answer, and so I saved my breath. Withal he was the terror of our
Southland, this tyrant colonel gave me time to consider; and while he
waited, grim and silent, the candles on the table guttered and ran down,
and the dim light failed till I could no longer see the face of her I
loved framed in the archway of the stair.
I thought it hard that I had seen my last of her sweet face thus through
thickening shadows, as a dream might fade. Nevertheless, I would be glad
that I had seen her thus, since otherwise, I thought, I must have gone
without this last or any other sight of her.
It was while I was still straining my eyes for one more glimpse of her,
and while the court room silence deepened dense upon us like the
shadows, that Colonel Tarleton signed to those who guarded me. A hand
was laid upon my shoulder, but when I would have turned to go with them
a woman's cry cut sharp into the stillness. Then, before any one could
say a word or think a thought, my dauntless little lady stood beside me,
her eyes alight and all her glorious beauty heightened in a blaze of
generous emotion.
"For shame! Colonel Tarleton," she cried. "Do you come thus into my
father's house and take a wounded guest and hang him? You say he is a
spy, but that he can not be, for he has lain abed in this same house a
month or more. You shall not hang him!"
At this there was a mighty stir about the table, as you may guess; and
some would smile, and some would snuff the candles for a better sight of
her sweet face. And through it all, the while my heart went near to
bursting at this fresh proof of her most fearless loyalty, I ground my
teeth in wrath that all those men should look their fill and say by wink
and nod and covert smile that this were somewhat more than hostess
loyalty.
But it was the colonel's mocking smile that lashed me sharpest; his
smile and what he said; and yet not that so much as what he left to be
inferred.
"Ha! How is this, Mistress Margery? Do you keep open house for the
king's enemies? That spells treason, my dear young lady, and hath an
ugly look for you, besides."
"It should have no look at all, save that of hospitality, sir," she
countered, bravely. "Surely I may plead for justice to a wounded man who
was, and is, my father's guest?"
"And yet he is a spy, and spies must hang."
"He is no spy."
The colonel's bow made but a mock of true politeness.
"You should not make me contradict a lady, Mistress Margery. 'Tis
evident you have not all his confidence. He was captured red-handed in
the act at yonder window, listening to that which he may never know and
live to prate about. Besides, he killed a sentry for his chance to
listen, and for that I'd hang him if he were my own father's guest."
So much he said as mild as if he had not left his reading of the law to
figure in our annals as King George's butcher. Then in a sudden gust of
rage he turned upon the priest, cursing him brutally and threatening
vengeance for his bringing of the lady to the court room.
My brave one stood a moment, shocked as she had warrant for. Then,
before the priest or I or any one could stop her, she ran to throw
herself upon her knees at Colonel Tarleton's feet--to kneel and plead
for me as I would gladly have died a thousand deaths rather than have
her plead; for life for me, or if not that, at least for some brief
respite that the priest might shrive me.
And in the end she won the respite, though I did think it far too dearly
bought. When he granted it the colonel lifted her and took her hand,
bowing low over it with courtly deference. "For your sake, Mistress
Margery, it shall be put off till morning," he said; then gave the
order: At dawn they would march me out and hang me, and I would best be
ready. For later than the sunrise of a new day the king himself might
not delay my taking off.
"You know too much, my cursing Captain," was his parting word. "Were it
not for Mistress Margery and my promise, you should not keep the breath
to tell it over night."
IX
HOW A GOLDEN KEY UNLOCKED A DOOR
Having my dismissal and reprieve I was remanded to the custody of that
young Lieutenant Tybee whom you have met and known as Falconnet's second
in the duel. Interpreting his orders liberally, he suffered me to keep
my own room for the night. I had expected manacles and a roommate guard
at the least, but my gentlemanly jailer spared me both. When he had me
safe above-stairs, he barred the door upon me, set a sentry pacing back
and forth in the corridor without, and another to keep an eye upon the
window from below, and so left me.
There was no great need for either sentry, or for bolts and bars. What
with the night's adventures and my scarce-healed wound, I was far sped
on that road which ends against the blind wall of exhaustion, as you may
well suppose. For while a man may borrow strength of wine or rage or
passion, these lenders are but pitiless usurers and will demand their
pound of flesh; aye, and have it, too, when all the principal is spent.
So, when Tybee barred the door and left me with a single candle to my
lighting, I was fain to fall upon the bed in utter weariness, thinking
that the respite bought by my sweet lady's humbling was more dearly
bought than ever, and that the truest mercy would have been the rope and
tree without this interval of waiting.
To me in this grim Doubting Castle of despair the priest came. He was a
good man and a true, this low-voiced missioner to the savages, and he
would be a curster man than I who failed to give him his due meed of
praise and love. For in this dismal interval of waiting, with death so
sure and near that all the air was growing chill and lifeless at its
presence, he was a ready help in time of need. If I were "heretic" to
him, I swear I knew it not for aught he said or did; and though I
trusted that when my time was come I should stand forth with some small
simple-hearted show of courage, yet when he went away I felt I was the
stronger for his coming. And this, mark you, though I was still
unshriven, and he had never named the churchly rite to me.
When he was gone I fell to wearing out the time afoot; and, lest you
think me harder than I was, it may be said that while I did not make
confession to the kindly priest, I hope I tried to make my peace with
God in some such simpler fashion as our forebears did. 'Twas none so
great a matter, for one who lives a soldier's life must needs be ripe
for plucking hastily.
But in the final casting of accounts there was an item written down in
red, and one in black, and these would not be scored across for all the
travail of a soul departing. The one in black was bitter sorrow for the
fate from which I might not live to save my loved one; the one in red
was this; that I should die and carry hence the knowledge that might
else nip the Indian onfall in the bud.
No sooner was the priest away than I began to upbraid myself because I
had not told him of this British-Indian murder plan. And yet on second
thought 'twas clear that it had been but a poor shifting of the burden
to weaker shoulders; and thankless, too, for Tarleton would be sure to
put him on the question-rack to make him tell of all that passed between
us.
As I had let him go, he would have naught to tell, and so was safe,
where otherwise he might be hanged or buried in the hulks for knowing
what I knew. No, it were best he knew it not; but how was I to rid me of
this burden?--of this and of that other laid upon me for my love?
The question asked itself a many a time, and was as often answerless,
before there came a stir without and voices in the corridor. It was the
changing of the guard, I guessed, and so it proved, since presently I
heard the clanking of the officer's sword, and double footfalls
minishing into silence.
The sentry newly come paced back and forth to a low-hummed quick-step of
his own, bestirring himself as one who, roused but now from sleep,
would wake himself and be alert. He made more noise than did the other,
and that is why I marked it when the footfalls ceased abruptly. A moment
afterward the bar was lifted cautiously from its socket, the latch
clicked gently, and the door swung open. I looked, and must needs look
again to make assurance sure. For on the threshold stood my lady
Margery, and just behind her some broad figure of a woman whom I knew
for her stout Norman tiring-maid.
She gave me little time for any word of welcome or of deprecation. While
still I stood amazed she dragged the woman in with her and closed the
door. At that I found my tongue.
"Margery! Why have you come?" I spoke in French, and she was quick to
lay a finger on her lip.
"Speak to me in English, if you please," she whispered. "Jeanne knows
nothing, and she need not know. But you ask why I come: could I do less
than come, dear friend?"
I had always marveled that she could be so mocking hard at times, and at
other times--as now--so soft and gentle. And though I thought it cruel
that I should have to fight my battle for the losing of her over again,
I had not the heart to chide her.
"You could have done much less, dear lady," I said, taking her hands in
mine; "much less, and still be blameless. You have done too much for me
already. I would you had not done so much, I would to God I had been
hanged before you went upon your knees to that--"
She freed one hand and laid a finger on my lip--nay, it was her palm,
and if I took a dying man's fair leave and kissed it softly, I think she
knew it not.
"Hush!" she commanded. "Is this a time to harbor bitter thoughts? I
thought you might have other things to say to me, Monsieur John."
"There is no other thing that I may say."
"Not anything at all?"
"Naught but a parting hope for you. I hope you will be true and loyal to
yourself, Margery _mia_."
"To myself? I do not understand."
"I think you do--I think you must."
"But I do not."
I turned it over more than once in my mind if I should tell her all I
had feared; should tell her how I came to kill a man and was fair set to
kill another had I found a wedding afoot in the great fore-room. I could
not bring myself to do it, and yet I thought it would go hard with me if
I should leave her still unwarned.
"If I should try to make you understand, you will be angry, as you were
before."
The wicker chair was close beside the table and she sat down. And when
she spoke she had her hands tight-clasped across her knee and would not
look at me.
"Is it--about--Sir Francis?"
"It is," said I, pausing once more upon the brink of full confession.
She waited patiently for me to speak further; waited and let me fight it
out in slow pacings up and down before her chair. Without, the night was
calm and still, and through the opened casement came the measured beat
of footfalls on the gravel where the outer sentry kept his watch beneath
the window. Within, the single candle battled feebly with the gloom and
lighted naught for me save my dear lady's face, pensive now and saintly
sweet as it had been that morning when I had dwelt upon it the while she
knew it not. And in the background stood the sleepy tire-woman, giving
no sign of life save now and then a tortured yawn behind her hand.
I think my lady must have known how hard it was for me to speak, for,
when the silence had grown overlong, she said, gently: "I bought these
flying minutes of the sentry, Monsieur John. Will you not use them?"
"If I should say the thing I ought to say, you'll think the minutes
dearly bought, I fear."
"No, that I shall not, if it will ease your mind."
"Then tell me why you sent for Father Matthieu."
The light was dim, as I have said, yet I could see the faint flush
spread from neck to cheek.
"You are not of the Church, Monsieur John. You would not understand if I
should tell you."
"I think I understand without your telling. You said Sir Francis
Falconnet had asked for you."
"'Twas you who drove me to say it."
"Because I tried to warn you?"
"Because you would be vengeful when you should have been forgiving."
"'Twas not revenge, just then, though while I live I shall have ample
cause to hate this man."
"What was it, then?"
"It was love; love for you, and--and Richard Jennifer."
She rose, and I could see her eyes ashine for all the half-gloom of the
candle-light.
"You are a loyal friend!" she said, and there was that within the words
to make me glad, whatever fate the dawn should have in store for me.
"You always think of others first; you think of others now, when--when
death--Oh, Monsieur John! what can I do for you? Say quick! The man is
coming to the door!"
"Now I have told you this, there is but one other thing, Margery dear;
one little thing that will not let me die in peace. If I might have ten
words with Richard Jennifer--"
She left me in a fever-flutter of excitement, whipped to the door, and
had a word with him who stood without. I heard the chink of coin, and
then she hastened back to me, all eagerness and tremulous impatience.
"Tell me--tell me instantly what I must do. I am not afraid. Shall I
ride down to Jennifer House and fetch Dick here?"
"He is a prisoner, and if he were not, they would not let him see me.
Besides, I would not let you go on such an errand. And yet--God help me,
Margery! there is many an innocent life hanging on this; the lives of
helpless women and little children. Have you ever a messenger to send, a
man who will risk his life and can be trusted fully?"
"Yes, yes!" she cried. "Write it down for me and Dick shall have it.
Quick; for Our Lady's sake, be quick about it! _O Sancta Maria, mater.
Dei_--"
The low impassioned chant of the Roman litany was ringing in my ears as
I sat down to the table to write my message to Richard Jennifer. There
were quills and an ink-pot at hand, but no paper. I felt mechanically in
my pocket and found, not some old letter, as I hoped, but the crumpled
parchment map snatched and hidden when Captain Stuart had winced and
dropped it at the bidding of the whistling sword about his ears.
How it was they had not searched me for it, I know not; though haply the
captain did not guess how he had lost it. Be that as it might, I had it
safe, and Dick should have it safe, and use it, too, to some good
purpose, as I fondly hoped.
You'd hardly think from the slow and clumsy spinning of this tale that I
could crowd the narrative of all that I had seen and heard into a
niggard three-score words or less. But this I did, writing them upon the
margin of the captain's map, and noting in an added line the pricking
out of the powder convoy's route. And while my pen was looping on the
flourish to my name, my eager little lady seized the pounce-box, sanded
me the heavy trailings of the quill, snatched and hid the parchment in
her bosom, and was gone.
And but for this; that I heard the door-latch click behind her, and then
the heavy wooden bar fall into place, I might have thought the
happenings of the hour the unsubstantial fancies of a dream.
X
HOW A FORLORN HOPE CAME TO GRIEF
Although I could not hope to know the outcome of this desperate cast to
speed the warning to the over-mountain settlements--could never live to
know it, as I thought--I screened the candle and stood beside the open
window, not to see or hear, but rather from the lack of sight or sound
to gather some encouragement. For sure, I reasoned, if Margery's
messenger should fail to pass the sentries there would be clamor enough
to tell me of it.
So while the minutes of this safety-silence multiplied and there was
space for sober after-thought, I fell to casting up the chances of
success. Now that Margery was gone, and with her all the fine enthusiasm
that such devoted souls as hers do always radiate, it was plain enough
that nothing less than a miracle could bring success. Tarleton's Legion
was made up of veterans schooled well in border warfare, and though the
bivouac seemed but a camp of motionless figures fast manacled in
sleep--I could see them strewn like dead men round the smoldering
fires--I made no doubt the sentries were alert and wakeful. How then
was any messenger of Margery's to pass the lines, or, passing them, to
come at Jennifer, who by this time would be at Jennifer House, a
prisoner in all but name?
Chewing such wormwood thoughts as these, I watched and listened while
the measured minutes, circling slow on leaden wings, pecked at my heart
in passing, and despair, cold like a winter fog, had chilled me to the
bone. For now it came to me that while I would be saving life, mayhap I
had been periling it again. There was small doubt that if the messenger
were taken with my letter, his life would pay the forfeit. And if the
fear of death should make him tell who sent him and to whom he was
sent,--I had been careful so to word the letter as to shield my
correspondent,--both Margery and Dick would be involved.
'Tis worthy of remark how, building on the simplest supposition, we
seldom prophesy aright. For all my fine-spun theories the manner of the
thing that happened was all unlike the forecast. Suddenly, and in
silence, out of the ghostly shadows of the trees and into the wan
moonlight of the open space beneath my window, with neither shout nor
crash of sentry-gun to give me warning, came three figures riding
abreast--a man in trooper trappings on either hand, and on the led horse
sandwiched in between, a woman.
You may believe my heart went cold at the sight. I knew at once what she
had done--this fearless maid who would be loyal to her friend at any
cost. Having no messenger she could trust--she knew it well when she had
promised me--she had taken the errand upon herself, braving a hazard
that would have daunted many a man.
I thought the worst had surely now befallen, and wished a hundred times
that I had died before it came to this. But there was worse in store.
Her captors passed the word while yet I looked and choked with rage and
grief; and then the bivouac buzzed alive, and men came running, some
with arms and some with torches, these last to flash the light upon her
and to jeer and laugh. At length--it seemed an age to me--an officer
appeared to flog the rabble into order; then she was taken from her
horse and led into the house.
Anon the windows of the great fore-room flung bands of yellow torchlight
out upon the lawn, and I knew that Tarleton's court was set again. At
that the pains of hell gat hold upon me and I did pray as I had never
prayed before that God would grant me this one boon--to stand beside her
in this time of trial; to give me tongue of eloquence to tell them all
that she was innocent; to give me breath to swear she knew not why she
went, or what the message was she carried.
Yours is a skeptic age, my dears, and you have learned to scoff at
things you do not understand. But, so long as I shall live, I must
believe that agonizing plea was answered. While yet the anguish of it
wrung my soul there came a hasty trampling in the corridor, the
sentry's challenge, and then a quick unbarring of the door. I turned
upon my heel to face a young ensign come with two men at his back to
take me to the colonel.
They bound me well and strongly with many wrappings of stout cord before
they led me down. Nor must you think me broken-spirited because I let
them. In any other cause but this I hope I should have fought to die
unmanacled; but now I suffered gladly this little, seeing I had made my
dear lady suffer so greatly.
When we were come into the room below they let me stand beside her, as I
had prayed God they might; and when I stole a glance at her I was fain
to think my coming gave her courage and support. For you must know the
place was fair alive with men, and flaring light with torches; and they
had never offered her a chair.
The colonel stood apart, the center of a group of officers, and
Falconnet was with him. Hovering on the edges of the group, as if afraid
to show themselves too boldly in such a coil, were Gilbert Stair and
that smooth parchment-visaged knave, his factor. The while they thrust
me forth to take my place at Margery's side, the good old priest came
and would have joined us; but they would not suffer him.
[Illustration]
So we two stood alone together as we had stood before; but now my lady's
eyes were downcast, and her lips and cheeks were pale. Yet she was more
beautiful than I had ever seen her--so beautiful that I would swear
the sum of all the precious gifts in God's great universe might be
expressed for me in this; that I might die to save her from this shame
and agony.
When my guards had thrust me forward, the colonel made short work of our
fresh offense.
"'Twas a dastard's trick, my Captain--this tangling of the lady in your
treason," he began. "How did you get your speech with her?"
"That is none of your affair, Colonel Tarleton," I retorted boldly,
thinking that with such a man the shortest word were ever the best. "Yet
I may say that the lady knew not what she did, nor why. As for my
getting speech with her, she was not any way to blame. I tampered with
your sentry."
"By God, you lie!" was his comment on this. "She might have tampered
with the guard and so got leave to keep a midnight tryst with you, but
not you." And then to my poor frighted love: "Have you no shame,
Mistress Margery Stair?"
Now I have said that she was changeful as any child or April sky, but
never had I seen her pass from mood to mood as she did then. One moment
she stood a woman tremulous and tearful as any woman caught in desperate
deed; the next she became a goddess vilified, and if her look had been a
dagger I think her flashing eyes had killed him where he stood.
"You've found a way to make me speak, sir, and I wish you joy of it.
'Twas I who bribed your sentry, and I did go to Captain Ireton's room."
The colonel laughed and shot a gibe sharp at my enemy.
"How is this, Sir Francis. Did I not tell you you had thrust an inch or
so too high? By God, sir, I think you will come over-late, if ever you
do come at all. This captain-emeritus hath forestalled you beautifully."
As more than once before in this eventful night, the air went flaming
red before my eyes and helpless wrath came uppermost. I saw no way to
clear her, and had there been the plainest way, dumb rage would still
have held me tongue-tied. So I could only mop and mow and stammer, and,
when the words were found, make shift to blunder out that such an
accusation did the lady grievous wrong; that she had come attended and
at my beseeching, to take a message from a dying man to one who was his
friend.
For my pains I had a brutal laugh in payment; a laugh that, starting
with the colonel, went the rounds in jeering grins of incredulity. And
on the heels of it the colonel swore afresh, cursing me for a clumsy
liar.
"A likely story, that!" he scoffed. "Next you will say she knew not what
this message was."
"I said it once. She knew not what the message was, nor why I sent it."
I felt her eyes upon me as I spoke, and turned to find them full of
tearful pleading. "Oh, tell the truth!" she whispered. "Don't you see?
He has the letter!"
I looked, and sure enough he held it in his hand; and then I understood
the flash of irony in the sloe-black eyes of him.
"You lie clumsily, Captain Ireton, though it is a gentlemanly lie and
does you honor. But we have trapped you fairly and you may as well make
a clean breast of it. Your mistress knew very well what you would have
her do, and since she is your mistress, went to do it."
While he was speaking I had a thought white-hot from some forge-fire of
inspiration--a thought to tip an arrow of conviction and set it
quivering in the mark. I would not stop to measure it; to look aside at
her or any other lest one brief glance apart should send the arrow
wavering from its course. So I looked the colonel boldly in the eye and
drew the bow and sped the shaft.
"You think no other than a mistress would have done this, Colonel
Tarleton--that it was done for love? Well, so it was; but with the love
there went a duty."
"A duty, say you? How is that?"
I bowed as best I might, being so tightly bound; then fixed his eye
again.
"You had forgot that honor is not wholly dead, sir. This lady is my
wife."
XI
HOW A LIE WAS MADE THE VERY TRUTH
For some small instant I dared not loose my eye-grip on the colonel, to
glance aside at Falconnet, or Gilbert Stair, or at the woman close
beside me. If I had flinched or wavered, or let an eyelid droop but by
the thickness of a hair, this keen-eyed colonel would have been upon me
to cut the ground beneath my feet and leave me dangling by the lie.
But as it was, I faced him down; and winning him, won all. There was a
muttered oath from Falconnet, a tremulous cry of rage from where her
father stood; and then I sought my lady's eyes to read my sentence in
them.