As Clarence Brant, President of the Robles Land Company, and husband of
the rich widow of John Peyton, of the Robles Ranche, mingled with the
outgoing audience of the Cosmopolitan Theatre, at San Francisco, he
elicited the usual smiling nods and recognition due to his good
looks and good fortune. But as he hurriedly slipped through the still
lingering winter's rain into the smart coupe that was awaiting him, and
gave the order “Home,” the word struck him with a peculiarly ironical
significance. His home was a handsome one, and lacked nothing in
appointment and comfort, but he had gone to the theatre to evade its
hollow loneliness. Nor was it because his wife was not there, for he had
a miserable consciousness that her temporary absence had nothing to do
with his homelessness. The distraction of the theatre over, that dull,
vague, but aching sense of loneliness which was daily growing upon him
returned with greater vigor.
He leaned back in the coupe and gloomily reflected.
He had been married scarcely a year, yet even in the illusions of
the honeymoon the woman, older than himself, and the widow of his old
patron, had half unconsciously reasserted herself, and slipped back
into the domination of her old position. It was at first pleasant
enough,--this half-maternal protectorate which is apt to mingle even
with the affections of younger women,--and Clarence, in his easy,
half-feminine intuition of the sex, yielded, as the strong are apt to
yield, through the very consciousness of their own superiority. But this
is a quality the weaker are not apt to recognize, and the woman who
has once tasted equal power with her husband not only does not easily
relegate it, but even makes its continuance a test of the affections.
The usual triumphant feminine conclusion, “Then you no longer love me,”
had in Clarence's brief experience gone even further and reached its
inscrutable climax, “Then I no longer love you,” although shown only in
a momentary hardening of the eye and voice. And added to this was his
sudden, but confused remembrance that he had seen that eye and heard
that voice in marital altercation during Judge Peyton's life, and that
he himself, her boy partisan, had sympathized with her. Yet, strange to
say, this had given him more pain than her occasional other reversions
to the past--to her old suspicious of him when he was a youthful protege
of her husband and a presumed suitor of her adopted daughter Susy.
High natures are more apt to forgive wrong done to themselves than any
abstract injustice. And her capricious tyranny over her dependents and
servants, or an unreasoning enmity to a neighbor or friend, outraged his
finer sense more than her own misconception of himself. Nor did he dream
that this was a thing most women seldom understand, or, understanding,
ever forgive.
The coupe rattled over the stones or swirled through the muddy pools
of the main thoroughfares. Newspaper and telegraphic offices were still
brilliantly lit, and crowds were gathered among the bulletin boards.
He knew that news had arrived from Washington that evening of the first
active outbreaks of secession, and that the city was breathless with
excitement. Had he not just come from the theatre, where certain
insignificant allusions in the play had been suddenly caught up
and cheered or hissed by hitherto unknown partisans, to the dumb
astonishment of a majority of the audience comfortably settled to
money-getting and their own affairs alone? Had he not applauded, albeit
half-scornfully, the pretty actress--his old playmate Susy--who had
audaciously and all incongruously waved the American flag in their
faces? Yes! he had known it; had lived for the last few weeks in an
atmosphere electrically surcharged with it--and yet it had chiefly
affected him in his personal homelessness. For his wife was a
Southerner, a born slaveholder, and a secessionist, whose noted
prejudices to the North had even outrun her late husband's politics. At
first the piquancy and recklessness of her opinionative speech amused
him as part of her characteristic flavor, or as a lingering youthfulness
which the maturer intellect always pardons. He had never taken her
politics seriously--why should he? With her head on his shoulder he had
listened to her extravagant diatribes against the North. He had forgiven
her outrageous indictment of his caste and his associates for the sake
of the imperious but handsome lips that uttered it. But when he was
compelled to listen to her words echoed and repeated by her friends and
family; when he found that with the clannishness of her race she had
drawn closer to them in this controversy,--that she depended upon them
for her intelligence and information rather than upon him,--he had
awakened to the reality of his situation. He had borne the allusions
of her brother, whose old scorn for his dependent childhood had been
embittered by his sister's marriage and was now scarcely concealed. Yet,
while he had never altered his own political faith and social creed
in this antagonistic atmosphere, he had often wondered, with his old
conscientiousness and characteristic self-abnegation, whether his own
political convictions were not merely a revulsion from his domestic
tyranny and alien surroundings.
In the midst of this gloomy retrospect the coupe stopped with a jerk
before his own house. The door was quickly opened by a servant, who
appeared to be awaiting him.
“Some one to see you in the library, sir,” said the man, “and”--He
hesitated and looked towards the coupe.
“Well?” said Clarence impatiently.
“He said, sir, as how you were not to send away the carriage.”
“Indeed, and who is it?” demanded Clarence sharply.
“Mr. Hooker. He said I was to say Jim Hooker.”
The momentary annoyance in Clarence's face changed to a look of
reflective curiosity.
“He said he knew you were at the theatre, and he would wait until you
came home,” continued the man, dubiously watching his master's face. “He
don't know you've come in, sir, and--and I can easily get rid of him.”
“No matter now. I'll see him, and,” added Clarence, with a faint smile,
“let the carriage wait.”
Yet, as he turned towards the library he was by no means certain that
an interview with the old associate of his boyhood under Judge Peyton's
guardianship would divert his mind. Yet he let no trace of his doubts
nor of his past gloom show in his face as he entered the room.
Mr. Hooker was apparently examining the elegant furniture and luxurious
accommodation with his usual resentful enviousness. Clarence had got a
“soft thing.” That it was more or less the result of his “artfulness,”
and that he was unduly “puffed up” by it, was, in Hooker's
characteristic reasoning, equally clear. As his host smilingly advanced
with outstretched hand, Mr. Hooker's efforts to assume a proper
abstraction of manner and contemptuous indifference to Clarence's
surroundings which should wound his vanity ended in his lolling back at
full length in the chair with his eyes on the ceiling. But, remembering
suddenly that he was really the bearer of a message to Clarence, it
struck him that his supine position was, from a theatrical view-point,
infelicitous. In his experiences of the stage he had never delivered a
message in that way. He rose awkwardly to his feet.
“It was so good of you to wait,” said Clarence courteously.
“Saw you in the theatre,” said Hooker brusquely. “Third row in parquet.
Susy said it was you, and had suthin' to say to you. Suthin' you ought
to know,” he continued, with a slight return of his old mystery of
manner which Clarence so well remembered. “You saw HER--she fetched the
house with that flag business, eh? She knows which way the cat is
going to jump, you bet. I tell you, for all the blowing of these
secessionists, the Union's goin' to pay! Yes, sir!” He stopped, glanced
round the handsome room, and added darkly, “Mebbee better than this.”
With the memory of Hooker's characteristic fondness for mystery still in
his mind, Clarence overlooked the innuendo, and said smilingly,--
“Why didn't you bring Mrs. Hooker here? I should have been honored with
her company.”
Mr. Hooker frowned slightly at this seeming levity.
“Never goes out after a performance. Nervous exhaustion. Left her at our
rooms in Market Street. We can drive there in ten minutes. That's why I
asked to have the carriage wait.”
Clarence hesitated. Without caring in the least to renew the
acquaintance of his old playmate and sweetheart, a meeting that night
in some vague way suggested to him a providential diversion. Nor was he
deceived by any gravity in the message. With his remembrance of Susy's
theatrical tendencies, he was quite prepared for any capricious futile
extravagance.
“You are sure we will not disturb her?” he said politely.
“No.”
Clarence led the way to the carriage. If Mr. Hooker expected him during
the journey to try to divine the purport of Susy's message he was
disappointed. His companion did not allude to it. Possibly looking upon
it as a combined theatrical performance, Clarence preferred to wait for
Susy as the better actor. The carriage rolled rapidly through the now
deserted streets, and at last, under the directions of Mr. Hooker,
who was leaning half out of the window, it drew up at a middle-class
restaurant, above whose still lit and steaming windows were some
ostentatiously public apartments, accessible from a side entrance. As
they ascended the staircase together, it became evident that Mr. Hooker
was scarcely more at his ease in the character of host than he had been
as guest. He stared gloomily at a descending visitor, grunted audibly
at a waiter in the passage, and stopped before a door, where a recently
deposited tray displayed the half-eaten carcase of a fowl, an empty
champagne bottle, two half-filled glasses, and a faded bouquet. The
whole passage was redolent with a singular blending of damp cooking,
stale cigarette smoke, and patchouli.
Putting the tray aside with his foot, Mr. Hooker opened the door
hesitatingly and peered into the room, muttered a few indistinct words,
which were followed by a rapid rustling of skirts, and then, with his
hand still on the door-knob, turning to Clarence, who had discreetly
halted on the threshold, flung the door open theatrically and bade him
enter.
“She is somewhere in the suite,” he added, with a large wave of the hand
towards a door that was still oscillating. “Be here in a minit.”
Clarence took in the apartment with a quiet glance. Its furniture had
the frayed and discolored splendors of a public parlor which had
been privately used and maltreated; there were stains in the large
medallioned carpet; the gilded veneer had been chipped from a heavy
centre table, showing the rough, white deal beneath, which gave it the
appearance of a stage “property;” the walls, paneled with gilt-framed
mirrors, reflected every domestic detail or private relaxation with
shameless publicity. A damp waterproof, shawl, and open newspaper were
lying across the once brilliant sofa; a powder-puff, a plate of fruit,
and a play-book were on the centre table, and on the marble-topped
sideboard was Mr. Hooker's second-best hat, with a soiled collar,
evidently but lately exchanged for the one he had on, peeping over its
brim. The whole apartment seemed to mingle the furtive disclosures of
the dressing-room with the open ostentations of the stage, with even a
slight suggestion of the auditorium in a few scattered programmes on the
floor and chairs.
The inner door opened again with a slight theatrical start, and Susy,
in an elaborate dressing-gown, moved languidly into the room. She
apparently had not had time to change her underskirt, for there was the
dust of the stage on its delicate lace edging, as she threw herself into
an armchair and crossed her pretty slippered feet before her. Her face
was pale, its pallor incautiously increased by powder; and as Clarence
looked at its still youthful, charming outline, he was not perhaps
sorry that the exquisite pink and white skin beneath, which he had once
kissed, was hidden from that awakened recollection. Yet there was little
trace of the girlish Susy in the pretty, but prematurely jaded, actress
before him, and he felt momentarily relieved. It was her youth and
freshness appealing to his own youth and imagination that he had
loved--not HER. Yet as she greeted him with a slight exaggeration of
glance, voice, and manner, he remembered that even as a girl she was an
actress.
Nothing of this, however, was in his voice and manner as he gently
thanked her for the opportunity of meeting her again. And he was frank,
for the diversion he had expected he had found; he even was conscious of
thinking more kindly of his wife who had supplanted her.
“I told Jim he must fetch you if he had to carry you,” she said,
striking the palm of her hand with her fan, and glancing at her husband.
“I reckon he guessed WHY, though I didn't tell him--I don't tell Jim
EVERYTHING.”
Here Jim rose, and looking at his watch, “guessed he'd run over to the
Lick House and get some cigars.” If he was acting upon some hint from
his wife, his simulation was so badly done that Clarence felt his
first sense of uneasiness. But as Hooker closed the door awkwardly and
unostentatiously behind him, Clarence smilingly said he had waited to
hear the message from her own lips.
“Jim only knows what he's heard outside: the talk of men, you know,--and
he hears a good deal of that--more, perhaps, than YOU do. It was that
which put me up to finding out the truth. And I didn't rest till I did.
I'm not to be fooled, Clarence,--you don't mind my calling you Clarence
now we're both married and done for,--and I'm not the kind to be fooled
by anybody from the Cow counties--and that's the Robles Ranche. I'm a
Southern woman myself from Missouri, but I'm for the Union first, last,
and all the time, and I call myself a match for any lazy, dawdling,
lash-swinging slaveholder and slaveholderess--whether they're mixed
blood, Heaven only knows, or what--or their friends or relations, or
the dirty half-Spanish grandees and their mixed half-nigger peons who
truckle to them. You bet!”
His blood had stirred quickly at the mention of the Robles Ranche,
but the rest of Susy's speech was too much in the vein of her old
extravagance to touch him seriously. He found himself only considering
how strange it was that the old petulance and impulsiveness of her
girlhood were actually bringing back with them her pink cheeks and
brilliant eyes.
“You surely didn't ask Jim to bring me here,” he said smilingly, “to
tell me that Mrs. Peyton”--he corrected himself hastily as a malicious
sparkle came into Susy's blue eyes--“that my wife was a Southern woman,
and probably sympathized with her class? Well, I don't know that I
should blame her for that any more than she should blame me for being a
Northern man and a Unionist.”
“And she doesn't blame you?” asked Susy sneeringly.
The color came slightly to Clarence's cheek, but before he could reply
the actress added,--
“No, she prefers to use you!”
“I don't think I understand you,” said Clarence, rising coldly.
“No, you don't understand HER!” retorted Susy sharply. “Look here,
Clarence Brant, you're right; I didn't ask you here to tell you--what
you and everybody knows--that your wife is a Southerner. I didn't ask
you here to tell you what everybody suspects--that she turns you round
her little finger. But I did ask you here to tell you what nobody,
not even you, suspects--but what I know!--and that is that she's a
TRAITOR--and more, a SPY!--and that I've only got to say the word,
or send that man Jim to say the word, to have her dragged out of her
Copperhead den at Robles Ranche and shut up in Fort Alcatraz this very
night!”
Still with the pink glowing in her rounding cheek, and eyes snapping
like splintered sapphires, she rose to her feet, with her pretty
shoulders lifted, her small hands and white teeth both tightly
clenched, and took a step towards him. Even in her attitude there was a
reminiscence of her willful childhood, although still blended with
the provincial actress whom he had seen on the stage only an hour ago.
Thoroughly alarmed at her threat, in his efforts to conceal his feelings
he was not above a weak retaliation. Stepping back, he affected to
regard her with a critical admiration that was only half simulated, and
said with a smile,--
“Very well done--but you have forgotten the flag.”
She did not flinch. Rather accepting the sarcasm as a tribute to her
art, she went on with increasing exaggeration: “No, it is YOU who
have forgotten the flag--forgotten your country, your people, your
manhood--everything for that high-toned, double-dyed old spy and
traitress! For while you are standing here, your wife is gathering under
her roof at Robles a gang of spies and traitors like herself--secession
leaders and their bloated, drunken 'chivalry'! Yes, you may smile your
superior smile, but I tell you, Clarence Brant, that with all your
smartness and book learning you know no more of what goes on around you
than a child. But others do! This conspiracy is known to the government,
the Federal officers have been warned; General Sumner has been sent out
here--and his first act was to change the command at Fort Alcatraz, and
send your wife's Southern friend--Captain Pinckney--to the right about!
Yes--everything is known but ONE thing, and that is WHERE and HOW this
precious crew meet! That I alone know, and that I've told you!”
“And I suppose,” said Clarence, with an unchanged smile, “that this
valuable information came from your husband--my old friend, Jim Hooker?”
“No,” she answered sharply, “it comes from Cencho--one of your own
peons--who is more true to you and the old Rancho than YOU have ever
been. He saw what was going on, and came to me, to warn you!”
“But why not to me directly?” asked Clarence, with affected incredulity.
“Ask him!” she said viciously. “Perhaps he didn't want to warn the
master against the mistress. Perhaps he thought WE are still friends.
Perhaps”--she hesitated with a lower voice and a forced smile--“perhaps
he used to see us together in the old times.”
“Very likely,” said Clarence quietly. “And for the sake of those old
times, Susy,” he went on, with a singular gentleness that was quite
distinct from his paling face and set eyes, “I am going to forget all
that you have just said of me and mine, in all the old willfulness and
impatience that I see you still keep--with all your old prettiness.” He
took his hat from the table and gravely held out his hand.
She was frightened for a moment with his impassive abstraction. In
the old days she had known it--had believed it was his dogged
“obstinacy”--but she knew the hopelessness of opposing it. Yet with
feminine persistency she again threw herself against it, as against a
wall.
“You don't believe me! Well, go and see for yourself. They are at Robles
NOW. If you catch the early morning stage at Santa Clara you will come
upon them before they disperse. Dare you try it?”
“Whatever I do,” he returned smilingly, “I shall always be grateful to
you for giving me this opportunity of seeing you again AS YOU WERE. Make
my excuses to your husband. Good-night.”
“Clarence!”
But he had already closed the door behind him. His face did not relax
its expression nor change as he looked again at the tray with its broken
viands before the door, the worn, stained hall carpet, or the waiter who
shuffled past him. He was apparently as critically conscious of them and
of the close odors of the hall, and the atmosphere of listless decay and
faded extravagance around him, as before the interview. But if the woman
he had just parted from had watched him she would have supposed he still
utterly disbelieved her story. Yet he was conscious that all that he saw
was a part of his degradation, for he had believed every word she had
uttered. Through all her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw
the central truth--that he had been deceived--not by his wife, but by
himself! He had suspected all this before. This was what had been really
troubling him--this was what he had put aside, rather than his faith,
not in her, but in his ideal. He remembered letters that had passed
between her and Captain Pinckney--letters that she had openly sent to
notorious Southern leaders; her nervous anxiety to remain at the Rancho;
the innuendoes and significant glances of friends which he had put
aside--as he had this woman's message! Susy had told him nothing new of
his wife--but the truth of HIMSELF! And the revelation came from people
who he was conscious were the inferiors of himself and his wife. To an
independent, proud, and self-made man it was the culminating stroke.
In the same abstracted voice he told the coachman to drive home. The
return seemed interminable--though he never shifted his position. Yet
when he drew up at his own door and looked at his watch he found he
had been absent only half an hour. Only half an hour! As he entered the
house he turned with the same abstraction towards a mirror in the hall,
as if he expected to see some outward and visible change in himself
in that time. Dismissing his servants to bed, he went into his
dressing-room, completely changed his attire, put on a pair of long
riding-boots, and throwing a serape over his shoulders, paused a moment,
took a pair of small “Derringer” pistols from a box, put them in his
pockets, and then slipped cautiously down the staircase. A lack of
confidence in his own domestics had invaded him for the first time. The
lights were out. He silently opened the door and was in the street.
He walked hastily a few squares to a livery stable whose proprietor he
knew. His first inquiry was for one “Redskin,” a particular horse; the
second for its proprietor. Happily both were in. The proprietor asked no
question of a customer of Clarence's condition. The horse, half Spanish,
powerful and irascible, was quickly saddled. As Clarence mounted, the
man in an impulse of sociability said,--
“Saw you at the theatre to-night, sir.”
“Ah,” returned Clarence, quietly gathering up the reins.
“Rather a smart trick of that woman with the flag,” he went on
tentatively. Then, with a possible doubt of his customer's politics, he
added with a forced smile, “I reckon it's all party fuss, though; there
ain't any real danger.”
But fast as Clarence might ride the words lingered in his ears. He saw
through the man's hesitation; he, too, had probably heard that Clarence
Brant weakly sympathized with his wife's sentiments, and dared not speak
fully. And he understood the cowardly suggestion that there was “no real
danger.” It had been Clarence's one fallacy. He had believed the public
excitement was only a temporary outbreak of partisan feeling, soon to
subside. Even now he was conscious that he was less doubtful of the
integrity of the Union than of his own household. It was not the
devotion of the patriot, but the indignation of an outraged husband,
that was spurring him on.
He knew that if he reached Woodville by five o'clock he could get
ferried across the bay at the Embarcadero, and catch the down coach to
Fair Plains, whence he could ride to the Rancho. As the coach did not
connect directly with San Francisco, the chance of his surprising them
was greater. Once clear of the city outskirts, he bullied Redskin into
irascible speed, and plunged into the rainy darkness of the highroad.
The way was familiar. For a while he was content to feel the buffeting,
caused by his rapid pace, of wind and rain against his depressed head
and shoulders in a sheer brutal sense of opposition and power, or to
relieve his pent-up excitement by dashing through overflowed gullies in
the road or across the quaggy, sodden edges of meadowland, until he had
controlled Redskin's rebellious extravagance into a long steady stride.
Then he raised his head and straightened himself on the saddle, to
think. But to no purpose. He had no plan; everything would depend
upon the situation; the thought of forestalling any action of the
conspirators, by warning or calling in the aid of the authorities, for
an instant crossed his mind, but was as instantly dismissed. He had but
an instinct--to see with his own eyes what his reason told him was true.
Day was breaking through drifting scud and pewter-colored clouds as he
reached Woodville ferry, checkered with splashes of the soil and the
spume of his horse, from whose neck and flanks the sweat rolled like
lather. Yet he was not conscious how intent had been his purpose until
he felt a sudden instinctive shock on seeing that the ferryboat was
gone. For an instant his wonderful self-possession abandoned him; he
could only gaze vacantly at the leaden-colored bay, without a thought or
expedient. But in another moment he saw that the boat was returning from
the distance. Had he lost his only chance? He glanced hurriedly at his
watch; he had come more quickly than he imagined; there would still
be time. He beckoned impatiently to the ferryman; the boat--a ship's
pinnace, with two men in it--crept in with exasperating slowness. At
last the two rowers suddenly leaped ashore.
“Ye might have come before, with the other passenger. We don't reckon to
run lightnin' trips on this ferry.”
But Clarence was himself again. “Twenty dollars for two more oars in
that boat,” he said quietly, “and fifty if you get me over in time to
catch the down stage.”
The man glanced at Clarence's eyes. “Run up and rouse out Jake and
Sam,” he said to the other boatman; then more leisurely, gazing at his
customer's travel-stained equipment, he said, “There must have been a
heap o' passengers got left by last night's boat. You're the second man
that took this route in a hurry.”
At any other time the coincidence might have struck Clarence. But he
only answered curtly, “Unless we are under way in ten minutes you will
find I am NOT the second man, and that our bargain's off.”
But here two men emerged from the shanty beside the ferryhouse, and
tumbled sleepily into the boat. Clarence seized an extra pair of sculls
that were standing against the shed, and threw them into the stern. “I
don't mind taking a hand myself for exercise,” he said quietly.
The ferryman glanced again at Clarence's travel-worn figure and
determined eyes with mingled approval and surprise. He lingered a moment
with his oars lifted, looking at his passenger. “It ain't no business o'
mine, young man,” he said deliberately, “but I reckon you understand me
when I say that I've just taken another man over there.”
“I do,” said Clarence impatiently.
“And you still want to go?”
“Certainly,” replied Clarence, with a cold stare, taking up his oars.
The man shrugged his shoulders, bent himself for the stroke, and the
boat sprung forward. The others rowed strongly and rapidly, the tough
ashen blades springing like steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming
to leap in successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving
inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of the bay.
Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly over his oar; the ferryman
and his crew rowed in equal panting silence; a few startled ducks
whirred before them, but dropped again to rest. In half an hour they
were at the Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. Clarence's eyes were
eagerly bent for the first appearance of the stage-coach around the
little promontory; the ferryman was as eagerly scanning the bare, empty
street of the still sleeping settlement.
“I don't see him anywhere,” said the ferryman with a glance, half of
astonishment and half of curiosity, at his solitary passenger.
“See whom?” asked Clarence carelessly, as he handed the man his promised
fee.
“The other man I ferried over to catch the stage. He must have gone on
without waiting. You're in luck, young fellow!”
“I don't understand you,” said Clarence impatiently. “What has your
previous passenger to do with me?”
“Well, I reckon you know best. He's the kind of man, gin'rally speaking,
that other men, in a pow'ful hurry, don't care to meet--and, az a rule,
don't FOLLER arter. It's gin'rally the other way.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Clarence sternly. “Of whom are you
speaking?”
“The Chief of Police of San Francisco!”
CHAPTER II.
The laugh that instinctively broke from Clarence's lips was so sincere
and unaffected that the man was disconcerted, and at last joined in
it, a little shamefacedly. The grotesque blunder of being taken as
a fugitive from justice relieved Clarence's mind from its acute
tension,--he was momentarily diverted,--and it was not until the
boatman had departed, and he was again alone, that it seemed to have any
collateral significance. Then an uneasy recollection of Susy's threat
that she had the power to put his wife in Fort Alcatraz came across him.
Could she have already warned the municipal authorities and this man?
But he quickly remembered that any action from such a warning could
only have been taken by the United States Marshal, and not by a civic
official, and dismissed the idea.
Nevertheless, when the stage with its half-spent lamps still burning
dimly against the morning light swept round the curve and rolled heavily
up to the rude shanty which served as coach-office, he became watchful.
A single yawning individual in its doorway received a few letters and
parcels, but Clarence was evidently the ONLY waiting passenger. Any hope
that he might have entertained that his mysterious predecessor would
emerge from some seclusion at that moment was disappointed. As he
entered the coach he made a rapid survey of his fellow-travelers, but
satisfied himself that the stranger was not among them. They were
mainly small traders or farmers, a miner or two, and apparently
a Spanish-American of better degree and personality. Possibly the
circumstance that men of this class usually preferred to travel on
horseback and were rarely seen in public conveyances attracted his
attention, and their eyes met more than once in mutual curiosity.
Presently Clarence addressed a remark to the stranger in Spanish; he
replied fluently and courteously, but at the next stopping-place he
asked a question of the expressman in an unmistakable Missouri accent.
Clarence's curiosity was satisfied; he was evidently one of those early
American settlers who had been so long domiciled in Southern California
as to adopt the speech as well as the habiliments of the Spaniard.
The conversation fell upon the political news of the previous night, or
rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, more excited
discussion, in which one of the contestants--a red-bearded miner--had
subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence
that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a
twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He
was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with a certain
courtesy and said,--
“And what, sir, is the political feeling in YOUR district?”
But Clarence was in no mood to be drawn out, and replied, almost curtly,
that as he had come only from San Francisco, they were probably as well
informed on that subject as himself. A quick and searching glance from
the stranger's eye made him regret his answer, but in the silence that
ensued the red-bearded miner, evidently still rankling at heart, saw
his opportunity. Slapping his huge hands on his knees, and leaning far
forward until he seemed to plunge his flaming beard, like a firebrand,
into the controversy, he said grimly,--
“Well, I kin tell you, gen'l'men, THIS. It ain't goin' to be no matter
wot's the POLITICAL FEELING here or thar--it ain't goin' to be no matter
wot's the State's rights and wot's Fed'ral rights--it ain't goin' to
be no question whether the gov'ment's got the right to relieve its own
soldiers that those Secesh is besieging in Fort Sumter or whether they
haven't--but the first gun that's fired at the flag blows the chains
off every d--n nigger south of Mason and Dixon's line! You hear me!
I'm shoutin'! And whether you call yourselves 'Secesh' or 'Union' or
'Copperhead' or 'Peace men,' you've got to face it!”
There was an angry start in one or two of the seats; one man caught
at the swinging side-strap and half rose, a husky voice began, “It's a
d----d”--and then all as suddenly subsided. Every eye was turned to an
insignificant figure in the back seat. It was a woman, holding a
child on her lap, and gazing out of the window with her sex's profound
unconcern in politics. Clarence understood the rude chivalry of the road
well enough to comprehend that this unconscious but omnipotent figure
had more than once that day controlled the passions of the disputants.
They dropped back weakly to their seats, and their mutterings rolled off
in the rattle of the wheels. Clarence glanced at the Missourian; he was
regarding the red-bearded miner with a singular curiosity.
The rain had ceased, but the afternoon shadows were deepening when they
at last reached Fair Plains, where Clarence expected to take horse to
the Rancho. He was astonished, however, to learn that all the horses in
the stable were engaged, but remembering that some of his own stock were
in pasturage with a tenant at Fair Plains, and that he should probably
have a better selection, he turned his steps thither. Passing out of
the stable-yard he recognized the Missourian's voice in whispered
conversation with the proprietor, but the two men withdrew into the
shadow as he approached. An ill-defined uneasiness came over him; he
knew the proprietor, who also seemed to know the Missourian, and this
evident avoidance of him was significant. Perhaps his reputation as a
doubtful Unionist had preceded him, but this would not account for their
conduct in a district so strongly Southern in sympathy as Fair Plains.
More impressed by the occurrence than he cared to admit, when at last,
after some delay, he had secured his horse, and was once more in the
saddle, he kept a sharp lookout for his quondam companion. But here
another circumstance added to his suspicions: there was a main road
leading to Santa Inez, the next town, and the Rancho, and this Clarence
had purposely taken in order to watch the Missourian; but there was
also a cutoff directly to the Rancho, known only to the habitues of the
Rancho. After a few moments' rapid riding on a mustang much superior to
any in the hotel stables, he was satisfied that the stranger must
have taken the cut-off. Putting spurs to his horse he trusted still to
precede him to the Rancho--if that were his destination.
As he dashed along the familiar road, by a strange perversity of fancy,
instead of thinking of his purpose, he found himself recalling the first
time he had ridden that way in the flush of his youth and hopefulness.
The girl-sweetheart he was then going to rejoin was now the wife of
another; the woman who had been her guardian was now his own wife. He
had accepted without a pang the young girl's dereliction, but it was
through her revelation that he was now about to confront the dereliction
of his own wife. And this was the reward of his youthful trust and
loyalty! A bitter laugh broke from his lips. It was part of his still
youthful self-delusion that he believed himself wiser and stronger for
it.
It was quite dark when he reached the upper field or first terrace of
the Rancho. He could see the white walls of the casa rising dimly out of
the green sea of early wild grasses, like a phantom island. It was here
that the cut-off joined the main road--now the only one that led to the
casa. He was satisfied that no one could have preceded him from Fair
Plains; but it was true that he must take precautions against his
own discovery. Dismounting near a clump of willows, he unsaddled and
unbridled his horse, and with a cut of the riata over its haunches
sent it flying across the field in the direction of a band of feeding
mustangs, which it presently joined. Then, keeping well in the shadow of
a belt of shrub-oaks, he skirted the long lesser terraces of the casa,
intending to approach the house by way of the old garden and corral.
A drizzling rain, occasionally driven by the wind into long, misty,
curtain-like waves, obscured the prospect and favored his design. He
reached the low adobe wall of the corral in safety; looking over he
could detect, in spite of the darkness, that a number of the horses
were of alien brands, and even recognized one or two from the Santa Inez
district. The vague outline of buggies and carryalls filled the long
shed beside the stables. There WAS company at the casa--so far Susy was
right!
Nevertheless, lingering still by the wall of the old garden for the
deepening of night, his nervous feverishness was again invaded and
benumbed by sullen memories. There was the opening left by the old
grille in the wall, behind which Mrs. Peyton stood on the morning when
he thought he was leaving the ranch forever; where he had first clasped
her in his arms, and stayed. A turn of the head, a moment's indecision,
a single glance of a languorous eye, had brought this culmination. And
now he stood again before that ruined grille, his house and lands, even
his NAME, misused by a mad, scheming enthusiast, and himself a creeping
spy of his own dishonor! He turned with a bitter smile again to the
garden. A few dark red Castilian roses still leaned forward and swayed
in the wind with dripping leaves. It was here that the first morning of
his arrival he had kissed Susy; the perfume and color of her pink skin
came back to him with a sudden shock as he stood there; he caught at a
flower, drew it towards him, inhaled its odor in a long breath that left
him faint and leaning against the wall. Then again he smiled, but this
time more wickedly--in what he believed his cynicism had sprung up the
first instinct of revenge!
It was now dark enough for him to venture across the carriage road and
make his way to the rear of the house. His first characteristic instinct
had been to enter openly at his own front gate, but the terrible
temptation to overhear and watch the conspiracy unobserved--that
fascination common to deceived humanity to witness its own shame--had
now grown upon him. He knew that a word or gesture of explanation,
apology, appeal, or even terror from his wife would check his rage and
weaken his purpose. His perfect knowledge of the house and the security
of its inmates would enable him from some obscure landing or gallery
to participate in any secret conclave they might hold in the patio--the
only place suitable for so numerous a rendezvous. The absence of light
in the few external windows pointed to this central gathering. And he
had already conceived his plan of entrance.
Gaining the rear wall of the casa he began cautiously to skirt its
brambly base until he had reached a long, oven-like window half
obliterated by a monstrous passion vine. It was the window of what had
once been Mrs. Peyton's boudoir; the window by which he had once forced
an entrance to the house when it was in the hands of squatters, the
window from which Susy had signaled her Spanish lover, the window whose
grating had broken the neck of Judge Peyton's presumed assassin. But
these recollections no longer delayed him; the moment for action had
arrived. He knew that since the tragedy the boudoir had been dismantled
and shunned; the servants believed it to be haunted by the assassin's
ghost. With the aid of the passion vine the ingress was easy; the
interior window was open; the rustle of dead leaves on the bare floor as
he entered, and the whir of a frightened bird by his ear, told the story
of its desolation and the source of the strange noises that had been
heard there. The door leading to the corridor was lightly bolted, merely
to keep it from rattling in the wind. Slipping the bolt with the blade
of his pocket-knife he peered into the dark passage. The light streaming
under a door to the left, and the sound of voices, convinced him that
his conjecture was right, and the meeting was gathered on the broad
balconies around the patio. He knew that a narrow gallery, faced with
Venetian blinds to exclude the sun, looked down upon them. He managed to
gain it without discovery; luckily the blinds were still down; between
their slats, himself invisible, he could hear and see everything that
occurred.
Yet even at this supreme moment the first thing that struck him was the
almost ludicrous contrast between the appearance of the meeting and
its tremendous object. Whether he was influenced by any previous boyish
conception of a clouded and gloomy conspiracy he did not know, but
he was for an instant almost disconcerted by the apparent levity and
festivity of the conclave. Decanters and glasses stood on small tables
before them; nearly all were drinking and smoking. They comprised
fifteen or twenty men, some of whose faces were familiar to him
elsewhere as Southern politicians; a few, he was shocked to see, were
well-known Northern Democrats. Occupying a characteristically central
position was the famous Colonel Starbottle, of Virginia. Jaunty and
youthful-looking in his mask-like, beardless face, expansive and
dignified in his middle-aged port and carriage, he alone retained some
of the importance--albeit slightly theatrical and affected--of the
occasion. Clarence in his first hurried glance had not observed his
wife, and for a moment had felt relieved; but as Colonel Starbottle
arose at that moment, and with a studiously chivalrous and courtly
manner turned to his right, he saw that she was sitting at the further
end of the balcony, and that a man whom he recognized as Captain
Pinckney was standing beside her. The blood quickly tightened around his
heart, but left him cold and observant.
“It was seldom, indeed,” remarked Colonel Starbottle, placing his fat
fingers in the frill of his shirt front, “that a movement like this
was graced with the actual presence of a lofty, inspiring, yet delicate
spirit--a Boadicea--indeed, he might say a Joan of Arc--in the person
of their charming hostess, Mrs. Brant. Not only were they favored by her
social and hospitable ministration, but by her active and enthusiastic
cooperation in the glorious work they had in hand. It was through
her correspondence and earnest advocacy that they were to be favored
to-night with the aid and counsel of one of the most distinguished and
powerful men in the Southern district of California, Judge Beeswinger,
of Los Angeles. He had not the honor of that gentleman's personal
acquaintance; he believed he was not far wrong in saying that this was
also the misfortune of every gentleman present; but the name itself
was a tower of strength. He would go further, and say that Mrs. Brant
herself was personally unacquainted with him, but it was through the
fervor, poetry, grace, and genius of her correspondence with that
gentleman that they were to have the honor of his presence that very
evening. It was understood that advices had been received of his
departure, and that he might be expected at Robles at any moment.”
“But what proof have we of Judge Beeswinger's soundness?” said a lazy
Southern voice at the conclusion of Colonel Starbottle's periods.
“Nobody here seems to know him by sight: is it not risky to admit a man
to our meeting whom we are unable to identify?”
“I reckon nobody but a fool or some prying mudsill of a Yankee would
trust his skin here,” returned another; “and if he did we'd know what to
do with him.”
But Clarence's attention was riveted on his wife, and the significant
speech passed him as unheeded as had the colonel's rhetoric. She was
looking very handsome and slightly flushed, with a proud light in her
eyes that he had never seen before. Absorbed in the discussion, she
seemed to be paying little attention to Captain Pinckney as she rose
suddenly to her feet.
“Judge Beeswinger will be attended here by Mr. MacNiel, of the Fair
Plains Hotel, who will vouch for him and introduce him,” she said in
a clear voice, which rang with an imperiousness that Clarence well
remembered. “The judge was to arrive by the coach from Martinez to Fair
Plains, and is due now.”
“Is there no GENTLEMAN to introduce him? Must we take him on the word
of a common trader--by Jove! a whiskey-seller?” continued the previous
voice sneeringly.
“On the word of a lady, Mr. Brooks,” said Captain Pinckney, with a
slight gesture towards Mrs. Brant--“who answers for both.”
Clarence had started slightly at his wife's voice and the information
it conveyed. His fellow-passenger, and the confidant of MacNiel, was
the man they were expecting! If they had recognized him, Clarence, would
they not warn the company of his proximity? He held his breath as the
sound of voices came from the outer gate of the courtyard. Mrs. Brant
rose; at the same moment the gate swung open, and a man entered. It WAS
the Missourian.
He turned with old-fashioned courtesy to the single woman standing on
the balcony.
“My fair correspondent, I believe! I am Judge Beeswinger. Your agent,
MacNiel, passed me through your guards at the gate, but I did not deem
it advisable to bring him into this assembly of gentlemen without your
further consideration. I trust I was right.”
The quiet dignity and self-possession, the quaint, old-fashioned
colonial precision of speech, modified by a soft Virginian intonation,
and, above all, some singular individuality of the man himself, produced
a profound sensation, and seemed to suddenly give the gathering an
impressiveness it had lacked before. For an instant Clarence forgot
himself and his personal wrongs in the shock of indignation he felt at
this potent addition to the ranks of his enemies. He saw his wife's eyes
sparkle with pride over her acquisition, and noticed that Pinckney cast
a disturbed glance at the newcomer.
The stranger ascended the few steps to the balcony and took Mrs. Brant's
hand with profound courtesy. “Introduce me to my colleagues--distinctly
and separately. It behooves a man at such a moment to know to whom he
entrusts his life and honor, and the life and honor of his cause.”
It was evidently no mere formal courtesy to the stranger. As he stepped
forward along the balcony, and under Mrs. Brant's graceful guidance was
introduced to each of the members, he not only listened with scrupulous
care and attention to the name and profession of each man, but bent
upon him a clear, searching glance that seemed to photograph him in his
memory. With two exceptions. He passed Colonel Starbottle's expanding
shirt frill with a bow of elaborate precision, and said, “Colonel
Starbottle's fame requires neither introduction nor explanation.” He
stopped before Captain Pinckney and paused.
“An officer of the United States army, I believe, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Educated at West Point, I think, by the government, to whom you have
taken the oath of allegiance?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, sir,” said the stranger, turning away.
“You have forgotten one other fact, sir,” said Pinckney, with a slightly
supercilious air.
“Indeed! What is it?”
“I am, first of all, a native of the State of South Carolina!”
A murmur of applause and approval ran round the balcony. Captain
Pinckney smiled and exchanged glances with Mrs. Brant, but the stranger
quietly returned to the central table beside Colonel Starbottle. “I am
not only an unexpected delegate to this august assembly, gentlemen,” he
began gravely, “but I am the bearer of perhaps equally unexpected news.
By my position in the Southern district I am in possession of dispatches
received only this morning by pony express. Fort Sumter has been
besieged. The United States flag, carrying relief to the beleaguered
garrison, has been fired upon by the State of South Carolina.”
A burst of almost hysteric applause and enthusiasm broke from the
assembly, and made the dim, vault-like passages and corridors of the
casa ring. Cheer after cheer went up to the veiled gallery and the misty
sky beyond. Men mounted on the tables and waved their hands frantically,
and in the midst of this bewildering turbulence of sound and motion
Clarence saw his wife mounted on a chair, with burning cheeks and
flashing eyes, waving her handkerchief like an inspired priestess. Only
the stranger, still standing beside Colonel Starbottle, remained unmoved
and impassive. Then, with an imperative gesture, he demanded a sudden
silence.
“Convincing and unanimous as this demonstration is, gentlemen,” he began
quietly, “it is my duty, nevertheless, to ask you if you have seriously
considered the meaning of the news I have brought. It is my duty to
tell you that it means civil war. It means the clash of arms between two
sections of a mighty country; it means the disruption of friends, the
breaking of family ties, the separation of fathers and sons, of brothers
and sisters--even, perhaps, to the disseverment of husband and wife!”
“It means the sovereignty of the South--and the breaking of a covenant
with lowborn traders and abolitionists,” said Captain Pinckney.
“If there are any gentlemen present,” continued the stranger, without
heeding the interruption, “who have pledged this State to the support
of the South in this emergency, or to the establishment of a Pacific
republic in aid and sympathy with it, whose names are on this paper”--he
lifted a sheet of paper lying before Colonel Starbottle--“but who now
feel that the gravity of the news demands a more serious consideration
of the purpose, they are at liberty to withdraw from the meeting, giving
their honor, as Southern gentlemen, to keep the secret intact.”
“Not if I know it,” interrupted a stalwart Kentuckian, as he rose to his
feet and strode down the steps to the patio. “For,” he added, placing
his back against the gateway, “I'll shoot the first coward that backs
out now.”
A roar of laughter and approval followed, but was silenced again by the
quiet, unimpassioned voice of the stranger. “If, on the other hand,” he
went on calmly, “you all feel that this news is the fitting culmination
and consecration of the hopes, wishes, and plans of this meeting, you
will assert it again, over your own signatures, to Colonel Starbottle at
this table.”
When the Kentuckian had risen, Clarence had started from his
concealment; when he now saw the eager figures pressing forward to the
table he hesitated no longer. Slipping along the passage, he reached
the staircase which led to the corridor in the rear of the balcony.
Descending this rapidly, he not only came upon the backs of the excited
crowd around the table, but even elbowed one of the conspirators aside
without being noticed. His wife, who had risen from her chair at the
end of the balcony, was already moving towards the table. With a quick
movement he seized her wrist, and threw her back in the chair again.
A cry broke from her lips as she recognized him, but still holding her
wrist, he stepped quickly between her and the astonished crowd. There
was a moment of silence, then the cry of “Spy!” and “Seize him!” rose
quickly, but above all the voice and figure of the Missourian was heard
commanding them to stand back. Turning to Clarence, he said quietly,--
“I should know your face, sir. Who are you?”
“The husband of this woman and the master of this house,” said Clarence
as quietly, but in a voice he hardly recognized as his own.
“Stand aside from her, then--unless you are hoping that her danger may
protect YOU!” said the Kentuckian, significantly drawing his revolver.
But Mrs. Brant sprang suddenly to her feet beside Clarence.
“We are neither of us cowards, Mr. Brooks--though he speaks the
truth--and--more shame to me”--she added, with a look of savage scorn at
Clarence--“IS MY HUSBAND!”
“What is your purpose in coming here?” continued Judge Beeswinger, with
his eyes fixed on Clarence.
“I have given you all the information,” said Clarence quietly, “that
is necessary to make you, as a gentleman, leave this house at once--and
that is my purpose. It is all the information you will get from me
as long as you and your friends insult my roof with your uninvited
presence. What I may have to say to you and each of you hereafter--what
I may choose to demand of you, according to your own code of honor,”--he
fixed his eyes on Captain Pinckney's,--“is another question, and one not
usually discussed before a lady.”
“Pardon me. A moment--a single moment.”
It was the voice of Colonel Starbottle; it was the frilled shirt front,
the lightly buttoned blue coat with its expanding lapels, like bursting
petals, and the smiling mask of that gentleman rising above the table
and bowing to Clarence Brant and his wife with infinite courtesy.
“The--er--humiliating situation in which we find ourselves,
gentlemen,--the reluctant witnesses of--er--what we trust is only
a temporary disagreement between our charming hostess and
the--er--gentleman whom she recognized under the highest title to
our consideration,--is distressing to us all, and would seem to amply
justify that gentleman's claims to a personal satisfaction, which I
know we would all delight to give. But that situation rests upon the
supposition that our gathering here was of a purely social or festive
nature! It may be,” continued the colonel with a blandly reflective
air, “that the spectacle of these decanters and glasses, and the nectar
furnished us by our Hebe-like hostess” (he lifted a glass of whiskey and
water to his lips while he bowed to Mrs. Brant gracefully), “has led
the gentleman to such a deduction. But when I suggest to him that our
meeting was of a business, or private nature, it strikes me that the
question of intrusion may be fairly divided between him and ourselves.
We may be even justified, in view of that privacy, in asking him if
his--er--entrance to this house was--er--coincident with his appearance
among us.”
“With my front door in possession of strangers,” said Clarence, more in
reply to a sudden contemptuous glance from his wife than Starbottle's
insinuation, “I entered the house through the window.”
“Of my boudoir, where another intruder once broke his neck,” interrupted
his wife with a mocking laugh.
“Where I once helped this lady to regain possession of her house when
it was held by another party of illegal trespassers, who, however, were
content to call themselves 'jumpers,' and did not claim the privacy of
gentlemen.”
“Do you mean to imply, sir,” began Colonel Starbottle haughtily,
“that”--
“I mean to imply, sir,” said Clarence with quiet scorn, “that I have
neither the wish to know nor the slightest concern in any purpose that
brought you here, and that when you quit the house you take your secrets
and your privacy with you intact, without let or hindrance from me.”
“Do you mean to say, Mr. Brant,” said Judge Beeswinger, suppressing the
angry interruption of his fellows with a dominant wave of his hand, as
he fixed his eyes on Clarence keenly, “that you have no sympathy with
your wife's political sentiments?”
“I have already given you the information necessary to make you quit
this house, and that is all you have a right to know,” returned Clarence
with folded arms.
“But I can answer for him,” said Mrs. Brant, rising, with a quivering
voice and curling lip. “There IS no sympathy between us. We are as far
apart as the poles. We have nothing in common but this house and his
name.”
“But you are husband and wife, bound together by a sacred compact.”
“A compact!” echoed Mrs. Brant, with a bitter laugh. “Yes, the compact
that binds South Carolina to the nigger-worshipping Massachusetts.
The compact that links together white and black, the gentleman and the
trader, the planter and the poor white--the compact of those UNITED
States. Bah! THAT has been broken, and so can this.”
Clarence's face paled. But before he could speak there was a rapid
clattering at the gate and a dismounted vaquero entered excitedly.
Turning to Mrs. Brant he said hurriedly, “Mother of God! the casa is
surrounded by a rabble of mounted men, and there is one among them even
now who demands admittance in the name of the Law.”
“This is your work,” said Brooks, facing Clarence furiously. “You have
brought them with you, but, by God, they shall not save you!” He
would have clutched Clarence, but the powerful arm of Judge Beeswinger
intervened. Nevertheless, he still struggled to reach Clarence,
appealing to the others: “Are you fools to stand there and let him
triumph! Don't you see the cowardly Yankee trick he's played upon us?”
“He has not,” said Mrs. Brant haughtily. “I have no reason to love him
or his friends; but I know he does not lie.”
“Gentlemen!--gentlemen!” implored Colonel Starbottle with beaming and
unctuous persuasion, “may I--er--remark--that all this is far from the
question? Are we to be alarmed because an unknown rabble, no matter
whence they come, demand entrance here in the name of the Law? I am not
aware of any law of the State of California that we are infringing. By
all means admit them.”
The gate was thrown open. A single thick-set man, apparently unarmed
and dressed like an ordinary traveler, followed by half a dozen other
equally unpretentious-looking men, entered. The leader turned to the
balcony.
“I am the Chief of Police of San Francisco. I have warrants for the
arrest of Colonel Culpepper Starbottle, Joshua Brooks, Captain Pinckney,
Clarence Brant and Alice his wife, and others charged with inciting to
riot and unlawful practice calculated to disturb the peace of the State
of California and its relations with the Federal government,” said the
leader, in a dry official voice.
Clarence started. In spite of its monotonous utterance it was the voice
of the red-bearded controversialist of the stage-coach. But where were
his characteristic beard and hair? Involuntarily Clarence glanced at
Judge Beeswinger; that gentleman was quietly regarding the stranger with
an impassive face that betrayed no recognition whatever.
“But the city of San Francisco has no jurisdiction here,” said Colonel
Starbottle, turning a bland smile towards his fellow-members. “I
am--er--sorry to inform you that you are simply trespassing, sir.”
“I am here also as deputy sheriff,” returned the stranger coolly. “We
were unable to locate the precise place of this meeting, although we
knew of its existence. I was sworn in this morning at Santa Inez by the
judge of this district, and these gentlemen with me are my posse.”
There was a quick movement of resistance by the members, which was,
however, again waived blandly aside by Colonel Starbottle. Leaning
forward in a slightly forensic attitude, with his fingers on the table
and a shirt frill that seemed to have become of itself erectile, he
said, with pained but polite precision, “I grieve to have to state, sir,
that even that position is utterly untenable here. I am a lawyer myself,
as my friend here, Judge Beeswinger--eh? I beg your pardon!”
The officer of the law had momentarily started, with his eyes fixed
on Judge Beeswinger, who, however, seemed to be quietly writing at the
table.
“As Judge Beeswinger,” continued Colonel Starbottle, “will probably tell
you and as a jurist himself, he will also probably agree with me when
I also inform you that, as the United States government is an aggrieved
party, it is a matter for the Federal courts to prosecute, and that
the only officer we can recognize is the United States Marshal for the
district. When I add that the marshal, Colonel Crackenthorpe, is one
of my oldest friends, and an active sympathizer with the South in the
present struggle, you will understand that any action from him in this
matter is exceedingly improbable.”
The general murmur of laughter, relief, and approval was broken by the
quiet voice of Judge Beeswinger.
“Let me see your warrant, Mr. Deputy Sheriff.”
The officer approached him with a slightly perplexed and constrained
air, and exhibited the paper. Judge Beeswinger handed it back to him.
“Colonel Starbottle is quite right in his contention,” he said quietly;
“the only officer that this assembly can recognize is the United States
Marshal or his legal deputy. But Colonel Starbottle is wrong in his
supposition that Colonel Crackenthorpe still retains the functions of
that office. He was removed by the President of the United States, and
his successor was appointed and sworn in by the Federal judge early
this morning.” He paused, and folding up the paper on which he had been
writing, placed it in the hands of the deputy. “And this,” he continued
in the same even voice, “constitutes you his deputy, and will enable you
to carry out your duty in coming here.”
“What the devil does this mean, sir? Who are you?” gasped Colonel
Starbottle, recoiling suddenly from the man at his side.
“I am the new United States Marshal for the Southern District of
California.”
CHAPTER III.
Unsuspected and astounding as the revelation was to Clarence, its
strange reception by the conspirators seemed to him as astounding.
He had started forward, half expecting that the complacent and
self-confessed spy would be immolated by his infuriated dupes. But to
his surprise the shock seemed to have changed their natures, and given
them the dignity they had lacked. The excitability, irritation, and
recklessness which had previously characterized them had disappeared.
The deputy and his posse, who had advanced to the assistance of their
revealed chief, met with no resistance. They had evidently, as if with
one accord, drawn away from Judge Beeswinger, leaving a cleared space
around him, and regarded their captors with sullen contemptuous silence.
It was only broken by Colonel Starbottle:--
“Your duty commands you, sir, to use all possible diligence in bringing
us before the Federal judge of this district--unless your master in
Washington has violated the Constitution so far as to remove him, too!”
“I understand you perfectly,” returned Judge Beeswinger, with unchanged
composure; “and as you know that Judge Wilson unfortunately cannot be
removed except through a regular course of impeachment, I suppose you
may still count upon his Southern sympathies to befriend you. With that
I have nothing to do; my duty is complete when my deputy has brought you
before him and I have stated the circumstances of the arrest.”
“I congratulate you, sir,” said Captain Pinckney, with an ironical
salute, “on your prompt reward for your treachery to the South, and your
equally prompt adoption of the peculiar tactics of your friends in the
way in which you have entered this house.”
“I am sorry I cannot congratulate YOU, sir,” returned Judge Beeswinger
gravely, “on breaking your oath to the government which has educated and
supported you and given you the epaulettes you disgrace. Nor shall I
discuss 'treachery' with the man who has not only violated the trust of
his country, but even the integrity of his friend's household. It is for
that reason that I withhold the action of this warrant in so far as
it affects the persons of the master and mistress of this home. I am
satisfied that Mr. Brant has been as ignorant of what has been done
here as I am that his wife has been only the foolish dupe of a double
traitor!”
“Silence!”
The words broke simultaneously from the lips of Clarence and Captain
Pinckney. They stood staring at each other--the one pale, the other
crimson--as Mrs. Brant, apparently oblivious of the significance of
their united adjuration, turned to Judge Beeswinger in the fury of her
still stifled rage and mortification.
“Keep your mercy for your fellow-spy,” she said, with a contemptuous
gesture towards her husband; “I go with these gentlemen!”
“You will not,” said Clarence quietly, “until I have said a word to you
alone.” He laid his hand firmly upon her wrist.
The deputy and his prisoners filed slowly out of the courtyard together,
the latter courteously saluting Mrs. Brant as they passed, but turning
from Judge Beeswinger in contemptuous silence. The judge followed them
to the gate, but there he paused. Turning to Mrs. Brant, who was still
half struggling in the strong grip of her husband, he said,--
“Any compunction I may have had in misleading you by accepting your
invitation here I dismissed after I had entered this house. And I
trust,” he added, turning to Clarence sternly, “I leave you the master
of it!”
As the gate closed behind him, Clarence locked it. When his wife turned
upon him angrily, he said quietly,--
“I have no intention of restraining your liberty a moment after our
interview is over, but until then I do not intend to be disturbed.”
She threw herself disdainfully back in her chair, her hands clasped in
her lap in half-contemptuous resignation, with her eyes upon her long
slim arched feet crossed before her. Even in her attitude there was
something of her old fascination which, however, now seemed to sting
Clarence to the quick.
“I have nothing to say to you in regard to what has just passed in this
house, except that as long as I remain even nominally its master it
shall not be repeated. Although I shall no longer attempt to influence
or control your political sympathies, I shall not allow you to indulge
them where in any way they seem to imply my sanction. But so little do
I oppose your liberty, that you are free to rejoin your political
companions whenever you choose to do so on your own responsibility. But
I must first know from your own lips whether your sympathies are purely
political--or a name for something else?”
She had alternately flushed and paled, although still keeping her
scornful attitude as he went on, but there was no mistaking the
genuineness of her vague wonderment at his concluding words.
“I don't understand you,” she said, lifting her eyes to his in a moment
of cold curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? What did Judge Beeswinger mean when he called Captain
Pinckney a double traitor?” he said roughly.
She sprang to her feet with flashing eyes. “And you--YOU! dare to repeat
the cowardly lie of a confessed spy. This, then, is what you wished to
tell me--this the insult for which you have kept me here; because you
are incapable of understanding unselfish patriotism or devotion--even
to your own cause--you dare to judge me by your own base, Yankee-trading
standards. Yes, it is worthy of you!” She walked rapidly up and down,
and then suddenly faced him. “I understand it all; I appreciate your
magnanimity now. You are willing I should join the company of these
chivalrous gentlemen in order to give color to your calumnies! Say at
once that it was you who put up this spy to correspond with me--to come
here--in order to entrap me. Yes entrap me--I--who a moment ago stood up
for you before these gentlemen, and said you could not lie. Bah!”
Struck only by the wild extravagance of her speech and temper, Clarence
did not know that when women are most illogical they are apt to be most
sincere, and from a man's standpoint her unreasoning deductions appeared
to him only as an affectation to gain time for thought, or a theatrical
display, like Susy's. And he was turning half contemptuously away, when
she again faced him with flashing eyes.
“Well, hear me! I accept; I leave here at once, to join my own people,
my own friends--those who understand me--put what construction on it
that you choose. Do your worst; you cannot do more to separate us than
you have done just now.”
She left him, and ran up the steps with a singular return of her old
occasional nymph-like nimbleness--the movement of a woman who had never
borne children--and a swish of her long skirts that he remembered
for many a day after, as she disappeared in the corridor. He remained
looking after her--indignant, outraged, and unconvinced. There was a
rattling at the gate.
He remembered he had locked it. He opened it to the flushed pink cheeks
and dancing eyes of Susy. The rain was still dripping from her wet cloak
as she swung it from her shoulders.
“I know it all!--all that's happened,” she burst out with half-girlish
exuberance and half the actress's declamation. “We met them all in the
road--posse and prisoners. Chief Thompson knew me and told me all. And
so you've done it--and you're master in your old house again. Clarence,
old boy! Jim said you wouldn't do it--said you'd weaken on account of
her! But I said 'No.' I knew you better, old Clarence, and I saw it in
your face, for all your stiffness! ha! But for all that I was mighty
nervous and uneasy, and I just made Jim send an excuse to the theatre
and we rushed it down here! Lordy! but it looks natural to see the old
house again! And she--you packed her off with the others--didn't you?
Tell me, Clarence,” in her old appealing voice, “you shook her, too!”
Dazed and astounded, and yet experiencing a vague sense of relief with
something like his old tenderness towards the willful woman before him,
he had silently regarded her until her allusion to his wife recalled him
to himself.
“Hush!” he said quickly, with a glance towards the corridor.
“Ah!” said Susy, with a malicious smile, “then that's why Captain
Pinckney was lingering in the rear with the deputy.”
“Silence!” repeated Clarence sternly. “Go in there,” pointing to the
garden room below the balcony, “and wait there with your husband.”
He half led, half pushed her into the room which had been his business
office, and returned to the patio. A hesitating voice from the balcony
said, “Clarence!”
It was his wife's voice, but modified and gentler--more like her
voice as he had first heard it, or as if it had been chastened by some
reminiscence of those days. It was his wife's face, too, that looked
down on his--paler than he had seen it since he entered the house. She
was shawled and hooded, carrying a traveling-bag in her hand.
“I am going, Clarence,” she said, pausing before him, with gentle
gravity, “but not in anger. I even ask you to forgive me for the foolish
words that I think your still more foolish accusation”--she smiled
faintly--“dragged from me. I am going because I know that I have
brought--and that while I am here I shall always be bringing--upon you
the imputation and even the responsibility of my own faith! While I am
proud to own it,--and if needs be suffer for it,--I have no right to
ruin your prospects, or even make you the victim of the slurs that
others may cast upon me. Let us part as friends--separated only by our
different political faiths, but keeping all other faiths together--until
God shall settle the right of this struggle. Perhaps it may be soon--I
sometimes think it may be years of agony for all; but until then,
good-by.”
She had slowly descended the steps to the patio, looking handsomer than
he had ever seen her, and as if sustained and upheld by the enthusiasm
of her cause. Her hand was outstretched towards his--his heart beat
violently--in another moment he might have forgotten all and clasped her
to his breast. Suddenly she stopped, her outstretched arm stiffened, her
finger pointed to the chair on which Susy's cloak was hanging.
“What's that?” she said in a sharp, high, metallic voice. “Who is here?
Speak!”
“Susy,” said Clarence.
She cast a scathing glance round the patio, and then settled her
piercing eyes on Clarence with a bitter smile.
“Already!”
Clarence felt the blood rush to his face as he stammered, “She knew what
was happening here, and came to give you warning.”
“Liar!”
“Stop!” said Clarence, with a white face. “She came to tell me that
Captain Pinckney was still lingering for you in the road.”
He threw open the gate to let her pass. As she swept out she lifted
her hand. As he closed the gate there were the white marks of her four
fingers on his cheek.
CHAPTER IV.
For once Susy had not exaggerated. Captain Pinckney WAS lingering, with
the deputy who had charge of him, on the trail near the casa. It had
already been pretty well understood by both captives and captors that
the arrest was simply a legal demonstration; that the sympathizing
Federal judge would undoubtedly order the discharge of the prisoners on
their own recognizances, and it was probable that the deputy saw no harm
in granting Pinckney's request--which was virtually only a delay in
his liberation. It was also possible that Pinckney had worked upon the
chivalrous sympathies of the man by professing his disinclination
to leave their devoted colleague, Mrs. Brant, at the mercy of her
antagonistic and cold-blooded husband at such a crisis, and it is to be
feared also that Clarence, as a reputed lukewarm partisan, excited no
personal sympathy, even from his own party. Howbeit, the deputy agreed
to delay Pinckney's journey for a parting interview with his fair
hostess.
How far this expressed the real sentiments of Captain Pinckney was never
known. Whether his political association with Mrs. Brant had developed
into a warmer solicitude, understood or ignored by her,--what were his
hopes and aspirations regarding her future,--were by the course of fate
never disclosed. A man of easy ethics, but rigid artificialities of
honor, flattered and pampered by class prejudice, a so-called “man of
the world,” with no experience beyond his own limited circle, yet brave
and devoted to that, it were well perhaps to leave this last act of his
inefficient life as it was accepted by the deputy.
Dismounting he approached the house from the garden. He was already
familiar with the low arched doorway which led to the business room, and
from which he could gain admittance to the patio, but it so chanced that
he entered the dark passage at the moment that Clarence had thrust Susy
into the business room, and heard its door shut sharply. For an instant
he believed that Mrs. Brant had taken refuge there, but as he cautiously
moved forward he heard her voice in the patio beyond. Its accents
struck him as pleading; an intense curiosity drew him further along the
passage. Suddenly her voice seemed to change to angry denunciation,
and the word “Liar” rang upon his ears. It was followed by his own name
uttered sardonically by Clarence, the swift rustle of a skirt, the clash
of the gate, and then--forgetting everything, he burst into the patio.
Clarence was just turning from the gate with the marks of his wife's
hand still red on his white cheek. He saw Captain Pinckney's eyes upon
it, and the faint, half-malicious, half-hysteric smile upon his lips.
But without a start or gesture of surprise he locked the gate, and
turning to him, said with frigid significance,--
“I thank you for returning so promptly, and for recognizing the only
thing I now require at your hand.”
But Captain Pinckney had recovered his supercilious ease with the
significant demand.
“You seem to have had something already from another's hand, sir, but I
am at your service,” he said lightly.
“You will consider that I have accepted it from you,” said Clarence,
drawing closer to him with a rigid face. “I suppose it will not be
necessary for me to return it--to make you understand me.”
“Go on,” said Pinckney, flushing slightly. “Make your terms; I am
ready.”
“But I'm not,” said the unexpected voice of the deputy at the grille of
the gateway. “Excuse my interfering, gentlemen, but this sort o' thing
ain't down in my schedule. I've let this gentleman,” pointing to Captain
Pinckney, “off for a minit to say 'good-by' to a lady, who I reckon has
just ridden off in her buggy with her servant without saying by your
leave, but I didn't calkelate to let him inter another business, which,
like as not, may prevent me from delivering his body safe and sound into
court. You hear me!” As Clarence opened the gate he added, “I don't want
ter spoil sport between gents, but it's got to come in after I've done
my duty.”
“I'll meet you, sir, anywhere, and with what weapons you choose,” said
Pinckney, turning angrily upon Clarence, “as soon as this farce--for
which you and your friends are responsible--is over.” He was furious at
the intimation that Mrs. Brant had escaped him.
A different thought was in the husband's mind. “But what assurance
have I that you are going on with the deputy?” he said with purposely
insulting deliberation.
“My word, sir,” said Captain Pinckney sharply.
“And if that ain't enuff, there's mine!” said the deputy. “For if this
gentleman swerves to the right or left betwixt this and Santa Inez, I'll
blow a hole through him myself. And that,” he added deprecatingly, “is
saying a good deal for a man who doesn't want to spoil sport, and for
the matter of that is willing to stand by and see fair play done at
Santa Inez any time to-morrow before breakfast.”
“Then I can count on you,” said Clarence, with a sudden impulse
extending his hand.
The man hesitated a moment and then grasped it.
“Well, I wasn't expecting that,” he said slowly; “but you look as if you
meant business, and if you ain't got anybody else to see you through,
I'm thar! I suppose this gentleman will have his friends.”
“I shall be there at six with my seconds,” said Pinckney curtly. “Lead
on.”
The gate closed behind them. Clarence stood looking around the empty
patio and the silent house, from which it was now plain that the
servants had been withdrawn to insure the secrecy of the conspiracy.
Cool and collected as he knew he was, he remained for a moment in
hesitation. Then the sound of voices came to his ear from the garden
room, the light frivolity of Susy's laugh and Hooker's huskier accents.
He had forgotten they were there--he had forgotten their existence!
Trusting still to his calmness, he called to Hooker in his usual
voice. That gentleman appeared with a face which his attempts to make
unconcerned and impassive had, however, only deepened into funereal
gravity.
“I have something to attend to,” said Clarence, with a faint smile, “and
I must ask you and Susy to excuse me for a little while. She knows the
house perfectly, and will call the servants from the annex to provide
you both with refreshment until I join you a little later.” Satisfied
from Hooker's manner that they knew nothing of his later interview with
Pinckney, he turned away and ascended to his own room.
There he threw himself into an armchair by the dim light of a single
candle as if to reflect. But he was conscious, even then, of his own
calmness and want of excitement, and that no reflection was necessary.
What he had done and what he intended to do was quite clear, there was
no alternative suggested or to be even sought after. He had that sense
of relief which comes with the climax of all great struggles, even of
defeat.
He had never known before how hopeless and continuous had been that
struggle until now it was over. He had no fear of tomorrow, he would
meet it as he had to-day, with the same singular consciousness of being
equal to the occasion. There was even no necessity of preparation for
it; his will, leaving his fortune to his wife,--which seemed a slight
thing now in this greater separation,--was already in his safe in San
Francisco, his pistols were in the next room. He was even slightly
disturbed by his own insensibility, and passed into his wife's bedroom
partly in the hope of disturbing his serenity by some memento of their
past. There was no disorder of flight--everything was in its place,
except the drawer of her desk, which was still open, as if she had taken
something from it as an afterthought. There were letters and papers
there, some of his own and some in Captain Pinckney's handwriting. It
did not occur to him to look at them--even to justify himself, or excuse
her. He knew that his hatred of Captain Pinckney was not so much that he
believed him her lover, as his sudden conviction that she was like him!
He was the male of her species--a being antagonistic to himself, whom
he could fight, and crush, and revenge himself upon. But most of all he
loathed his past, not on account of her, but of his own weakness that
had made him her dupe and a misunderstood man to his friends. He had
been derelict of duty in his unselfish devotion to her; he had stifled
his ambition, and underrated his own possibilities. No wonder that
others had accepted him at his own valuation. Clarence Brant was a
modest man, but the egotism of modesty is more fatal than that of
pretension, for it has the haunting consciousness of superior virtue.
He re-entered his own room and again threw himself into his chair. His
calm was being succeeded by a physical weariness; he remembered he had
not slept the night before, and he ought to take some rest to be
fresh in the early morning. Yet he must also show himself before his
self-invited guests,--Susy and her husband,--or their suspicions would
be aroused. He would try to sleep for a little while in the chair before
he went downstairs again. He closed his eyes oddly enough on a dim
dreamy recollection of Susy in the old days, in the little madrono
hollow where she had once given him a rendezvous. He forgot the maturer
and critical uneasiness with which he had then received her coquettish
and willful advances, which he now knew was the effect of the growing
dominance of Mrs. Peyton over him, and remembered only her bright,
youthful eyes, and the kisses he had pressed upon her soft fragrant
cheek. The faintness he had felt when waiting in the old rose garden,
a few hours ago, seemed to steal on him once more, and to lapse into a
pleasant drowsiness. He even seemed again to inhale the perfume of the
roses.
“Clarence!”
He started. He had been sleeping, but the voice sounded strangely real.
A light, girlish laugh followed. He sprang to his feet. It was Susy
standing beside him--and Susy even as she looked in the old days!
For with a flash of her old audacity, aided by her familiar knowledge of
the house and the bunch of household keys she had found, which dangled
from her girdle, as in the old fashion, she had disinterred one of her
old frocks from a closet, slipped it on, and unloosening her brown hair
had let it fall in rippling waves down her back. It was Susy in her old
girlishness, with the instinct of the grown actress in the arrangement
of her short skirt over her pretty ankles and the half-conscious pose
she had taken.
“Poor dear old Clarence,” she said, with dancing eyes; “I might have
won a dozen pairs of gloves from you while you slept there. But you're
tired, dear old boy, and you've had a hard time of it. No matter; you've
shown yourself a man at last, and I'm proud of you.”
Half ashamed of the pleasure he felt even in his embarrassment, Clarence
stammered, “But this change--this dress.”
Susy clapped her hands like a child. “I knew it would surprise you! It's
an old frock I wore the year I went away with auntie. I knew where it
was hidden, and fished it out again with these keys, Clarence; it seemed
so like old times. Lord! when I was with the old servants again, and
you didn't come down, I just felt as if I'd never been away, and I just
rampaged free. It seemed to me, don't you know, not as if I'd just come,
but as if I'd always been right here, and it was you who'd just come.
Don't you understand! Just as you came when me and Mary Rogers
were here; don't you remember her, Clarence, and how she used to do
'gooseberry' for us? Well, just like that. So I said to Jim, 'I don't
know you any more--get!' and I just slipped on this frock and ordered
Manuela around as I used to do--and she in fits of laughter; I reckon,
Clarence, she hasn't laughed as much since I left. And then I thought of
you--perhaps worried and flustered as yet over things, and the change,
and I just slipped into the kitchen and I told old fat Conchita to make
some of these tortillas you know,--with sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on
top,--and I tied on an apron and brought 'em up to you on a tray with
a glass of that old Catalan wine you used to like. Then I sorter felt
frightened when I got here, and I didn't hear any noise, and I put the
tray down in the hall and peeped in and found you asleep. Sit still,
I'll fetch em.”
She tripped out into the passage, returning with the tray, which she put
on the table beside Clarence, and then standing back a little and with
her hands tucked soubrette fashion in the tiny pockets of her apron,
gazed at him with a mischievous smile.
It was impossible not to smile back as he nibbled the crisp Mexican
cake and drank the old mission wine. And Susy's tongue trilled an
accompaniment to his thanks.
“Lord! it seems so nice to be here--just you and me, Clarence--like in
the old days--with nobody naggin' and swoopin' round after you. Don't
be greedy, Clarence, but give me a cake.” She took one and finished the
dregs of his glass.
Then sitting on the arm of his chair, she darted a violet ray of half
reproach and half mischievousness into his amused and retrospective
eyes. “There used to be room for two in that chair, Klarns.”
The use of the old childish diminutive for his name seemed to him
natural as her familiarity, and he moved a little sideways to make
room for her with an instinct of pleasure, but the same sense of
irresponsibility that had characterized his reflections. Nevertheless,
he looked critically into the mischievous eyes, and said quietly,--
“Where is your husband?”
There was no trace of embarrassment, apology, or even of consciousness
in her pretty face as she replied, passing her hand lightly through his
hair,--
“Oh, Jim? I've packed him off!”
“Packed him off!” echoed Clarence, slightly astonished.
“Yes, to Fair Plains, full tilt after your wife's buggy. You see,
Clarence, after the old cat--that's your wife, please--left, I wanted to
make sure she had gone, and wasn't hangin' round to lead you off again
with your leg tied to her apron string like a chicken's! No! I said to
Jim, 'Just you ride after her until you see she's safe and sound in
the down coach from Fair Plains without her knowin' it, and if she's
inclined to hang back or wobble any, you post back here and let me
know!' I told him I would stay and look after you to see you didn't bolt
too!” She laughed, and then added, “But I didn't think I should
fall into the old ways so soon, and have such a nice time. Did you,
Clarence?”
She looked so irresponsible, sitting there with her face near his,
and so childishly, or perhaps thoughtlessly, happy, that he could only
admire her levity, and even the slight shock that her flippant allusion
to his wife had given him seemed to him only a weakness of his own.
After all, was not hers the true philosophy? Why should not these bright
eyes see things more clearly than his own? Nevertheless, with his eyes
still fixed upon them, he continued,--
“And Jim was willing to go?”
She stopped, with her fingers still lifting a lock of his hair. “Why,
yes, you silly--why shouldn't he? I'd like to see him refuse. Why, Lord!
Jim will do anything I ask him.” She put down the lock of hair, and
suddenly looking full into his eyes, said, “That's just the difference
between him and me, and you and--that woman!”
“Then you love him!”
“About as much as you love her,” she said, with an unaffected laugh;
“only he don't wind me around his finger.”
No doubt she was right for all her thoughtlessness, and yet he was going
to fight about that woman to-morrow! No--he forgot; he was going to
fight Captain Pinckney because he was like her!
Susy had put her finger on the crease between his brows which this
supposition had made, and tried to rub it out.
“You know it as well as I do, Clarence,” she said, with a pretty
wrinkling of her own brows, which was her nearest approach to
thoughtfulness. “You know you never really liked her, only you thought
her ways were grander and more proper than mine, and you know you were
always a little bit of a snob and a prig too--dear boy. And Mrs. Peyton
was--bless my soul!--a Benham and a planter's daughter, and I--I was
only a picked-up orphan! That's where Jim is better than you--now sit
still, goosey!--even if I don't like him as much. Oh, I know what you're
always thinking, you're thinking we're both exaggerated and theatrical,
ain't you? But don't you think it's a heap better to be exaggerated and
theatrical about things that are just sentimental and romantic than to
be so awfully possessed and overcome about things that are only real?
There, you needn't stare at me so! It's true. You've had your fill of
grandeur and propriety, and--here you are. And,” she added with a little
chuckle, as she tucked up her feet and leaned a little closer to him,
“here's ME.”
He did not speak, but his arm quite unconsciously passed round her small
waist.
“You see, Clarence,” she went on with equal unconsciousness of the act,
“you ought never to have let me go--never! You ought to have kept me
here--or run away with me. And you oughtn't to have tried to make me
proper. And you oughtn't to have driven me to flirt with that horrid
Spaniard, and you oughtn't to have been so horribly cold and severe when
I did. And you oughtn't to have made me take up with Jim, who was the
only one who thought me his equal. I might have been very silly and
capricious; I might have been very vain, but my vanity isn't a bit worse
than your pride; my love of praise and applause in the theatre isn't a
bit more horrid than your fears of what people might think of you or me.
That's gospel truth, isn't it, Clarence? Tell me! Don't look that way
and this--look at ME! I ain't poisonous, Clarence. Why, one of your
cheeks is redder than the other, Clarence; that's the one that's turned
from me. Come,” she went on, taking the lapels of his coat between her
hands and half shaking him, half drawing him nearer her bright face.
“Tell me--isn't it true?”
“I was thinking of you just now when I fell asleep, Susy,” he said. He
did not know why he said it; he had not intended to tell her, he had
only meant to avoid a direct answer to her question; yet even now he
went on. “And I thought of you when I was out there in the rose garden
waiting to come in here.”
“You did?” she said, drawing in her breath. A wave of delicate pink
color came up to her very eyes, it seemed to him as quickly and as
innocently as when she was a girl. “And what DID you think, Klarns,” she
half whispered--“tell me.”
He did not speak, but answered her blue eyes and then her lips, as her
arms slipped quite naturally around his neck.
*****
The dawn was breaking as Clarence and Jim Hooker emerged together from
the gate of the casa. Mr. Hooker looked sleepy. He had found, after his
return from Fair Plains, that his host had an early engagement at
Santa Inez, and he had insisted upon rising to see him off. It was with
difficulty, indeed, that Clarence could prevent his accompanying him.
Clarence had not revealed to Susy the night before the real object of
his journey, nor did Hooker evidently suspect it, yet when the former
had mounted his horse, he hesitated for an instant, extending his hand.
“If I should happen to be detained,” he began with a half smile.
But Jim was struggling with a yawn. “That's all right--don't mind us,”
he said, stretching his arms. Clarence's hesitating hand dropped to his
side, and with a light reckless laugh and a half sense of providential
relief he galloped away.
What happened immediately thereafter during his solitary ride to
Santa Inez, looking back upon it in after years, seemed but a confused
recollection, more like a dream. The long stretches of vague distance,
gradually opening clearer with the rising sun in an unclouded sky;
the meeting with a few early or belated travelers and his unconscious
avoidance of them, as if they might know of his object; the black
shadows of foreshortened cattle rising before him on the plain and
arousing the same uneasy sensation of their being waylaying men; the
wondering recognition of houses and landmarks he had long been familiar
with; his purposeless attempts to recall the circumstances in which
he had known them--all these were like a dream. So, too, were the
recollections of the night before, the episode with Susy, already
mingled and blended with the memory of their previous past; his futile
attempts to look forward to the future, always, however, abandoned
with relief at the thought that the next few hours might make them
unnecessary. So also was the sudden realization that Santa Inez was
before him, when he had thought he was not yet halfway there, and as
he dismounted before the Court House his singular feeling--followed,
however, by no fear or distress--was that he had come so early to the
rendezvous that he was not yet quite prepared for it.
This same sense of unreality pervaded his meeting with the deputy
sheriff, at the news that the Federal judge had, as was expected,
dismissed the prisoners on their own recognizances, and that Captain
Pinckney was at the hotel at breakfast. In the like abstracted manner he
replied to the one or two questions of the deputy, exhibited the pistols
he had brought with him, and finally accompanied him to a little meadow
hidden by trees, below the hotel, where the other principal and his
seconds were awaiting them. And here he awoke--clear-eyed, keen,
forceful, and intense!
So stimulated were his faculties that his sense of hearing in its
acuteness took in every word of the conversation between the seconds,
a few paces distant. He heard his adversary's seconds say carelessly
to the deputy sheriff, “I presume this is a case where there will be no
apology or mediation,” and the deputy's reply, “I reckon my man means
business, but he seems a little queer.” He heard the other second laugh,
and say lightly, “They're apt to be so when it's their first time out,”
followed by the more anxious aside of the other second as the deputy
turned away,--“Yes, but by G-d I don't like his looks!” His sense of
sight was also so acute that having lost the choice of position, when
the coin was tossed, and being turned with his face to the sun, even
through the glare he saw, with unerring distinctness of outline, the
black-coated figure of his opponent moved into range--saw the perfect
outline of his features, and how the easy, supercilious smile, as he
threw away his cigar, appeared to drop out of his face with a kind of
vacant awe as he faced him. He felt his nerves become as steel as the
counting began, and at the word “three,” knew he had fired by the recoil
of the pistol in his leveled hand, simultaneously with its utterance.
And at the same moment, still standing like a rock, he saw his
adversary miserably collapse, his legs grotesquely curving inwards
under him,--without even the dignity of death in his fall,--and so sink
helplessly like a felled bull to the ground. Still erect, and lowering
only the muzzle of his pistol, as a thin feather of smoke curled up its
shining side, he saw the doctor and seconds run quickly to the heap, try
to lift its limp impotence into shape, and let it drop again with the
words, “Right through the forehead, by G-d!”
“You've done for him,” said the deputy, turning to Clarence with a
singular look of curiosity, “and I reckon you had better get out of this
mighty quick. They didn't expect it; they're just ragin'; they may round
on you--and”--he added, more slowly, “they seem to have just found out
who you are.”
Even while he was speaking, Clarence, with his quickened ear, heard the
words, “One of Hamilton Brant's pups” “Just like his father,” from
the group around the dead man. He did not hesitate, but walked coolly
towards them. Yet a certain fierce pride--which he had never known
before--stirred in his veins as their voices hushed and they half
recoiled before him.
“Am I to understand from my second, gentlemen,” he said, looking round
the group, “that you are not satisfied?”
“The fight was square enough,” said Pinckney's second in some
embarrassment, “but I reckon that he,” pointing to the dead man, “did
not know who you were.”
“Do you mean that he did not know that I was the son of a man proficient
in the use of arms?”
“I reckon that's about it,” returned the second, glancing at the others.
“I am glad to say, sir, that I have a better opinion of his courage,”
said Clarence, lifting his hat to the dead body as he turned away.
Yet he was conscious of no remorse, concern, or even pity in his act.
Perhaps this was visible in his face, for the group appeared awed by
this perfection of the duelist's coolness, and even returned his formal
parting salutation with a vague and timid respect. He thanked the
deputy, regained the hotel, saddled his horse and galloped away.
But not towards the Rancho. Now that he could think of his future, that
had no place in his reflections; even the episode of Susy was forgotten
in the new and strange conception of himself and his irresponsibility
which had come upon him with the killing of Pinckney and the words
of his second. It was his dead father who had stiffened his arm and
directed the fatal shot! It was hereditary influences--which others
had been so quick to recognize--that had brought about this completing
climax of his trouble. How else could he account for it that he--a
conscientious, peaceful, sensitive man, tender and forgiving as he had
believed himself to be--could now feel so little sorrow or compunction
for his culminating act? He had read of successful duelists who were
haunted by remorse for their first victim; who retained a terrible
consciousness of the appearance of the dead man; he had no such feeling;
he had only a grim contentment in the wiped-out inefficient life,
and contempt for the limp and helpless body. He suddenly recalled his
callousness as a boy when face to face with the victims of the Indian
massacre, his sense of fastidious superciliousness in the discovery of
the body of Susy's mother!--surely it was the cold blood of his father
influencing him ever thus. What had he to do with affection, with
domestic happiness, with the ordinary ambitions of man's life--whose
blood was frozen at its source! Yet even with this very thought came
once more the old inconsistent tenderness he had as a boy lavished upon
the almost unknown and fugitive father who had forsaken his childish
companionship, and remembered him only by secret gifts. He remembered
how he had worshiped him even while the pious padres at San Jose were
endeavoring to eliminate this terrible poison from his blood and combat
his hereditary instinct in his conflicts with his school-fellows. And it
was a part of this inconsistency that, riding away from the scene of his
first bloodshed, his eyes were dimmed with moisture, not for his victim,
but for the one being who he believed had impelled him to the act.
This and more was in his mind during his long ride to Fair Plains, his
journey by coach to the Embarcadero, his midnight passage across the
dark waters of the bay, and his re-entrance to San Francisco, but what
should be his future was still unsettled.
As he wound round the crest of Russian Hill and looked down again upon
the awakened city, he was startled to see that it was fluttering and
streaming with bunting. From every public building and hotel, from
the roofs of private houses, and even the windows of lonely dwellings,
flapped and waved the striped and starry banner. The steady breath of
the sea carried it out from masts and yards of ships at their wharves,
from the battlements of the forts Alcatraz and Yerba Bueno. He
remembered that the ferryman had told him that the news from Fort Sumter
had swept the city with a revulsion of patriotic sentiment, and that
there was no doubt that the State was saved to the Union. He looked
down upon it with haggard, bewildered eyes, and then a strange gasp
and fullness of the throat! For afar a solitary bugle had blown the
“reveille” at Fort Alcatraz.
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
Night at last, and the stir and tumult of a great fight over. Even the
excitement that had swept this portion of the battlefield--only a small
section of a vaster area of struggle--into which a brigade had marched,
held its own, been beaten back, recovered its ground, and pursuing,
had passed out of it forever, leaving only its dead behind, and knowing
nothing more of that struggle than its own impact and momentum--even
this wild excitement had long since evaporated with the stinging smoke
of gunpowder, the acrid smell of burning rags from the clothing of a
dead soldier fired by a bursting shell, or the heated reek of sweat and
leather. A cool breath that seemed to bring back once more the odor of
the upturned earthworks along the now dumb line of battle began to move
from the suggestive darkness beyond.
But into that awful penetralia of death and silence there was no
invasion--there had been no retreat. A few of the wounded had been
brought out, under fire, but the others had been left with the dead for
the morning light and succor. For it was known that in that horrible
obscurity, riderless horses, frantic with the smell of blood, galloped
wildly here and there, or, maddened by wounds, plunged furiously at
the intruder; that the wounded soldier, still armed, could not always
distinguish friend from foe or from the ghouls of camp followers who
stripped the dead in the darkness and struggled with the dying. A shot
or two heard somewhere in that obscurity counted as nothing with the
long fusillade that had swept it in the daytime; the passing of a single
life, more or less, amounted to little in the long roll-call of the
day's slaughter.
But with the first beams of the morning sun--and the slowly moving
“relief detail” from the camp--came a weird half-resurrection of that
ghastly field. Then it was that the long rays of sunlight, streaming
away a mile beyond the battle line, pointed out the first harvest of
the dead where the reserves had been posted. There they lay in heaps
and piles, killed by solid shot or bursting shells that had leaped the
battle line to plunge into the waiting ranks beyond. As the sun lifted
higher its beams fell within the range of musketry fire, where the dead
lay thicker,--even as they had fallen when killed outright,--with arms
extended and feet at all angles to the field. As it touched these dead
upturned faces, strangely enough it brought out no expression of pain or
anguish--but rather as if death had arrested them only in surprise and
awe. It revealed on the lips of those who had been mortally wounded
and had turned upon their side the relief which death had brought their
suffering, sometimes shown in a faint smile. Mounting higher, it glanced
upon the actual battle line, curiously curving for the shelter of walls,
fences, and breastworks, and here the dead lay, even as when they
lay and fired, their faces prone in the grass but their muskets still
resting across the breastworks. Exposed to grape and canister from the
battery on the ridge, death had come to them mercifully also--through
the head and throat. And now the whole field lay bare in the
sunlight, broken with grotesque shadows cast from sitting, crouching,
half-recumbent but always rigid figures, which might have been effigies
on their own monuments. One half-kneeling soldier, with head bowed
between his stiffened hands, might have stood for a carven figure of
Grief at the feet of his dead comrade. A captain, shot through the brain
in the act of mounting a wall, lay sideways half across it, his lips
parted with a word of command; his sword still pointing over the barrier
the way that they should go.
But it was not until the sun had mounted higher that it struck the
central horror of the field and seemed to linger there in dazzling
persistence, now and then returning to it in startling flashes that it
might be seen of men and those who brought succor. A tiny brook had run
obliquely near the battle line. It was here that, the night before
the battle, friend and foe had filled their canteens side by side with
soldierly recklessness--or perhaps a higher instinct--purposely ignoring
each other's presence; it was here that the wounded had afterwards
crept, crawled, and dragged themselves, here they had pushed, wrangled,
striven, and fought for a draught of that precious fluid which assuaged
the thirst of their wounds--or happily put them out of their misery
forever; here overborne, crushed, suffocated by numbers, pouring their
own blood into the flood, and tumbling after it with their helpless
bodies, they dammed the stream, until recoiling, red and angry, it had
burst its banks and overflowed the cotton-field in a broad pool that now
sparkled in the sunlight. But below this human dam--a mile away--where
the brook still crept sluggishly, the ambulance horses sniffed and
started from it.
The detail moved on slowly, doing their work expeditiously, and
apparently callously, but really only with that mechanical movement
that saves emotion. Only once they were moved to an outbreak of
indignation,--the discovery of the body of an officer whose pockets
were turned inside out, but whose hand was still tightly grasped on his
buttoned waistcoat, as if resisting the outrage that had been done
while still in life. As the men disengaged the stiffened hand something
slipped from the waistcoat to the ground. The corporal picked it up and
handed it to his officer. It was a sealed packet. The officer received
it with the carelessness which long experience of these pathetic
missives from the dying to their living relations had induced, and
dropped it in the pocket of his tunic, with the half-dozen others that
he had picked up that morning, and moved on with the detail. A little
further on they halted, in the attitude of attention, as a mounted
officer appeared, riding slowly down the line.
There was something more than the habitual respect of their superior in
their faces as he came forward. For it was the general who had commanded
the brigade the day before,--the man who had leaped with one bound into
the foremost rank of military leaders. It was his invincible spirit
that had led the advance, held back defeat against overwhelming numbers,
sustained the rally, impressed his subordinate officers with his own
undeviating purpose, and even infused them with an almost superstitious
belief in his destiny of success. It was this man who had done what
it was deemed impossible to do,--what even at the time it was thought
unwise and unstrategic to do,--who had held a weak position, of
apparently no importance, under the mandate of an incomprehensible order
from his superior, which at best asked only for a sacrifice and was
rewarded with a victory. He had decimated his brigade, but the wounded
and dying had cheered him as he passed, and the survivors had pursued
the enemy until the bugle called them back. For such a record he looked
still too young and scholarly, albeit his handsome face was dark and
energetic, and his manner taciturn.
His quick eye had already caught sight of the rifled body of the
officer, and contracted. As the captain of the detail saluted him he
said curtly,--
“I thought the orders were to fire upon any one desecrating the dead?”
“They are, General; but the hyenas don't give us a chance. That's all
yonder poor fellow saved from their claws,” replied the officer, as he
held up the sealed packet. “It has no address.”
The general took it, examined the envelope, thrust it into his belt, and
said,--
“I will take charge of it.”
The sound of horses' hoofs came from the rocky roadside beyond the
brook. Both men turned. A number of field officers were approaching.
“The division staff,” said the captain, in a lower voice, falling back.
They came slowly forward, a central figure on a gray horse leading
here--as in history. A short, thick-set man with a grizzled beard
closely cropped around an inscrutable mouth, and the serious formality
of a respectable country deacon in his aspect, which even the
major-generals blazon on the shoulder-strap of his loose tunic on his
soldierly seat in the saddle could not entirely obliterate. He had
evidently perceived the general of brigade, and quickened his horse as
the latter drew up. The staff followed more leisurely, but still with
some curiosity, to witness the meeting of the first general of the army
with the youngest. The division general saluted, but almost instantly
withdrew his leathern gauntlet, and offered his bared hand to the
brigadier. The words of heroes are scant. The drawn-up detail, the
waiting staff listened. This was all they heard:--
“Halleck tells me you're from California?”
“Yes, General.”
“Ah! I lived there, too, in the early days.”
“Wonderful country. Developed greatly since my time, I suppose?”
“Yes, General.”
“Great resources; finest wheat-growing country in the world, sir. You
don't happen to know what the actual crop was this year?”
“Hardly, General! but something enormous.”
“Yes, I have always said it would be. Have a cigar?”
He handed his cigar-case to the brigadier. Then he took one himself,
lighted it at the smouldering end of the one he had taken from his
mouth, was about to throw the stump carelessly down, but, suddenly
recollecting himself, leaned over his horse, and dropped it carefully
a few inches away from the face of a dead soldier. Then, straightening
himself in the saddle, he shoved his horse against the brigadier, moving
him a little further on, while a slight movement of his hand kept the
staff from following.
“A heavy loss here!”
“I'm afraid so, General.”
“It couldn't be helped. We had to rush in your brigade to gain time, and
occupy the enemy, until we could change front.”
The young general looked at the shrewd, cold eyes of his chief.
“Change front?” he echoed.
“Yes. Before a gun was fired, we discovered that the enemy was in
complete possession of all our plans, and knew every detail of our
forward movement. All had to be changed.”
The younger man now instantly understood the incomprehensible order of
the day before.
The general of division continued, with his first touch of official
formality,--
“You understand, therefore, General Brant, that in the face of this
extraordinary treachery, the utmost vigilance is required, and a
complete surveillance of your camp followers and civilians, to detect
the actual spy within our lines, or the traitor we are harboring,
who has become possessed of this information. You will overhaul your
brigade, and weed out all suspects, and in the position which you are
to take to-morrow, and the plantation you will occupy, you will see that
your private quarters, as well as your lines, are cleared of all but
those you can vouch for.”
He reined in his horse, again extended his hand, saluted, and rejoined
his staff.
Brigadier-General Clarence Brant remained for a moment with his head
bent in thoughtful contemplation of the coolness of his veteran chief
under this exciting disclosure, and the strategy with which he had
frustrated the traitor's success. Then his eye caught the sealed packet
in his belt. He mechanically drew it out, and broke the seal. The
envelope was filled with papers and memorandums. But as he looked at
them his face darkened and his brow knit. He glanced quickly around him.
The staff had trotted away; the captain and his detail were continuing
their work at a little distance. He took a long breath, for he was
holding in his hand a tracing of their camp, even of the position he was
to occupy tomorrow, and a detailed account of the movements, plans, and
force of the whole division as had been arranged in council of war the
day before the battle! But there was no indication of the writer or his
intentions.
He thrust the papers hurriedly back into the envelope, but placed it,
this time, in his breast. He galloped towards the captain.
“Let me see again the officer from whom you took that packet!”
The captain led him to where the body lay, with others, extended more
decently on the grass awaiting removal. General Brant with difficulty
repressed an ejaculation.
“Why, it's one of our own men,” he said quickly.
“Yes, General. They say it's Lieutenant Wainwright, a regular, of the
paymaster general's department.”
“Then what was he doing here?” asked General Brant sternly.
“I can't make out, sir, unless he went into the last advance as a
volunteer. Wanted to see the fight, I suppose. He was a dashing fellow,
a West Pointer,--and a Southerner, too,--a Virginian.”
“A Southerner!” echoed Brant quickly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Search him again,” said Brant quietly. He had recovered his usual
coolness, and as the captain again examined the body, he took out his
tablets and wrote a few lines. It was an order to search the quarters
of Lieutenant Wainwright and bring all papers, letters, and documents to
him. He then beckoned one of the detail towards him. “Take that to the
provost marshal at once. Well, Captain,” he added calmly, as the officer
again approached him, “what do you find?”
“Only this, sir,” returned the captain, with a half smile, producing a
small photograph. “I suppose it was overlooked, too.”
He handed it to Brant.
There was a sudden fixing of his commanding officer's eyes, but his face
did not otherwise change.
“It's the usual find, General. Always a photograph! But this time a
handsome woman!”
“Very,” said Clarence Brant quietly. It was the portrait of his own
wife.