her neck and face; and his eyes flashed triumph.
"You have _not_ forgotten!" he cried.
And there, on the very edge of death itself, the bright shame glowed and
glowed in her cheeks, and her distressed eyes fell before his.
"You kissed me," he said, looking at her.
"I--I thought I had--killed you--" she stammered.
"And you kissed me on the lips.... In that moment of peril you waited to
do that. Your tears fell on my face. I felt them. And I tell you that,
even had I been lying there dead instead of partly stunned, I would have
known what you did to me after you struck me down."
Her head sank lower; the color ran riot from throat to brow.
He spoke again, quietly, yet a strange undertone of exaltation thrilled
his voice and transfigured the thin, war-worn features she had
forgotten, so that, as she lifted her eyes to him again, the same boy
looked back at her from the mist of the long dead years.
"Messenger," he said, "I have never forgotten. And now it is too late to
forget your tears on my face--the touch of your lips on mine. I would
not if I could.... It was worth living for--dying for.... Once--I
hoped--some day--after this--all this trouble ended--my romance might
come--true----"
The boy choked, then:
"I came here under orders to take a woman spy whose password was the key
to a Latin phrase. But until you stood straight in your rags and smiled
at me, I did not know it was you--I did not know I was to take the
Special Messenger! Do you believe me?"
"Yes."
The boy colored painfully. Then a queer, pallid change came over his
face; he rose, bent over her where she rested heavily on the table:
"Little Messenger," he said, "I am in your debt for two blows and a
kiss."
She lifted a dazed face to meet his gaze; he trembled, leaned down, and
kissed her on the mouth.
Then in one bound he was at the door, signaling his troopers with drawn
sabre--as once, long ago, she had seen him signal them in the Northern
woods.
And, through the window, she saw the scattered cavalry forming column at
a gallop, obeying every sabre signal, trotting forward, wheeling fours
right--and then--and then! the gray column swung into the western forest
at a canter, and was gone!
The boy leaning in the doorway looked back at her over his shoulder and
sheathed his sabre. There was not a vestige of color left in his face.
"Go!" he said hoarsely.
"What?" she faltered.
"Go--go, in God's name! There's a door there! Can't you see it?"
* * * * *
She had been gone for a full hour when at last he turned again. A bit of
faded ribbon from her hair lay on the table. It was tied in a true
lover's knot.
He walked over, looked at it, drew it through his buttonhole and went
slowly back to the door again. For a long while he stood there,
vague-eyed, silent. It was nearly sunset when once more he drew his
sabre, examined it carefully, bent it over one knee, and snapped the
blade in two.
Then, with a last look at the sky, and standing very erect, he closed
the door, set his back firmly against it, drew his revolver, and looked
curiously into the muzzle.
A moment later the racket of the shot echoed through the deserted house.
V
RED FERRY
When Private Allen of Kay's Cavalry deserted with headquarters' dispatch
pouch, and headed straight for Dixie, there was a great deal of
consternation and excitement on the north bank of the river, and a
considerable amount of headlong riding. But on the tenth day he slipped
through the cordon, got into the woods, and was making for the river
when a patrol shot at him near Gopher Creek, but lost him in the
impenetrable cypress swamp beyond.
However, the pursuit was pushed forward to the very edge of the enemy's
country; Kay's troopers patrolled the north bank of the river and
watched every road and ford; east and west Ripley's and Haynes's
brigades formed impassable curtains.
Somewhere in this vast corral lay hidden a desperate, starving man; and
it was only a question of time before the hunted creature broke cover
for the water.
That a trooper had deserted with arms and equipment was generally known;
but that, in his nocturnal flight, he had also taken vitally important
papers was known at first only to Kay and later to the Special
Messenger, who was sent to him post-haste from corps headquarters when
the fugitive headed for the river.
Now, the south bank of the stream being in the enemy's territory, Kay
had not ventured to station patrols above the clay banks opposite, lest
rumor of invasion bring Stuart's riders to complicate a man chase and
the man escape in the confusion.
And he explained this to the Special Messenger at their first
conference.
"It ought to be guarded," insisted the Messenger tranquilly. "There are
three good fords and a ferry open to him."
"I hold the fords on this side," argued Kay; "the ferryboat lies in the
eel-grass on the south shore."
"Stuart's riders might cross if they heard of this trouble, sir!"
"And if they see Union troops on the south bank they'll cross, sure pop.
It won't do, Messenger. If that fellow attempts the fords we'll catch
him, sure; if he swims we may get him in the water. The Lord knows I
want him badly, but I dare not invite trouble by placing vedettes across
the stream.... There's a ferryman over there I'm worried about, too.
He'd probably come across if Allen hailed him from the woods.... And
Allen was thick with him. They used to fish together. Nobody knows what
they hatched out between them. It worries me, I can tell you--that
ferry."
The Messenger walked to the tent door and looked thoughtfully at the
woods around her. The colonel rose from his camp stool and followed her,
muttering:
"I might as well try to catch a weasel in a wall, or a red horse in the
mud; and how to go about it I don't know." With set jaws and an angry
spot glowing in his gaunt cheeks, he stared wickedly around him and then
at the Messenger. "_You_ do miracles, they say. Can't you do one now?"
"I don't know, sir. Who is this deserter?"
"Roy Allen--a sullen, unwilling dog--always malingering. He's spent half
the time in the guardhouse, half in the hospital, since he arrived with
the recruits. Somebody got an idea that he'd been hit by the sun, but
it's all bosh. He's a bad one--that's all. Can you help me out?"
The Messenger nodded.
"You say he's fond of fishing?"
"Crazy about it. He was often detailed to keep us in food when rations
ran low. Then the catfish made us sick, so I stopped his fishing. Then
he took French leave."
"I want two troopers this evening, Colonel. May I have them?" she asked
thoughtfully. "I'm going to keep house at Red Ferry for a while."
"All right, ma'am. Look out for him; he's a bad one."
But the Messenger shook her head, smiling.
At ten o'clock that night the Special Messenger, mounted astride and
followed by two cavalrymen with carbines, rode down through the river
mist to Bushy Ford.
Daintily her handsome horse set foot in the water, hesitated, bent his
long, velvety neck, sniffed, and finally drank; then, satisfied, stepped
quietly forward, hock-deep, in the swirling, yellow flood.
"Foller them stakes, Miss," cautioned the older trooper; "I sot 'em
m'self, I did."
"Thank you. Keep close to me, Connor. I've crossed here before it was
staked."
"Sho!" exclaimed Connor under his breath; "she do beat 'em all!"
Twice, having no light but the foggy stars, they missed the stakes and
her horse had to swim, but they managed to flounder safely back to the
ford each time; and after a little while her mount rose, straining
through the red mud of the shore, struggled, scrambled madly, and drew
out, dripping.
Up a slippery, crooked ascent they rode, out into a field of uncut corn
above, then, spurring, swung at a canter eastward along the river.
There was a dim light in the ferry house; a lubberly, fat man ran to the
open door as they drew bridle before it. When the fat man saw the blue
troopers he backed hastily away from the sill and the Messenger
dismounted and followed him into the house, heavy revolver swinging in
her gloved hand.
"What'n hell y'goin' to do to me?" he began to whimper; "I ain't done
nothin'"; but an excess of fright strangled him, and he continued to
back away from her until he landed flat against the opposite wall. She
followed and halted before him, cocking her weapon, with a terrible
frown. She said solemnly:
"I want you to answer me one or two questions, and if you lie to me it
will be the last time. Do you understand?"
He nodded and moistened his thick lips, gulping.
"Then you are the ferryman, Snuyder, are you not?"
He nodded, utterly incapable of speech. She went on, gloomily:
"You used to fish sometimes with a Yankee recruit named Allen--Roy
Allen?"
"Ye-s'm," he sniveled. "There's my fish-pole an' his'n layin' onto the
roof----"
"How did he hail you when he wanted you to come across to take him
fishing?"
"He jest come down to the shore an' hollered twicet----"
She bent closer, scanning his dilated eyes; speech died on his lips.
"How did he call to you at _night_?"
"He ain't never called me at night--so help me----"
"No; _but in case he ever wished to fish at night?_"
The man began to stammer and protest, but she covered him suddenly, and
her dark eyes struck fire.
"What signal?" she asked with a menacing ring in her voice. "Quick!"
"Cock-o'-the-pines!... It didn't mean nothin'," gasped the man; ... "It
was jest private--between fishin' friends----"
"Go on!"
"Yes'm.... If I heard a cock-o'-the-pines squeal I was to squeal back,
an' then he was to holler--jest friendly--'Hallo-oo! How's fishin'?'
That's all, ma'am----"
"And you were to cross?"
"Yes'm--jest friendly like. Him an' me was fond o' fishin'----"
"I see. Sit down and don't move. Nobody is going to hurt you."
She went to the door, leisurely uncocking her revolver and pushing it
through her belt.
"Oh, Connor," she called carelessly, "please mount my friend Mr. Snuyder
on my horse, take him across the ford, and detain him as my guest at
headquarters until I return. Wait a second; I'm going to keep my
saddlebags with me."
And a few minutes later, as the troopers rode away in the mist with
their prisoner, her gentle voice followed them:
"Don't be rough with him, Connor. Say to the colonel that there is no
harm in him at all, but keep him in sight until I return; and _don't_
let him go fishing!"
* * * * *
She began housekeeping at sunrise by taking a daring bath in the stream,
then, dressing, she made careful inventory of the contents of the house
and a cautious survey of the immediate environment.
The premises, so unexpectedly and unwillingly abandoned by its late
obese tenant, harbored, besides herself, only one living creature--a fat
kitten.
The ferry house stood above the dangerous south bank of the river in a
grove of oaks, surrounded for miles by open country.
A flight of rickety, wooden stairs pitched downward from the edge of the
grassy bank to a wharf at the water's edge--the mere skeleton of a wharf
now, outlined only by decaying stringpieces. But here the patched-up
punt was moored; and above it, nailed to a dead tree, the sign with its
huge lettering still remained:
RED FERRY
HOLLER TWICE
sufficiently distinct to be deciphered from the opposite shore. Sooner
or later the fugitive would have to come to the river. Probably the
cavalry would catch him at one of the fords, or some rifleman might
shoot him swimming. But, if he did not know the fords, and could not
swim, there was only one ferry for him; east, west, and north he had
long since been walled in. The chances were that some night a
cock-o'-the-pines would squeal from the woods across the river, and then
she knew what to do.
During those broiling days of waiting she had leisure enough. Seated
outside her shanty, in the shade of the trees, where she was able to
keep watch both ways--south for her own safety's sake, north for the
doomed man--she occupied herself with mending stockings and underwear,
raising her eyes at intervals to sweep the landscape.
Nobody came into that heated desolation; neither voice nor gunshot
echoed far or near. Day after day the foliage of the trees spread
motionless under cloudless skies; day after day the oily river slipped
between red mud banks in heated silence. In sky, on earth, nothing
stirred except, at intervals, some buzzard turning, high in the blinding
blue; below, all was deathly motionless, save when a clotted cake of red
clay let go, sliding greasily into the current. At dawn the sun struck
the half-stunned world insensible once more; no birds stirred even at
sunset; all the little creatures of the field seemed dead; her kitten
panted in its slumbers.
Every night the river fog shrouded the land, wetting the parched leaves;
dew drummed on the rotting porch like the steady patter of
picket-firing; the widow bird's distracted mourning filled the silence;
the kitten crept to its food, ate indifferently, then, settling on the
Messenger's knees, stared, round-eyed, at the dark. But always at dawn
the sun burned off the mist, rising in stupefying splendor; the oily
river glided on; not a leaf moved, not a creature. And the kitten slept
on the porch, heedless of inviting grass stems whisked for her and the
ball of silk rolled past her in temptation.
Half lying there, propped against a tree trunk in the heated shade,
cotton bodice open, sleeves rolled to the shoulders, the Special
Messenger mended her linen with languid fingers. Perspiration powdered
her silky skin from brow to breast, from finger to elbow, shimmering
like dew when she moved. Her dark hair fell, unbound; glossy tendrils of
it curled on her shoulders, framing a face in which nothing as yet had
extinguished the soft loveliness of youth.
At times she talked to the kitten under her breath; sometimes hummed an
old song. Memories kept her busy, too, at moments quenching the
brightness of her eyes, at moments twitching the edges of her vivid lips
till the dreamy smile transfigured her.
But always quietly alert, her eyes scanned land and river, the bank
opposite, the open fields behind her. Once, certain of a second's
safety, she relaxed with a sigh, stretching out full length on the
grass; and, under the edge of her cotton skirt, the metal of a revolver
glimmered for an instant, strapped in its holster below her right knee.
The evening of the fourth day was cooler; the kitten hoisted its tail
for the first time in their acquaintance, and betrayed a feeble interest
in the flight of a white dusk-moth that came hovering around the porch
vines.
"Pussy," said the Messenger, "there's bacon in that well pit; I am going
to make a fire and fry some."
The kitten mewed faintly.
"I thought you'd approve, dear. Cold food is bad in hot weather; and
we'll fry a little cornmeal, too. Shall we?"
The kitten on its small, uncertain legs followed her into one of the
only two rooms. The fat tenant of the hovel had left some lightwood and
kindling, and pots and pans necessary for such an existence as he led on
earth.
The Messenger twisted up her hair and pinned it; then culinary rites
began, the kitten breaking into a thin purring when an odor of bacon
filled the air.
"Poor little thing!" murmured the Messenger, going to the door for a
brief cautionary survey. And, coming back, she lifted the fry pan and
helped the kitten first.
They were still eating when the sun set and the sudden Southern darkness
fell over woods and fields and river. A splinter of lightwood flared
aromatically in an old tin candlestick; by its smoky, wavering radiance
she heated some well water, cleaned the tin plates, scoured pan and
kettle, and set them in their humble places again.
Then, cleansing her hands daintily, she dried them, and picked up her
sewing.
For her, night was the danger time; she could not avoid, by flight
across the river, the approach of any enemy from the south; and for an
enemy to discover her sitting there in darkness, with lightwood in the
house, was to invite suspicion. Yet her only hope, if surprised, was to
play her part as keeper of Red Ferry.
So she sat mending, sensitive ears on the alert, breathing quietly in
the refreshing coolness that at last had come after so many nights of
dreadful heat.
The kitten, too, enjoyed it, patting with tentative velvet paw the skein
of silk dangling near the floor.
But it was a very little kitten, and a very lonely one, and presently it
asked, plaintively, to be taken up. So the Messenger lifted the mite of
fluffy fur and installed it among the linen on the table, where it went
to sleep purring.
Outside the open door the dew drummed loudly; moths came in clouds,
hovering like snowflakes about the doorway; somewhere in the woods a
tiger owl yelped.
About midnight, lying on her sack of husks, close to the borderland of
sleep, far away in the darkness she heard a shot.
In one bound she was at the door, buttoning her waist, and listening.
And still listening, she lighted a pine splinter, raised her cotton
skirt, and adjusted the revolver, strapping the holster tighter above
and below her right knee.
The pulsing seconds passed; far above the northern river bank a light
sparkled through the haze, then swung aloft; and she drew paper and
pencil from her pocket, and wrote down what the torch was saying:
"Shot fired at Muddy Ford. Look out along the river."
And even as the red spark went out in the darkness a lonely birdcall
floated across the river--the strange squealing plaint of the great
cock-o'-the-pines. She answered, imitating it perfectly. Then a far
voice called:
"Hallo-o-o! How's fishin'?"
She picked up her pine candle, hurried out to the bank and crept
cautiously down the crazy, wooden stairs. Setting her torch in the iron
cage at the bow, she cast off the painter and, standing erect, swung the
long pole. Out into obscurity shot the punt, deeper and deeper plunged
the pole. She headed up river to allow for the current; the cool breeze
blew her hair and bathed her bared throat and arms deliciously; crimson
torchlight flickered crisscross on the smooth water ahead.
Every muscle in her body was in play now; the heavy pole slanted, rose
and plunged; the water came clip! slap! clap! slap! against the square
bows, dusting her with spray.
On, on, tossing and pitching as the boat hit the swift, deep, center
current; then the pole struck shallower depths, and after a while her
torch reddened foliage hanging over the northern river bank.
She drove her pole into the clay as the punt's bow grated; a Federal
cavalryman--a mere lad--muddy to the knees, brier-torn, and ghastly
pale, waded out through the shallows, revolver in hand, clambered
aboard, and struck the torch into the water.
"Take me over," he gasped. "Hurry, for God's sake! I tell you----"
"Was it you who called?"
"Yes. Snuyder sent you, didn't he? Don't stand there talking----"
With a nervous stroke she drove the punt far out into the darkness, then
fell into a measured, swinging motion, standing nearer the stern than
the bow. There was no sound now but the lapping of water and the man's
thick breathing; she strove to pierce the darkness between them, but she
could see only a lumpish shadow in the bow where he crouched.
"I reckon you're Roy Allen," she began, but he cut her short:
"Damn it! What's that to you?"
"Nothing. Only Snuyder's gone."
"When?"
"Some days ago, leaving me to ferry folk over.... He told me how to
answer you when you called like a cock-o'-the-pines."
"Did he?" The voice was subdued and sullen.
For a while he remained motionless, then, in the dull light of the
fog-shrouded stars she saw him face her, and caught the faint sparkle of
his weapon resting on his knees, covering her.
"It seems to me," he said fiercely, "that you are asking a good many
questions. Which side pays you?"
They were tossing now on the rapid little waves in the center of the
river; she had all she could do to keep the punt steady and drive it
toward the spot where, against the stars, the oaks lifted their
clustered crests.
At the foot of the wooden stairs she tied her boat, and offered to
relight the pine knot, but he would not have it and made her grope up
the ascent before him.
Over the top of the bank she led him, under the trees, to her door, he
close at her heels, revolver in hand. And there, on the sill, she faced
him.
"What do you want here?" she asked; "supper?"
"Go into the house and strike a light," he said, and followed her in.
And, as she turned from the blazing splinter, he caught her by the arm,
feeling roughly for a concealed weapon. Face aflame, she struggled out
of his clutch; and he was as red as she as they confronted one another,
breathing heavily.
"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm--h-half-crazed, I think.... If you're
what you look, God knows I meant you no insult.... But--but--their
damned spies are everywhere. I've stood too much--I've been in hell for
two weeks----"
He wiped his mouth with a trembling, raw hand, but his sunken eyes still
glared and the pallor once more blanched his sunken face.
"I'll not touch you again," he said hoarsely; "I'm not a beast--not
_that_ kind. But I'm starving. Is there anything--_anything_, I tell
you? I--I am not--very--strong."
She looked calmly into the ravaged, but still boyish features; saw him
swing, reeling a little, on his heels as he steadied himself with one
hand against the table.
"Sit down," she said in a low voice.
He sank into a chair, resting the hand which clutched the revolver on
the table.
Without a word she went about the business of the moment, rekindled the
ashes, filled the fry pan with mush and bacon. A little while afterwards
she set the smoking food before him, and seated herself at the opposite
side of the table.
The boy ate wolfishly with one hand; the other seemed to have grown fast
to the butt of his heavy weapon. She could have bent and shot him under
the table had she wished; she could have taken him with her bare hands.
But she only sat there, dark, sorrowful eyes on him, and in pity for his
certain doom her under lip trembled at intervals so she could scarcely
control it.
"Is there a horse to be had anywhere near here?" he asked, pausing to
swallow what his sunken jaws had been working on.
"No; the soldiers have taken everything."
"I will pay--anything if you'll let me have something to ride."
She shook her head.
He went on eating; a slight color had come back into his face.
"I'm sorry I was rough with you," he said, not looking at her.
"Why were you?"
He raised his head wearily.
"I've been hunted so long that I guess it's turned my brain. Except for
what you've been good enough to give me, I've had nothing inside me for
days, except green leaves and bark and muddy water.... I suppose I can't
see straight.... There's a woman they call the Special Messenger;--I
thought they might have started her after me.... That shot at the ford
seemed to craze me.... So I risked the ferry--seeing your light
across--and not knowing whether Snuyder was still here or whether they
had set a guard to catch me.... It was Red Ferry or starve; I'm too weak
to swim; I waited too long."
And as the food and hot tea warmed him, his vitality returned in a
maddened desire for speech after the weeks of terror and silence.
"I don't know who you are," he went on, "but I guess you're not fixed
for shooting at me, as every living thing seems to have done for the
last fortnight. Maybe you're in Yankee pay, maybe in Confederate; I
can't help it. I suppose you'll tell I've been here after I'm gone....
But they'll never get me now!" he bragged, like a truant schoolboy
recounting his misdemeanor to an awed companion.
"Who are you?" she asked very gently.
He looked at her defiantly.
"I'm Roy Allen," he said, "of Kay's Cavalry.... If you're fixing to tell
the Union people you might as well tell them who fooled 'em!"
"What have you done?"
She inquired so innocently that a hint of shame for his suspicion and
brutality toward her reddened his hollow cheeks.
"I'll tell you what I've done," he said. "I've taken to the woods,
headed for Dixie, with a shirtful of headquarter papers. That's what
I've done.... And perhaps you don't know what that means if they catch
me. It means hanging."
"Hanging!" she faltered.
"Yes--if they get me." His voice quivered, but he added boastingly: "No
fear of that! I'm too many for old Kay!"
"But--but why did you desert?"