From certain rank signs of bad management in the Federal camp one could
easily guess that our circuit was designed to bring us around to its
rear. That a colonel's tent--the one where the singers were--was not
where the colonel's tent belonged was a trifle, but the slovenliness
with which the forest borders of the camp were guarded was a graver
matter. Evidently those troops were at least momentarily in unworthy
hands, and I was so remarking to Kendall when a murmured command came
back from Ferry, to tell Dick Smith to stop that whispering. I was
sorry, for I wanted to add that I knew we were not going to attack the
camp itself. That was on Wednesday night. Charlotte and Gholson had
made their ride of fifty miles on Monday. The friends with whom she
stopped at nightfall contrived to cram him into their crowded soldiers'
room, and he had given the whole company of his room-mates, as they sat
up in their beds, a full account of the fight at Sessions's, Charlotte's
care of the sick and dying, and the singing, by her and the blue-coats,
of their battle-song. Next morning Charlotte, without Gholson--who
turned off to camp--rode on to Goldschmidt's store, just beyond which
there was then still a Confederate picket. Here she hired Mrs.
Goldschmidt's pony, rode to the picket, and presented the Coralie
Rothvelt pass.
"Miss Coralie Rothvelt; yes, all right," said the officer, "the men that
rode with you this morning told me all about you." He went with her as
far as his videttes, and thence she rode alone to a picket of the
Federal army and by her request was conducted under guard to the
headquarters of a corps commander. To him and his chief-of-staff she
told the fate of Jewett's scouts and delivered the messages of their
dying leader; and then she tendered the hero's sword.
The staff-officer cut away its cornhusk wrapping and read aloud the
owner's name on the hilt. The General laid the mighty weapon across his
palm and sternly shut his lips. "How did you get through the enemy's
pickets with this?"
"I had a Confederate general's pass."
"Ah! Is the Confederate general as nameless as yourself?"
"I am not nameless; I only ask leave to withhold my name until I have
told one or two other things."
"But you don't mind confessing you're an out-and-out rebel sympathizer?"
Under the broad-brimmed hat her smile grew to a sparkle. "No, I enjoy
it."
The chief-of-staff smiled, but the General darkened and pressed his
questions. At length he summed up. "So, then, you wish me to believe
that you did all you did, and now have come into our lines at a most
extraordinary and exhausting speed and running the ugliest kinds of
risks, in mere human sympathy for a dying stranger, he being a Union
officer and you a secessionist of"--a courtly bow--"the very elect;
that's your meaning, is it not?"
"No, General; in the first place, I am not one of any elect."
A flattering glimmer of amusement came into the two men's faces, but
some change in Charlotte's manner arrested it and brought an enhanced
deference.
"In the second place, I am not here merely on this errand."
"Oh!"
"No, General. And in the last place, my motive in this errand is no mere
sympathy for any one person; I am here from a sense of public duty--"
The speaker seemed suddenly overtaken by emotions, dropped her words
with pained evenness, and fingered the lace handkerchief in her lap.
"Pardon," interrupted the General, "the sunlight annoys you. Major, will
you drop that curtain?" "Thank you. One thing I am here for, General,
is to tell you something, and I have to begin by asking that neither of
you will ever say how you learned it."
The two men bowed.
"Thank you. Please understand, also, I have never uttered this but to
one friend, a lady. There was no need; I have not wanted aid or counsel,
even from friends. But I feel duty bound to tell it to you, now,
because, for one thing, the brave soldier who wore that sword--" Her
eyes rose to the weapon and fell again; she bit her lip.
"Yes--well--what of him?"
"He was lured to disaster and death by a man whose supreme purpose was,
and is to-day, revenge upon me. That man drew him to his ruin purely in
search of my life." Charlotte sat with her strange in-looking,
out-looking gaze holding the gaze of her questioner until for relief
he spoke.
"Why, young lady, it's hard to doubt anything you say, but really that
sounds rather fanciful. Why should you think it?"
"I do not think it, I know it. He sends me his own assurance of it by
his own father, so that his revenge may be fuller by my knowing daily
and hourly that he is on my trail."
"And you appeal to me for protection?"
She smiled. "No. I am not seeking to divert his fury from myself, but to
confine it to myself. Fancy yourself a human-hearted woman, General, and
murder being done day by day because you are alive." "Oh, this is
incredible! What is its occasion, its origin? How are you in any way
responsible?"
"Why, largely I am not. Yet in degree I am, General, because of
shortcomings of mine--faults--errors--that--oh--that have their bearing
in the case, don't you see?"
"No, I don't; pray don't ask me to draw inferences; I might infer too
much."
"Yes, you might, easily," said Charlotte; "for I only mean shortcomings
of the kind we readily excuse in others though we never can or should
pardon them in ourselves."
The General turned an arch smile of perplexity upon his chief-of-staff.
"I don't think we're quite up to that line of perpetual snow,
Walter, are we?"