wonder and the meaning of this. She clung to me,
though the news bad or good, was not known to her.
“Halloa!” I shouted to the man who was still a few yards from the door
but was coming on as coolly as if he were approaching his own house. “Is
it good news?” I had no doubt of the answer but it was best to know the
worst, best to have it over.
He looked up and saw me. He nodded. “Yes, it’s good!” he said. Then he
nodded again. “Quite good, Major.”
I stared confounded, while she—for a moment her weight hung heavy on my
arm. Then she sighed, stiffened herself, and drew away from me. I did
not look at her. For one thing I dared not, and for another, what if the
news were not true? Who was this man, and what did he know?
“Is she there?” he asked, looking up and tapping his neat boot with his
switch.
“Yes,” I said, still doubting.
“Well, send her down, will you?” he replied. “There’s somebody waiting
for her at the back of the mill.”
Then I knew the man. It was Marion—General Marion, for he had been
raised to that rank since I had parted from him.