Once more we were in the by-road which had brought us westward parallel
with the highway. The prisoner drove. Aunt Martha sat beside him, slim,
dark, black-eyed, stately, her silver-gray hair rolled high à la
Pompadour. With a magnanimity rare in those bitter days she incited him
to talk, first of New Orleans, where he had spent a month in camp on one
of the public squares, and then of his far northern home, and of loved
ones there, mother, wife and child. The nieces, too, gave a generous
attention. Only I, riding beside the hind wheels, held solemnly aloof.
"Front!" I once snapped out with a ring that made the trees reply and
the ladies catch their breath. "If you steal one more look back here
I'll put a ball into your leg."
He smiled, chirped the horses up and resumed his chat. I heard him
praise my horse and compare him not unfavorably with his own which he
had lost that morning'. He and a few picked men had been surprised in a
farmhouse at breakfast. They had made a leap and a dash, he said, but
one horse and rider falling dead, his horse, unhurt, had tumbled over
them, and here was his rider.
I prompted Camille to ask if he had ever encountered Ned Ferry, and he
laughed.
"No," he said, but Ned Ferry had lately restored to him, by proxy, some
lost letters, with an invitation to _come and see him_.
I laughed insolently. The young ladies sparkled, and so did Miss Harper,
as she asked him who had been the proxy.
He said the proxy was a young woman who had a knack of getting passes
through the lines, and the three girls exchanged looks as knowing as
they were delighted.
"I tell her as a friend," he said, "she'll get one into Fortress Monroe
yet!"
Miss Harper's keen eyes glittered. "You northerners hardly realize our
feelings concerning the imprisonment of women, I think."
"My dear madam, you don't realize ours. We don't want to imprison
women."
So there came a silence, and then a gay laugh as three of us at once
asked if he had ever heard of Lieutenant Durand. "Durand!" he cried, and
looked squarely around at me. I lifted the cocked revolver, but he kept
his fine eyes on mine and I rubbed my ear with my wrist. "What?" he
said, "an elegant, Creole-seeming young fellow, very handsome? Why, that
fellow saved my life this very afternoon."
The young ladies were in rapture. Miss Harper asked how he had done it.
"If I tell you that," said the Captain, "you won't like me the least
bit."
Whereat Cécile replied, "Ah--well! we cou'n' like you the leaz bit
any-'ow."
"I suppose that's so," laughed the officer. "I'll tell you how it was.
My guard were just about to hang me for saying I thought we had a right
to make soldiers of the darkies, when your friend came galloping along,
saw the thing, and rushed in and cut the halter with his sword. And when
they demanded to know who and what he was, he told them Durand, and that
they'd hear it again, for he should report them."
"Oh, sir," cried Estelle, whose eyes, brows, lashes and hair were all of
the same luminous red-brown, and in whose cheeks the rose seemed always
to burn through the olive, "how can you and your people seek to kill
such men as that?"
"Such as which?" asked the Yankee, with a twinkle. "There were two
kinds."
"But, o-oh! sir!" exclaimed the trio, when Miss Harper waved them to
forbear. There was yet some daylight left as we trundled into a broad
highroad and turned northward. We passed a picket guard and then a whole
regiment of cavalry going into camp. They scrambled to the sides of the
road and stormed us with questions, chaffing us cruelly when I remained
silent. "Lawd! look a' this-yeh Yank a-bringin' in ow desertehs!" "Hey,
you big Yank, you jest let that po' little conscrip' go!"
Headquarters, we heard from a courier who said he was the third sent out
to find us, were at the "Sessions house" two miles further on. We sent
him galloping back there, and after a while here came Major Harper and
three or four others of the staff, including Harry Helm. What a flood of
mirthful compliment there was at sight of us and our captive; Harry was
positively silly. In the series of introductions that followed he was
left paired with Camille, and I said things to myself. Major Harper rode
by the prisoner. "Well, Captain," he said, "you've had some experiences
since you left me this morning. Don't you want to give us your parole
this time, temporarily, for an hour or so, and be more comfortable?"
"Thank you, Major," the Federal affably replied, "that would be a great
relief to this most extraordinary youngster that I've brought with me."
He gave it and we turned into a lofty grove whitened with our
headquarters tents.
"Smith," said the Major, "your part is done, and well done. You needn't
report to me again to-night; the General wishes to see you a moment.
Captain, will you go with this young man to General Austin's tent?"