Complete weird tales of.., p.442
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 442
“Sic itur — ad Astra,” she said demurely, and offered him her hand. “Continue,” she added.
He neither stirred nor spoke; a deep flush mounted to the roots of his short, curly hair. She smiled encouragement, thinking him young and embarrassed, and a trifle chagrined.
“Continue the Latin formula,” she nodded, laughing; “what follows, if you please — —”
“Good God!” he broke out hoarsely.
And suddenly she knew there was nothing to follow except death — his or hers — realized she made an awful mistake — divined in one dreadful instant the unsuspected counter-mine beneath her very feet — cried out as she struck him full in the face with clenched fist, sprang back, whipping the revolver from her ragged bodice, dark eyes ablaze.
“Now,” she panted, “hands high — and turn your back! Quickly!”
He stood still, very pale, one sunburned hand covering the cheek which she had struck. There was blood on it. He heard her breathless voice, warning him to obey, but he only took his hand from his face, looked at the blood on palm and finger, then turned his hopeless eyes on her.
“Too late,” he said heavily. “But — I’d rather be you than I.... Look out of that window, Messenger!”
“Put up your hands!”
“No.”
“Will you hold up your hands!”
“No, Messenger.... And I — didn’t — know it was you when I came here. It’s — it’s a dirty business — for an officer.” He sank down on the wooden chair, resting his head between both hands. A single drop of blood fell brightly from his cut cheek.
The Special Messenger stole a swift, sidelong glance toward the window, hesitated, and, always watching him, slid along the wall toward the door, menacing him at every step with leveled revolver. Then, at the door, she cast one rapid glance at the open field behind her and around. A thrill of horror stiffened her. The entire circle of the burned clearing was ringed with the gray pickets of rebel cavalry.
The distant men sat motionless on their horses, carbine on thigh. Here and there a distant horse tossed his beautiful head, or perhaps some hat-brim fluttered. There was no other movement, not one sound.
Crouching to pass the windows beneath the sills she crept, heedless of her prisoner, to the rear door. That avenue to the near clustering woods was closed, too; she saw the glitter of carbines above the laurel.
“Special Messenger?” She turned toward him, pale as a ghost. “I reckon we’ve got you.”
“Yes,” she said.
There was another chair by the table — the only other one. She seated herself, shaking all over, laid her revolver on the table, stared at the weapon, pushed it from her with a nervous shudder, and, ashy of lip and cheek, looked at the man she had struck.
“Will they — hang me?”
“I reckon, ma’am. They hung the other one — the man you took me for.”
“Will there be a — trial?”
“Drumhead.... They’ve been after you a long, long while.”
“Then — what are you waiting for?”
He was silent.
She found it hard to control the nervous tremor of her limbs and lips. The dryness in her throat made speech difficult.
“Then — if there is no chance — —”
He bent forward swiftly and snatched her revolver from the table as her small hand fell heavily upon the spot where the weapon had rested.
“Would you do that?” he said in a low voice.
The desperate young eyes answered him. And, after a throbbing silence: “Won’t you let me?” she asked. “It is indecent to h-hang a — woman — before — men — —”
He did not answer.
“Please — please—” she whispered, “give it back to me — if you are a — soldier.... You can go to the door and call them.... Nobody will know.... You can turn your back.... It will only take a second!”
A big blue-bottle fly came blundering into the room and filled the silence with its noise. Years ago the big blue flies sometimes came into the quiet schoolroom; and how everybody giggled when the taller Miss Poucher, bristling from her prunella shoes to her stiff side-curls, charged indignantly upon the buzzing intruder.
Dry — eyed, dry — lipped, the Messenger straightened up, quivering, and drew a quick, sharp breath; then her head fell forward, and, resting inert upon the table, she buried her face in her arms. The most dangerous spy in the Union service — the secret agent who had worked more evil to the Confederacy than any single Union army corps — the coolest, most resourceful, most trusted messenger on either side as long as the struggle lasted — caught at last.
The man, young, Southern, and a gentleman’s son, sat staring at her. He had driven his finger-nails deep into his palms, bitten his underlip till it was raw.
“Messenger!”
She made no response.
“Are you afraid?”
Her head, prone in her arms, motioned dull negation. It was a lie and he knew it. He looked at the slender column of the neck — stained to a delicate amber — at the nape; and he thought of the rope and the knot under the left ear.
“Messenger,” he said once more. “I did not know it was you I was to meet. Look at me, in God’s name!”
She opened her eyes on him, then raised her head.
“Do you know me now?” he asked.
“No.”
“Look!”
He touched the scar on his forehead; but there was no recognition in her eyes.
“Look, I tell you!” he repeated, almost fiercely.
She said wearily: “I have seen so many men — so many men.... I can’t remember you.”
“And I have seen many women, Messenger; but I have never forgotten you — or what you did — or what you did — —”
“I?”
“You.... And from that night I have lived only to find you again. And — oh, God! To find you here! My Messenger! My little Messenger!”
“Who are you?” she whispered, leaning forward on the table, dark eyes dilating with hope.
He sat heavily for a while, head bowed as though stunned to silence; then slowly the white misery returned to his face and he looked up.
“So — after all — you have forgotten. And my romance is dead.”
She did not answer, intent now on every word, every shade of his expression. And, as she looked, through the numbness of her desperation, hope stirred again, stealthily.
“Are you a friend?” Her voice scarcely sounded at all.
“Friends die for each other,” he said. “Do you expect that of me?”
The silence between them became terrible; and at last he broke it with a bitter laugh:
“You once turned a boy’s life to romance — riding through it — out of it — leaving scars on his brow and heart — and on his lips the touch of your own. And on his face your tears. Look at me once more!”
Her breath came quicker; far within her somewhere memory awoke, groping blindly for light.
“Three days we followed you,” he said. “On the Pennsylvania line we cornered you; but you changed garb and shape and speech, almost under our eyes — as a chameleon changes color, matching the leaf it hides on.... I halted at that squatter’s house — sure of you at last — and the pretty squatter’s daughter cooked for us while we hunted you in the hills — and when I returned she gave me her bed to sleep on — —”
Her hand caught at her throat and she half rose, staring at him.
“Her own bed to sleep on,” he repeated. “And I had been three days in the saddle; and I ate what she set before me, and slept on her bed — fell asleep — only a tired boy, not a soldier any longer.... And awoke to meet your startled eyes — to meet the blow from your revolver butt that made this scar — to fall back bewildered for a moment — half-stunned — Messenger! Do you know me now?”
“Yes,” she said.
They looked breathlessly at one another; suddenly a hot blush covered her neck and face; and his eyes flashed triumph.
“You have not forgotten!” he cried.
And there, on the very edge of death itself, the bright shame glowed and glowed in her cheeks, and her distressed eyes fell before his.
“You kissed me,” he said, looking at her.
“I — I thought I had — killed you—” she stammered.
“And you kissed me on the lips.... In that moment of peril you waited to do that. Your tears fell on my face. I felt them. And I tell you that, even had I been lying there dead instead of partly stunned, I would have known what you did to me after you struck me down.”
Her head sank lower; the color ran riot from throat to brow.
He spoke again, quietly, yet a strange undertone of exaltation thrilled his voice and transfigured the thin, war-worn features she had forgotten, so that, as she lifted her eyes to him again, the same boy looked back at her from the mist of the long dead years.
“Messenger,” he said, “I have never forgotten. And now it is too late to forget your tears on my face — the touch of your lips on mine. I would not if I could.... It was worth living for — dying for.... Once — I hoped — some day — after this — all this trouble ended — my romance might come — true — —”
The boy choked, then:
“I came here under orders to take a woman spy whose password was the key to a Latin phrase. But until you stood straight in your rags and smiled at me, I did not know it was you — I did not know I was to take the Special Messenger! Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
The boy colored painfully. Then a queer, pallid change came over his face; he rose, bent over her where she rested heavily on the table:
“Little Messenger,” he said, “I am in your debt for two blows and a kiss.”
She lifted a dazed face to meet his gaze; he trembled, leaned down, and kissed her on the mouth.
Then in one bound he was at the door, signaling his troopers with drawn sabre — as once, long ago, she had seen him signal them in the Northern woods.
And, through the window, she saw the scattered cavalry forming column at a gallop, obeying every sabre signal, trotting forward, wheeling fours right — and then — and then! the gray column swung into the western forest at a canter, and was gone!
The boy leaning in the doorway looked back at her over his shoulder and sheathed his sabre. There was not a vestige of color left in his face.
“Go!” he said hoarsely.
“What?” she faltered.
“Go — go, in God’s name! There’s a door there! Can’t you see it?”
* * * * *
She had been gone for a full hour when at last he turned again. A bit of faded ribbon from her hair lay on the table. It was tied in a true lover’s knot.
He walked over, looked at it, drew it through his buttonhole and went slowly back to the door again. For a long while he stood there, vague-eyed, silent. It was nearly sunset when once more he drew his sabre, examined it carefully, bent it over one knee, and snapped the blade in two.
Then, with a last look at the sky, and standing very erect, he closed the door, set his back firmly against it, drew his revolver, and looked curiously into the muzzle.
A moment later the racket of the shot echoed through the deserted house.
CHAPTER V. RED FERRY
WHEN PRIVATE ALLEN of Kay’s Cavalry deserted with headquarters’ dispatch pouch, and headed straight for Dixie, there was a great deal of consternation and excitement on the north bank of the river, and a considerable amount of headlong riding. But on the tenth day he slipped through the cordon, got into the woods, and was making for the river when a patrol shot at him near Gopher Creek, but lost him in the impenetrable cypress swamp beyond.
However, the pursuit was pushed forward to the very edge of the enemy’s country; Kay’s troopers patrolled the north bank of the river and watched every road and ford; east and west Ripley’s and Haynes’s brigades formed impassable curtains.
Somewhere in this vast corral lay hidden a desperate, starving man; and it was only a question of time before the hunted creature broke cover for the water.
That a trooper had deserted with arms and equipment was generally known; but that, in his nocturnal flight, he had also taken vitally important papers was known at first only to Kay and later to the Special Messenger, who was sent to him post-haste from corps headquarters when the fugitive headed for the river.
Now, the south bank of the stream being in the enemy’s territory, Kay had not ventured to station patrols above the clay banks opposite, lest rumor of invasion bring Stuart’s riders to complicate a man chase and the man escape in the confusion.
And he explained this to the Special Messenger at their first conference.
“It ought to be guarded,” insisted the Messenger tranquilly. “There are three good fords and a ferry open to him.”
“I hold the fords on this side,” argued Kay; “the ferryboat lies in the eel-grass on the south shore.”
“Stuart’s riders might cross if they heard of this trouble, sir!”
“And if they see Union troops on the south bank they’ll cross, sure pop. It won’t do, Messenger. If that fellow attempts the fords we’ll catch him, sure; if he swims we may get him in the water. The Lord knows I want him badly, but I dare not invite trouble by placing vedettes across the stream.... There’s a ferryman over there I’m worried about, too. He’d probably come across if Allen hailed him from the woods.... And Allen was thick with him. They used to fish together. Nobody knows what they hatched out between them. It worries me, I can tell you — that ferry.”
The Messenger walked to the tent door and looked thoughtfully at the woods around her. The colonel rose from his camp stool and followed her, muttering:
“I might as well try to catch a weasel in a wall, or a red horse in the mud; and how to go about it I don’t know.” With set jaws and an angry spot glowing in his gaunt cheeks, he stared wickedly around him and then at the Messenger. “You do miracles, they say. Can’t you do one now?”
“I don’t know, sir. Who is this deserter?”
“Roy Allen — a sullen, unwilling dog — always malingering. He’s spent half the time in the guardhouse, half in the hospital, since he arrived with the recruits. Somebody got an idea that he’d been hit by the sun, but it’s all bosh. He’s a bad one — that’s all. Can you help me out?”
The Messenger nodded.
“You say he’s fond of fishing?”
“Crazy about it. He was often detailed to keep us in food when rations ran low. Then the catfish made us sick, so I stopped his fishing. Then he took French leave.”
“I want two troopers this evening, Colonel. May I have them?” she asked thoughtfully. “I’m going to keep house at Red Ferry for a while.”
“All right, ma’am. Look out for him; he’s a bad one.”
But the Messenger shook her head, smiling.
At ten o’clock that night the Special Messenger, mounted astride and followed by two cavalrymen with carbines, rode down through the river mist to Bushy Ford.
Daintily her handsome horse set foot in the water, hesitated, bent his long, velvety neck, sniffed, and finally drank; then, satisfied, stepped quietly forward, hock-deep, in the swirling, yellow flood.
“Foller them stakes, Miss,” cautioned the older trooper; “I sot ’em m’self, I did.”
“Thank you. Keep close to me, Connor. I’ve crossed here before it was staked.”
“Sho!” exclaimed Connor under his breath; “she do beat ’em all!”
Twice, having no light but the foggy stars, they missed the stakes and her horse had to swim, but they managed to flounder safely back to the ford each time; and after a little while her mount rose, straining through the red mud of the shore, struggled, scrambled madly, and drew out, dripping.
Up a slippery, crooked ascent they rode, out into a field of uncut corn above, then, spurring, swung at a canter eastward along the river.
There was a dim light in the ferry house; a lubberly, fat man ran to the open door as they drew bridle before it. When the fat man saw the blue troopers he backed hastily away from the sill and the Messenger dismounted and followed him into the house, heavy revolver swinging in her gloved hand.
“What’n hell y’goin’ to do to me?” he began to whimper; “I ain’t done nothin’”; but an excess of fright strangled him, and he continued to back away from her until he landed flat against the opposite wall. She followed and halted before him, cocking her weapon, with a terrible frown. She said solemnly:
“I want you to answer me one or two questions, and if you lie to me it will be the last time. Do you understand?”
He nodded and moistened his thick lips, gulping.
“Then you are the ferryman, Snuyder, are you not?”
He nodded, utterly incapable of speech. She went on, gloomily:
“You used to fish sometimes with a Yankee recruit named Allen — Roy Allen?”
“Ye-s’m,” he sniveled. “There’s my fish-pole an’ his’n layin’ onto the roof — —”
“How did he hail you when he wanted you to come across to take him fishing?”
“He jest come down to the shore an’ hollered twicet — —”
She bent closer, scanning his dilated eyes; speech died on his lips.
“How did he call to you at night?”
“He ain’t never called me at night — so help me — —”
“No; but in case he ever wished to fish at night?”
The man began to stammer and protest, but she covered him suddenly, and her dark eyes struck fire.
“What signal?” she asked with a menacing ring in her voice. “Quick!”
“Cock-o’-the-pines!... It didn’t mean nothin’,” gasped the man; ... “It was jest private — between fishin’ friends — —”
“Go on!”
“Yes’m.... If I heard a cock-o’-the-pines squeal I was to squeal back, an’ then he was to holler — jest friendly— ‘Hallo-oo! How’s fishin’?’ That’s all, ma’am — —”
“And you were to cross?”
