The first hush of the deserted camp-ground was lost in the songs of
returning birds. Captain Jewett, his majestic length blanket-bound from
brow to heel as trimly as a bale, had been laid under ground, and the
Harpers stood in prayer at the grave's head and foot with hats on for
their journey. The burial squad, turned guard of honor to the dead
captain of the Louisianians, were riding away on either side of a light
wagon that bore his mortal part. I, after all, was to be the Harpers'
guardian on their way.
Day widened into its first perfection as we moved down the highroad
toward a near fork whose right was to lead Harry and his solemn cortége
southward, while the left should be our eastward course. Camille and I
rode horseback, side by side, with no one near enough to smile at my
sentimental laudations of the morning's splendors, or at her for
repaying my eloquence with looks so full of tender worship, personal
acceptance and self-bestowal, that to tell of them here would make as
poor a show as to lift a sea-flower out of the sea; they call for
piccolo notes and I am no musician.
The familiar little leather-curtained wagon was just ahead of us,
bearing the other three Harpers, the old negro driver and--to complete
its overloading--his daughter, Charlotte's dark maid. Beside the wheels
ambled and babbled Harry Helm. At the bridge he fell back to us and
found us talking of Charlotte. Camille was telling me how well Charlotte
knew the region south of us, and how her plan was to dine at mid-day
with such a friend and to pass the night with such another; but the
moment Harry came up she began to upbraid him in her mellowest
flute-notes for not telling us that he had got his wound in saving--
"Now, you ladies--" cried the teased aide-de-camp, "I--I didn't save
Gholson's life! I didn't try to save it! I only tried to split a
Yankee's head and didn't even do that! Dick Smith, if you tell anybody
else that I saved--Well, who did, then? Good Lordy! if I'd known that to
save a man's life would make all this fuss I wouldn't 'a' done it! Why,
Quinn and I had to sit and listen to Ned Ferry a solid half-hour last
night, telling us the decent things he'd known Gholson to do, and the
allowances we'd ought to make for a man with Gholson's sort of a
conscience! And then, to cap--to clap--to clap the ki'--to cap--the
_climax_--consound that word, I never did know what it meant--to clap
the climax, Ned sends for Gholson and gets Quinn to speak to him
civilly--aw, haw, haw!--Quinn showing all the time how he hated the job,
like a cat when you make him jump over a stick! And then he led us on,
with just a word here and there, until we all agreed as smooth as glass,
that all Quinn had said was my fault, and all I had done was Gholson's
fault, and all Gholson had said or done or left undone was our fault,
and the rest was partly Ned's fault, but mostly accident."
Camille declared she did not and would not believe there had been any
fault with any one, anywhere, and especially with Mr. Gholson, and I
liked Lieutenant Helm less than ever, noticing anew the unaccountable
freedom with which Camille seemed to think herself entitled to rebuke
him. "Oh, I'm in your power," he cried to her, "and I'll call him a
spotless giraffe if you want me to! that's what he is; I've always
thought so!" The spring-wagon was taking the left fork and he cantered
ahead to begin his good-byes there and save her for the last. When he
made his adieu to her he said, "Won't you let Mr. Smith halt here with
me a few moments? I want to speak of one or two matters that--"
She resigned me almost with scorn; which privately amused me, and, I
felt sure, hoodwinked the aide-de-camp.
"Say, Dick!" he began, as she moved away, "look here, I'm going to tell
you something; Ned Ferry's in love with Charlotte Oliver!"
"You don't mean it!"
"Yes, I do, mean it! Smith, Ned's a grand fellow. I'm glad I came here
yesterday."
"Yes, you've secured a furlough."
"Oh, this thing, yes; don't you wish you had it! No, I'm glad I came,
for what I've learned. I'm glad for what Ned Ferry has taught me a man
can do, and keep from doing, when he's got the upper hold of himself.
And I'm glad for what she--you know who--by George! any man would know
who ever saw her, for she draws every man who comes within her range, as
naturally as a rose draws a bee. I'm glad for what she has taught me a
woman can _be_, and can keep from being, so long as she knows there's
one real man to live up to! just _up to_, mind you, I don't even say to
live _for_."
I stared with surprise. Was this the trivial Harry talking? Fact is, the
pair we were talking about had by some psychical magic rarified the
atmosphere for all of us until half our notes were above our
normal pitch.
"Do you mean she loves him; what sign of such a thing did she show
yesterday or last evening?"
"Not a sign of a sign! And yet I'll swear it! Do you know where she's
gone?"
"To-day? I think I do."
"Where?"
"Well, Lieutenant, if I were she, _I_ should go straight into the Yankee
lines behind Port Hudson. She's got Jewett's messages and his sword, and
the Yank's won't know her as a Confederate any better than they ever
did; for it's only these men whom we've captured who have found out
she's Charlotte Oliver, or that she had any knowing part in General
Austin's ruse."
"If Oliver doesn't tell," said Harry, lifting his bad hand in pain.
"He will not dare! If she can only get her word in first and tell them,
herself, that he's Charlotte Oliver's husband and has just led the
finest company of Federal scouts in the two States to destruction--"
"Hi! that ought to cook his dough!--with her face--and her voice!"
"Yes," I responded, "--and his breath."
"And why do you think she wants to do this?" asked Harry.
"She doesn't want to do it; but she feels she must, knowing that every
blow he strikes from now on is struck on her account. I believe she's
gone to warn the Yankees that his whole animus is personal revenge and
that he will sacrifice anything or anybody, any principle or pledge or
cause, at any moment, to wreak that private vengeance, in whole or
in part."
"Dick Smith, yes! But don't you see, besides, what she _does_ want? Why,
she wants to keep Oliver and Ferry apart until somebody else for whom
she doesn't care as she cares for Ned, say you, or I, or--or--"
"Gholson?"
"Gholson, no! she can't trust Gholson, Gholson's conscience is too
vindictive; that's why she's keeping him with her as long as she can.
No, but until some of us, I say, can give Oliver a thousand times better
than he ought ever to get--except for her sake--"
"Yes, you mean a soldier's clean death; and what you want of me is for
me to say that I, for one, will lose no honest chance to give it to him,
isn't it?"
"What I want of you, Smith, is to tell you that _I_ shall lose no such
chance."
"Well, neither shall I."
"Bully for you, Dick; bully boy with the glass eye! You see, you're one
of only half a dozen or so that know Oliver when they see him; so Ned
will soon be sending you after him. Ned's got a conscience, too, you
know, as squirmy as Gholson's. Oh, Lord! yes, you don't often _see_ it,
but it's as big and hard as a conscript's ague-cake." The Lieutenant
gathered his rein; "Smith, I want Ned and her to get one another;
that's me!"
I was tempted to say it was me, too, but I forbore and only said it was
I.
"All the same," said Harry, "I'm sorry for the little girl!"
"Little girl?"
"Oh, come, now, you know!" He leaned to me and whispered, "Miss Cécile!"
"Lieutenant," I replied, with a flush, realizing what I owed to the
family as a prospective member of it, "you're mistaking a little
patriotic ardor--"
"Pat who--oh? I tell you, my covey,--and of course, you understand, I
wouldn't breathe it any further--"
"I'd rather you would not."
"Phew-ew! I don't know why in the devil _you'd_ rather I would not,
but--Smith,--she's so dead-gone in love with Ned Ferry, that if she
doesn't get him--I George! it'll e'en a'most kill her!"
I guffawed in derision. "And she didn't even have to tell you so! She
can't even hide its deadly intensity from the casual bystander! haw!
haw! haw! And it's all the outcome of a _three-days acquaintance_! It
beats Doctor Swiftgrow's Mustache Invigor'--aw, haw! haw!" "Oh, you
think so? Pity you couldn't get a few barrels of it--aw, haw! haw!" said
Harry, and my laughter left off where his began. But, some way hurting
his hand, he, too, stopped short. I drew my horse back.
"Is that all you've noticed?" I smilingly inquired. "Isn't anybody else
mortally in love with anybody else? You can't make me believe that's all
you know!"
"Well, then, I sha'n't try. I do know one thing more; heard it
yesterday. Like to hear it?"
"Like! Why, I'm just that dead-gone with curiosity that if I don't hear
it it'll e'en a'most kill me--aw, haw! haw! haw!"
"Well, I'm tired saving people's lives, but we won't count this one; you
say you want to hear it--I can't give you all of it but it begins:
"'Turn away thine eyes, maiden passing fair!
O maiden passing fair, turn away thine eyes!'--
"Haw! haw! haw! Good-bye, Smith,--aw, haw! haw! haw!--and it's all the
outcome of a three-days acquaintance!--haw! haw! haw!--Oh,
say!--Smith!"--I was leaving him--"that's right, go back and begin
over!--'Return! return!'--aw, haw! haw! haw!"