Toward dusk of the same day, while Philip and his lieutenant were seated
at the rude pine table, conversing after their evening meal, the
sergeant of the guard entered with a slip of paper, on which was traced
a line in pencil.
"Is the bearer below?" asked Philip, as he cast his eyes over the paper.
"Yes, sir. He was challenged a minute ago, and answered with the
countersign and that slip for you, sir."
"It's all right, sergeant; you may send him up. Mr. Williams," he
continued, to his comrade, "will you please to look about a little and
see that all is in order. I will speak a few words with this messenger."
The lieutenant and sergeant left the room, and presently afterward there
entered, closing the door carefully after him, no less a personage than
Seth Rawbon.
"You're late," said Philip, motioning him to a chair.
"There's an old proverb to answer that," answered Rawbon, as he
leisurely adjusted his lank frame upon the seat. Having established
himself to his satisfaction, he continued:
"I had to make a considerable circuit to avoid the returning picket, who
might have bothered me with questions. I'm in good time, though. If
you've made up your mind to go, you'll do it as well by night, and safer
too."
"What have you learned?"
"Enough to make me welcome at headquarters. You were right about the
battle. There'll be tough work soon. They're fixing for a general
advance. If you expect to do your first fighting under the stars and
bars, you must swear by them to-night."
"Have you been in Washington?"
"Every nook and corner of it. They don't keep their eyes skinned, I
fancy, up there. Your fancy colonels have slippery tongues when the
champagne corks are flying. If they fight as hard as they drink, they'll
give us trouble. Well, what do you calculate to do?" he added, after a
pause, during which Philip was moody and lost in thought.
Philip rose from his seat and paced the floor uneasily, while Rawbon
filled a glass from a flask of brandy on the table. It was now quite
dark without, and neither of them observed the figure of a woman
crouched on the narrow veranda, her chin resting on the sill of the open
window. At last Philip resumed his seat, and he, too, swallowed a deep
draught from the flask of brandy.
"Tell me what I can count upon?" he asked.
"The same grade you have, and in a crack regiment. It's no use asking
for money. They've none to spare for such as you--now don't look
savage--I mean they won't buy men that hain't seen service, and you
can't expect them to. I told you all about that before, and it's time
you had your mind made up."
"What proofs of good faith can you give me?"
Rawbon thrust his hand into his bosom and drew out a roll of parchment.
"This commission, under Gen. Beauregard's hand, to be approved when you
report yourself at headquarters."
Philip took the document and read it attentively, while Rawbon occupied
himself with filling his pipe from a leathern pouch. The female figure
stepped in at the window, and, gliding noiselessly into the room, seated
herself in a third chair by the table before either of the men became
aware of her presence. They started up with astonishment and
consternation. She did not seem to heed them, but leaning upon the
table, she stretched her hand to the brandy flask and applied it to her
lips.
"Who's this?" demanded Rawbon, with his hand upon the hilt of his large
bowie knife.
"Curse her! my evil genius," answered Philip, grating his teeth with
anger. It was Moll.
"What's this, Philip!" she said, clutching the parchment which had been
dropped upon the table.
"Leave that," ejaculated her husband, savagely, and darting to take it
from her.
But she eluded his grasp, and ran with the document into a corner of the
room.
"Ha! ha! ha! I know what it is," she said, waving it about as a
schoolboy sometimes exultingly exhibits a toy that he has mischievously
snatched from a comrade.
"It's your death-warrant, Philip Searle, if somebody sees it over
yonder. I heard you. I heard you. You're going over to fight for Jeff.
Davis. Well, I don't care, but I'll go with you. Don't come near me.
Don't hurt me, Philip, or I'll scream to the soldier out there."
"I won't hurt you, Moll. Be quiet now, there's a good girl. Come here
and take a sup more of brandy."
"I won't. You want to hurt me. But you can't. I'm a match for you both.
Ha! ha! You don't know how nicely I slipped away from the soldiers when
they, were resting. I went into the thick bushes, right down in the
water, and lay still. I wanted to laugh when I saw them, hunting for me,
and I could almost have touched the young officer if I had wished. But I
lay still as a mouse, and they went off and never found me. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Is she drunk or mad?" asked Rawbon.
"Mad," answered Philip, "but cunning enough to do mischief, if she has a
mind to. Moll, dear, come sit down here and be quiet; come, now."
"Mad? mad?" murmured Moll, catching his word. "No, I'm not mad," she
continued wildly, passing her hands over her brows, "but I saw spirits
just now in the woods, and heard voices, and they've frightened me. The
ghost of the girl that died in the hospital was there. You knew little
blue-eyed Lizzie, Philip. She was cursing me when she died and calling
for her mother. But I don't care. The man paid me well for getting her,
and 'twasn't my fault if she got sick and died. Poor thing! poor thing!
poor little blue-eyed Lizzie! She was innocent enough when she first
came, but she got to be as bad as any--until she got sick and died. Poor
little Lizzie!" And thus murmuring incoherently, the unhappy woman sat
down upon the floor, and bent her head upon her knees.
"Clap that into her mouth," whispered Philip, handing Rawbon his
handkerchief rolled tightly into a ball. "Quietly now, but quick. Look
out now. She's strong as a trooper."
They approached her without noise, but suddenly, and while Philip
grasped her wrists, Rawbon threw back her head, and forcing the jaws
open by a violent pressure of his knuckles against the joint, thrust
the handkerchief between her teeth and bound it tightly there with two
turns of his sash. The shriek was checked upon her lips and changed into
a painful, gurgling groan. The poor creature, with convulsive efforts,
struggled to free her arms from Philip's grasp, but he managed to keep
his hold until Rawbon had secured her wrists with the stout cord that
suspended his canteen. A silk neckerchief was then tightly bound around
her ankles, and Moll, with heaving breast and glaring eyes, lay, moaning
piteously, but speechless and motionless, upon the floor.
"We can leave her there," said Rawbon. "It's not likely any of your men
will come in, until morning at least. Let's be off at once."
Philip snatched up the parchment where it had fallen, and silently
followed his companion.
"We are going beyond the line to look about a bit," he said to the
sergeant on duty, as they passed his post. "Keep all still and quiet
till we return."
"Take some of the boys with you, captain," replied the sergeant. "We're
unpleasant close to those devils, sir."
"It's all right, sergeant. There's no danger," And nodding to Seth, the
two walked leisurely along the road until concealed by the darkness,
when they quickened their pace and pushed boldly toward the Confederate
lines.
Half an hour, or less perhaps, after their departure, the sentry, posted
at about a hundred yards from the house, observed an unusual light
gleaming from the windows of the old farm-house. He called the attention
of Lieutenant Williams, who was walking by in conversation with the
sergeant, to the circumstance.
"Is not the captain there?" asked the lieutenant.
"No, sir," replied the sergeant, "he started off to go beyond the line
half an hour ago."
"Alone?"
"No, sir; that chap that came in at dusk was with him."
"It's strange he should have gone without speaking to me about it."
"I wanted him to take some of our fellows along, sir, but he didn't care
to. By George! that house is afire, sir. Look there."
While talking, they had been proceeding toward the farm-house, when the
light from the windows brightened suddenly into a broad glare, and
called forth the sergeant's exclamation. Before they reached the
building a jet of flame had leaped from one of the casements, and
continued to whirl like a flaming ribbon in the air. They quickened
their pace to a run, and bursting into the doorway, were driven back by
a dense volume of smoke, that rolled in black masses along the corridor.
They went in again, and the sergeant pushed open the door of the room
where Moll lay bound, but shut it quickly again, as a tongue of flame
lashed itself toward him like an angry snake.
"It's all afire, sir," he said, coughing and spluttering through the
smoke. "Are there any of the captain's traps inside?"
"Nothing at all," replied the lieutenant. "Let's go in, however, and see
what can be done."
They entered, but were driven back by the baffling smoke and the flames
that were now licking all over the dry plastering of the room.
"It's no use," said the lieutenant, when they had gained their breath in
the open air. "There's no water, except in the brook down yonder, and
what the men have in their canteens. The house is like tinder. Let it
go, sergeant; it's not worth saving at the risk of singing your
whiskers."
The men had now come up, and gathered about the officer to receive his
commands.
"Let the old shed go, my lads," he said. "It's well enough that some
rebel should give us a bonfire now and then. Only stand out of the
glare, boys, or you may have some of those devils yonder making targets
of you."
The men fell back into the shadow, and standing in little groups, or
seated upon the sward, watched the burning house, well pleased to have
some spectacle to relieve the monotony of the night. And they looked
with indolent gratification, passing the light jest and the merry word,
while the red flames kept up their wild sport, and great masses of
rolling vapor upheaved from the crackling roof, and blackened the
midnight sky. None sought to read the mystery of that conflagration. It
was but an old barn gone to ashes a little before its time. Perhaps some
mischievous hand among them had applied the torch for a bit of
deviltry. Perhaps the flames had caught from Rawbon's pipe, which he had
thrown carelessly among a heap of rubbish when startled by Molly's
sudden apparition. Or yet, perhaps, though Heaven forbid it, for the
sake of human nature, the same hand that had struck so nearly fatally
once, had been tempted to complete the work of death in a more terrible
form.
But within those blistering walls, who can tell what ghastly revels the
mad flames were having over their bound and solitary victim! Perhaps, as
she lay there with distended jaws, and eyeballs starting from their
sockets, that brain, amid the visions of its madness, became conscious
of the first kindling of the subtle element that was so soon to clasp
her in its terrible embrace. How dreadful, while the long minutes
dragged, to watch its stealthy progress, and to feel that one little
effort of an unbound hand could avert the danger, and yet to lie there
helpless, motionless, without even the power to give utterance to the
shriek of terror which strained her throat to suffocation. And then, as
the creeping flame became stronger and brighter, and took long and
silent leaps from one object to another, gliding along the lathed, and
papered wall, rolling and curling along the raftered ceiling, would not
the wretched woman, raving already in delirium, behold the spectres that
her madness feared, beckoning to her in the lurid glare, or gliding in
and out among the wild fires that whirled in fantastic gambols around
and overhead! Nearer and nearer yet the rolling flame advances; it
commences to hiss and murmur in its progress; it wreathes itself about
the chairs and tables, and laps up the little pool of brandy spilled
from the forgotten flask; it plays about her feet, and creeps lazily
amid the folds of her gown, yet wet from the brook in which she had
concealed herself that day; it scorches and shrivels up the flesh upon
her limbs, while pendent fiery tongues leap from the burning rafters,
and kiss her cheeks and brows where the black veins swell almost to
bursting; every muscle and nerve of her frame is strained with
convulsive efforts to escape, but the cords only sink into the bloating
flesh, and she lies there crisping like a log, and as powerless to
move. The dense, black smoke hangs over her like a pall, but prostrate
as she is, it cannot sink low enough to suffocate and end her agony. How
the bared bosom heaves! how the tortured limbs writhe, and the
blackening cuticle emits a nauseous steam! The black blood oozing from
her nostrils proclaims how terrible the inward struggle. The whole frame
bends and shrinks, and warps like a fragment of leather thrown into a
furnace--the flame has reached her vitals--at last, by God's mercy, she
is dead.