SURPRISED AND CAPTURED.
“I haven’t the least doubt but what the nigger told the truth,”
continued Ben Hawkins, as Mr. Allison’s black boy disappeared in the
darkness and his men gathered about him to hear what else he had to say.
“Everything goes to prove that we uns talked our plans over in the
presence of somebody who went straight to Beardsley an’ Shelby with it;
an’ them two went to work an’ brung soldiers enough up to Allison’s
house to scoop us all in the minute we got there. But we uns aint goin’
to be scooped this night, thanks to that nigger. Twenty, or even six
veterans is too many fur we uns to tackle, ’specially sence some of us
aint never smelled much powder, an’ so we’re goin’ home. Now, who’s the
traitor, do you reckon?”
There was no answer to this question. If the refugees suspected anybody,
they did not speak his name. It was a serious matter to accuse one of
their number, none of them were willing to take the responsibility, and
so they wisely held their peace.
“We aint got no proof agin anybody,” continued Ben, “an’ I don’t know’s
I blame you all fur not wantin’ to speak out. But mind this: I shall
have an eye on everybody in camp—everybody, I said—an’ the fust one who
crooks his finger will have to tell a tol’able straight story to keep
out of trouble. Fall in, and counter-march by file, left. Quick time
now, an’ keep your guns in your hands, kase when them rebs up to the
house find that we uns aint goin’ to run into their trap, they may try
to head us off.”
The return march was made in silence, each member of the squad being
engrossed with his own thoughts. Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin were
uppermost in their minds, and there was not one of the refugees who did
not tell himself that it would be better for the settlement if those two
mischief-makers were well out of it. They reached camp without any
trouble and reported their failure and talked about it as freely as
though they never suspected that there was somebody in their midst who
was to blame for it. Acting on the hint Ben Hawkins gave them the
parolled Confederates watched everybody, their comrades as well as the
civilians, and talked incessantly in the hope that the guilty one might
be led to betray himself by an inadvertent word or gesture; but they
paid the least attention to the man who could have told them the most
about it. Ben Hawkins would have suspected himself almost as soon as he
would have suspected Buffum.
Monday evening came all too soon for Marcy Gray, who, with a feeling of
depression he had never before experienced, made ready to take his turn
at foraging. He announced that it was his intention to go to his
mother’s house alone, because one person might be able to approach the
dwelling unobserved, while three could not make a successful fight if
the enemy were on the watch. No one offered objection to this
arrangement, if we except the boy Julius, who positively refused to be
left behind, declaring that if his master would not take him to the
main-land in his boat, he would swim the bayou and follow him anyhow.
When the time came for Marcy to start he shook hands with all the
refugees, Buffum included, and pushed off from the island alone. He
concealed his canoe when he reached the other shore and was about to
plunge into the woods, when a slight splashing in the water and the
sound of suppressed conversation came from the bank he had just left. At
least two or three persons were shoving off from the island to follow
him, and Marcy, believing that he could call them by name, waited for
them to come up. The night was so dark and the bushes so thick that his
friendly pursuers did not see him until the bow of their boat touched
the shore and they began to step out.
“Now, Ben,” said Marcy reproachfully, “I shall feel much more at my ease
if you will turn around and go back.”
“Oh, hursh, honey!” replied Julius. “We uns gwine fight de rebels, too.”
“Don’t you know that if you and your friends are captured you will be
treated as deserters?” continued Marcy, addressing himself to Hawkins
and paying no attention to Julius. “You have been ordered to report for
duty and haven’t done it, and I suppose you know what that means.”
“A heap better’n you do at this time, but not better’n you will if you
are tooken an’ packed off to Williamston,” answered Ben. “You’d die in
less’n a month if you was forced into the army, kase you aint the right
build to stand the hard knocks you’ll get. But we uns don’t ’low to be
took pris’ner or let you be took, either.”
“I appreciate your kindness——” began Marcy.
“You needn’t say no more, kase we uns has made it up to go with you, an’
we aint goin’ to turn back,” interrupted Ben. “We uns will stay outside
the house an’ watch, an’ you can go in an’ get the grub. Pull the boat
ashore, boys, an’ shove her into the bresh out of sight.”
There is no use in saying that Marcy did not feel relieved to know that
he would have four friends at his back if he got into trouble, because
he did. There were three Confederate veterans, and Julius made the
fourth friend; but Julius counted, for he had already proved that he was
worth something in an emergency. Marcy made no further effort to turn
them back, but shook them all warmly by the hand and led the way toward
his mother’s plantation. It took them two hours to reach it, for they
kept under cover of the woods as long as they could, and followed blind
ditches and brush-lined fences when it became necessary for them to
cross open fields, and so cautious were they in their movements that
when Ben came to a halt behind a rose-bush in full view of the great
house, he gave it as his opinion that an owl would not have seen or
heard them, if there had been one on the watch.
“An’ although we uns aint seen no rebels, that don’t by no means prove
that there aint none around,” added Ben. “Marcy, you stay here, an’ the
rest of us will kinder sneak around t’other side the house an’ take a
look at things. Julius, you come with me, kase you know the lay of the
land an’ I don’t. You two boys go that-a-way; an’ if you run onto
anything don’t stop to ask questions, but shoot to kill. It’s a matter
of life an’ death with all of we uns, except the nigger.”
Marcy’s friends moved away in different directions, and, when they were
out of sight and hearing, he walked around the rose-bush and sat down on
the ground so close to the house that he could recognize the servants
who passed in and out of the open door, through which a light streamed
into the darkness. He longed to call one of them to his hiding-place and
send a comforting message to the anxious mother, who he knew was waiting
for him in the sitting room, but he was afraid to do it. There wasn’t a
negro on the place who could be trusted as far as that. If he tried to
attract the notice of one of them, the darky would be sure to shriek out
with terror and seek safety in flight, and Marcy did not want to
frighten his mother. So he sat still and waited for Ben Hawkins, who,
after half an hour’s absence, returned with the gratifying intelligence
that the coast was clear, and Marcy could go ahead with his foraging as
soon as he pleased.
“If there’s ary reb in this here garding he must be hid in the ground,
or else some of we uns would surely have stepped onto him,” said Ben.
“Beardsley didn’t look fur you to come to-night, an’ that’s all the
proof I want that we uns has got ahead of that traitor of ourn fur once,
dog-gone his pictur’.”
“Where are the rest of the boys?” whispered Marcy.
“They’re gardin’ three sides of the house, an’ when you go in I’ll stay
here an’ guard the fourth,” answered Ben. “Off you go, now. Crawl up.”
Marcy lingered a moment to shake Ben’s hand, and then arose to his feet
and walked toward the house. If Ben’s report was correct there was no
need of concealment. He stopped on the way to speak to the darkies in
the kitchen, and his sudden appearance at the door threw them into the
wildest commotion. They made a simultaneous rush for the rear window,
intending to crawl through and take to their heels; but the sound of his
familiar voice reassured them. Raising his hand to silence their cries
of alarm Marcy said impressively:
“Do you black ones want to see me captured by the rebels? Or do you want
to frighten my mother to death? If you don’t, keep still.”
“Moss’ Mahcy,” protested the cook, who was the first to recover from her
fright, “dey aint no rebels round hyar. I aint seed none dis whole
blessed——”
“For all that there may be some concealed in the garden and ready to
jump on me at any moment,” interrupted Marcy. “Now, don’t go to prowling
about. If you do you will be frightened again, for I have friends out
there in the bushes and you might run upon them in the dark.”
So saying Marcy turned from the kitchen and went into the house, passing
on the way two large baskets which had been filled with food and placed
in the hall ready to his hand, so that there would be nothing to detain
him in so dangerous a place as his mother’s house was known to be. Mrs.
Gray came from the sitting room to meet him, for she heard his step the
moment he crossed the threshold.
“O Marcy! I am so glad to see you, but I am almost sorry you came,” was
the way in which she greeted him.
“Seen anything alarming?” inquired the boy.
“No; and that very circumstance excites my suspicion. There are
Confederate soldiers in the neighborhood, for Morris saw several of them
in Nashville this morning. I shall never become accustomed to this
terrible way of living.”
“No more shall I, but the only way to put a stop to it is to—what in the
world is that?” exclaimed Marcy; for just then a smothered cry of
astonishment and alarm, that was suddenly cut short in the middle,
sounded in the direction of the kitchen, followed by an indescribable
commotion such as might have been made by the shuffling feet of men who
were engaged in a hand-to-hand contest. A second afterward
pistol-shots—not one or a dozen, but a volley of them rattled around the
house, telling Marcy in plain terms that Ben Hawkins and his comrades
had been assailed on all sides.
“O Marcy, they’ve got you!” cried Mrs. Gray; and forgetful of herself,
and thinking only of his safety, she flung her arms about his neck and
threw herself between him and the open door, protecting his person with
her own.
“Not yet,” replied the boy between his clenched teeth. “I might as well
die here as in the army.”
[Illustration: MARCY CAPTURED AT LAST.]
Tightening his grasp on his mother’s waist Marcy swung her behind him
with one arm, at the same time reaching for the revolver whose heavy
butt protruded from the leg of his right boot; but before he could
straighten up with the weapon in his hand, two men in Confederate
uniform rushed into the room from the hall, and two cocked revolvers
were pointed at his head. Resistance would have been madness. The men
had him covered, their ready fingers were resting on the triggers, and
an effort on Marcy’s part to level his own weapon would have been the
signal for his death. These things happened in much less time than we
have taken to describe them, and all the while a regular fight, a sharp
one, too, had been going on outside the house, and with the rattle of
carbines and revolvers were mingled the screams of the terrified
negroes; but Marcy Gray and his mother did not know it. Their minds were
filled with but one thought, and that was that Beardsley had got the
upper hand of them at last.
“If you move an eyelid you are a dead conscript,” said the foremost of
the two rebels at the door, and whom Marcy afterward knew as Captain
Fletcher. As he spoke he came into the room and took the revolver from
Marcy’s hand.
“Captain, I see the mate to that sticking out of his boot,” said the
other soldier; and not until the captain had taken possession of that
revolver also did his comrade think it safe to put up his weapon.
At this moment the firing outside ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
Captain Fletcher noticed it if Marcy did not, and ordered his man to “go
out and take a look and come in and report.” Then Marcy led his mother
to the sofa and sat down beside her, while the captain stood in the
middle of the room with his revolver in his hand and looked at him.
“You’ve got me easy enough,” said Marcy, trying to put a bold face on
the matter. “And now I should like to know what you intend to do with
me.”
“My orders are to take you to Williamston,” replied the captain, who
seemed to be a good fellow at heart. “I am sorry, but you would have
saved yourself and me some trouble if you had gone there the minute you
were conscripted.”
“I never knew before that I had been conscripted,” answered Marcy.
“Every man and boy in the Confederacy who is able to do duty must go
into the army,” said the captain slowly and impressively. “If he will
not go willingly he’ll be forced in.”
“There are so many men and boys in the Confederacy who do not want to go
into the service that I should think it would take half your army to
hunt them up.”
“It’s a heap of bother,” admitted the captain, “and it takes men we
cannot afford to spare from the front just now. Perhaps you had better
take a few clothes and a blanket with you; but I shall have to ask your
mother to get them, for I want you where I can keep an eye on you.
Captain Beardsley says——”
“Go on,” said Marcy, when the captain paused and caught his breath. “You
can’t tell me anything about Beardsley that I don’t know already. He and
Shelby are at the bottom of this, and I am well aware of it. I don’t see
why you don’t hang those men. They have taken the oath of allegiance to
the United States Government.”
“I don’t approve of anything like that, but all’s fair in war,” replied
the captain, who seemed to know all about it. “A loyal soldier wouldn’t
have done it, but Beardsley and Shelby are civilians and the Yanks
frightened them into it. However, they are working for our side as hard
as they ever did, and that’s about all we care for.”
When the captain ceased speaking Mrs. Gray arose from the sofa and went
to Marcy’s room to pack a valise for him. There were no traces of tears
on her white, set face, and her step was as firm as it ever was. She was
bearing up bravely, for she had long schooled herself for just such a
scene as this. When she left the room the captain slipped his revolver
into its holster, took possession of an easy-chair, and leaned back in
it with a long-drawn sigh.
“I’d rather face a dozen Yanks than one woman,” said he. “I hope she’ll
not break down when she bids you good-by.”
“You need have no fears on that score,” answered Marcy. “I judge you
don’t like the unpleasant work you are engaged in any too well, and my
mother will do nothing to make it harder for you.”
“You’re mighty right, I don’t like it,” said the captain emphatically.
“Any place in the world but an invalid corps. They have all the dirty
work to do. It suits some cowards, but I’d rather be at the front, and
there I hope to go next week. Well, corporal?” he added, turning to the
man he had sent out of the room a few minutes before. “How many of them
were there?”
“A dozen or so, sir, judging by the fight they made and the work they
did,” replied the soldier.
“Are you speaking of my friends?” inquired Marcy, who now remembered
that there had been something of a commotion outside the house. “Well,
there were just three of them, not counting an unarmed negro boy.”
“Do you want me to believe that three conscripts could stand off twenty
old soldiers?” demanded the corporal.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Marcy, who was really surprised. “Did you bring
twenty men here to capture me? You are a brave lot.”
“Braver than you who took to the woods to keep from going into the
army,” answered the angry corporal. “We can’t find hair nor hide of
them, sir,” he added, turning to his officer. “But they left us four
dead men to remember them by, and nary one wounded.”
Marcy was horrified. Ben Hawkins had followed his own advice and shot to
kill. He was glad to hear the corporal say that his friends had managed
to escape in the darkness, but what effect would the gallant fight they
made have upon his own prospects? He was glad, too, that there was a
commissioned officer among his captors, for he did not like the way the
corporal glared at him. And finally, would his capture bring Tom Allison
and Mark Goodwin into trouble with the refugees?
“It certainly did bring them into trouble,” interrupted Rodney. “They
were bushwhacked.”
“How do you know?” demanded Marcy, starting up in his chair.
“Jack said so in his last letter. And he said, further, that your good
friends Beardsley and Shelby, and one other whose name I have forgotten,
were burned out so clean that they didn’t have a nigger cabin left to
shelter them.”
“Were Tom and Mark killed?”
“I suppose they were, but Jack wasn’t explicit on that point. You would
be sorry to hear it, of course.”
“I certainly would, for I used to be good friends with those boys before
a few crazy men kicked up this war and set us together by the ears,”
said Marcy sadly. “But they could blame no one but themselves. I wonder
that Beardsley wasn’t bushwhacked also.”
Then Marcy settled back in his chair and went on with his story. He told
how he listened to the conclusion of the corporal’s report, during which
he learned, what he had all along more than half suspected, that the
Confederates had surrounded the house and were lying concealed in the
garden when he and his companions arrived. They saw Marcy’s friends
reconnoiter the premises, but made no effort to capture them for the
reason that they had received strict orders not to move until Captain
Fletcher gave the signal, which he did as soon as he saw Marcy enter the
house. He and the corporal lost no time in following and coming to close
quarters with him, for they knew they would find the boy armed, and that
it would be dangerous to give him a chance to defend himself. When they
left their place of concealment and ran around the kitchen, they
encountered Aunt Martha the cook, who saw and recognized their uniforms
as they passed her window, and started at the top of her speed for the
house, hoping to warn her young master so that he could escape through
the cellar, as he had done once before. But the corporal seized her,
promptly choked off the warning cry that arose to her lips, and then
began that furious struggle that had attracted Marcy’s attention.
“She was strong and savage,” said the captain with a laugh, “and for a
time it looked as though she would get the better of both of us. If she
didn’t do that, I was afraid she would make such a fight that you would
hear it and dig out; but fortunately two of my men came to our aid just
in the nick of time.”
“I hope you didn’t hurt her,” said Marcy.
“I choked her into silence, you bet,” replied the corporal, who then
stated that the firing began when the Confederates rose to their feet
and tried to capture Marcy’s friends. They got more bullets than
captives, however, and the captain had four less men under his command
now than he had when the fight commenced.
“You have wagons on the place, I suppose?” said the captain to Marcy,
when the corporal intimated by a salute that his report was ended. “Very
well. We’ll have to borrow one of them to take the bodies to
Williamston. I did intend to visit two other houses to-night, but I
shouldn’t make anything by it now, for of course the whole settlement
has been alarmed by the firing. Go and see about that wagon, corporal.”
As the non-commissioned officer disappeared through one door Marcy’s
mother came in at another, carrying a well-filled valise in her hand. It
was not locked, and she opened and presented it for the captain’s
inspection.
“There is nothing in it except a few articles which I know will be
useful to my boy while he is in the army,” said she.
“That assurance is sufficient,” replied the captain. “Now, as soon as
the corporal reports that wagon ready, we will rid your house of our
unwelcome presence. I am sorry indeed that I had this work to do, but
the Yankees are to blame for it. If they hadn’t shot me almost to death
in the last battle I was in, I should now be at the front where I
belong. I wish your son might have got away, but I was ordered to take
him and I was obliged to do it.”
“We have seen enough of this war to know that a soldier’s business is to
do as he is told, no matter who gets hurt by it,” said Marcy, speaking
for his mother, who seated herself on the sofa by his side and looked at
him as though she never expected to see him again. “I don’t mind telling
you, captain, that if I could have had my own way, I should have been
fighting under the Old Flag long ago.”
“So I have heard; and there are a good many men in our army who think as
much of the Union as Abe Lincoln does,” answered the captain truthfully.
“But don’t say that again unless you know who you are talking to.”
“Have you any idea where Marcy will be sent?” asked Mrs. Gray, speaking
with an effort.
“Of course I don’t know for certain, but my impression is that he will
have to do guard duty somewhere. The authorities used to send conscripts
from this State to fill out North Carolina regiments in the field, but
they don’t trouble themselves to do it now. They put them on guard duty
wherever they want them, and send volunteers to the front.”
“Let that ease your mind, mother,” said Marcy, with an attempt at
cheerfulness. “If I am to stay in the rear I shan’t have such a very
hard time of it.”
The captain opened his eyes, smiled incredulously, and once or twice
acted as if he were on the point of speaking; but he thought better of
it, and just then the corporal returned to report that the men had been
called in and the wagon was waiting at the door. Captain Fletcher went
into the hall while Marcy took leave of his mother, and this gave the
latter opportunity to whisper in his ear, as her head rested on his
shoulder:
“Be careful of that valise, and the first chance you get take the money
out of it. You will find one vest in there, and the gold is in the
right-hand pocket. O Marcy, this blow will kill me.”
“You mustn’t let it. I shall surely return, and when I do I want you and
Jack here to welcome me.”
The leave-taking was not prolonged,—it would have been torture to both
of them,—and when Captain Fletcher reached the carriage porch, where the
corporal stood holding three horses by the bridle, Marcy was at his
side.
“Mount that horse and come on,” said the captain. “When we overtake the
wagon you can put your valise in it.”
But that valise was much too valuable to be placed in the wagon, or
anywhere else that a thieving Confederate could get his hands on it, so
Marcy replied that if it was all the same to the captain he would tie it
to the horn of his saddle, where he could keep an eye on it. He mounted
the horse that was pointed out to him, kissed his hand to his mother,
said a cheery good-by to the weeping blacks, who had at last found
courage to come into the house, and rode on after the wagon, which had
by this time passed through the front gate into the road. Marcy was the
only prisoner the Confederates captured that night, and he had cost them
the lives of four men. The soldier who had once owned the horse he was
riding was one of the unfortunates. Marcy would have given much, to know
whether Ben Hawkins and his comrades escaped unscathed, but that was
something he never expected to hear, for he was by no means as sure that
he would come back to his home as he pretended to be. Others had been
killed, and what right had he to assume that he would escape?
“This scout hasn’t amounted to a row of pins,” observed Captain
Fletcher, when he and Marcy came up with the wagon and rode behind it.
“I expected to find the country alive with Yankee cavalry and to fight
my way against a small army of refugees, who would ambush me from the
time I left Williamston till I got back. That is the reason I brought so
large a squad with me. I have been out four days, and what have I to
show for my trouble? Four dead men and three prisoners. I don’t like
such work, and shall get back to Virginia as soon as I can.”
The captain relapsed into silence, and during the rest of the journey
Marcy was at liberty to commune undisturbed with his own gloomy
thoughts.