Joseph A. Altsheler – The Complete Collection

Chapter 21

"You must go back at once to Miss Grayson's," urged Prescott, "and you must not come out again like this."

"You command merely for me to disobey," she said coolly. "By what right do you seek to direct my actions?"

"By the right of wisdom, or necessity, whichever you choose to call it," he replied. "Since you will not, of your own choice, care for yourself, I shall try to make you do so. Come!"

He put his hand upon her again. She sought to draw away, but he would not let go, and gradually she yielded.

"What a great thing is brute force! at least, you men think so," she said, as they walked slowly up the street.

"Yes, when properly exerted, as in the present instance."

They went on, the lights in the house became dimmer, and the sound of the music and the tread of the dance reached them no more.

She looked up into his face presently.

"Tell me one thing," she said.

"Certainly."

"Who is Helen?"

"Who is Helen?"

"Yes, I heard that man say how well she was looking to-night, and you agreed."

"We were both right. Helen is Miss Helen Harley, and they say she is the most beautiful woman in Richmond. She is the sister of Colonel Harley, one of our noted cavalry leaders."

She was silent for a little while, and then Prescott said:

"Now will you answer a question of mine?"

"I should like to hear the question first."

"Where were you hidden when we searched Miss Grayson's house?"

"That I will never tell you," she replied with sudden energy.

"Oh, well, don't do it then," he said in some disappointment.

They were now three or four squares away from the presidential mansion and were clothed in darkness, and silence save when the frozen snow crackled crisply under their feet.

"You cannot go any farther with me," she said. "I have warned you before that you must not risk yourself in my behalf."

"But if I choose to do so, nevertheless."

"Then I shall go back there to the house, where they are dancing."

She spoke in such a resolute tone that Prescott could not doubt her intent.

"If you promise to return at once to Miss Grayson's cottage I shall leave you here," he said.

"I make the promise, but for the present only," she replied. "You must remember that we are enemies; you are of the South, and I am treated as an enemy in Richmond. Good-night!"

She left him so quickly that he did not realize her departure until he saw her form flicker in the darkness and then disappear completely. A faint smile appeared on his face.

"No woman can ever successfully play the rôle of a man," he said to himself. Despite her former denial and her air of truth he was still thinking of her as a spy.

Then he walked thoughtfully back to the presidential mansion.

"You must have found that a most interesting cigar," said Talbot to him when he returned to the house.

"The most interesting one I ever smoked," replied Prescott.

Prescott found himself again with Mrs. Markham and walked with her into one of the smaller parlours, where Mr. Sefton, Winthrop, Raymond, Redfield and others were discussing a topic with an appearance of great earnestness.

"It is certainly a mystery, one of the most remarkable that I have ever encountered," said the Secretary with emphasis, as Prescott and Mrs. Markham joined them. "We are sure that it was a woman, a woman in a brown cloak and brown dress, and that she is yet in Richmond, but we are sure of nothing else. So far as our efforts are concerned, she might as well be in St. Petersburg as here in the capital city of the South. Perhaps the military can give us a suggestion. What do you think of it, Captain Prescott?"

He turned his keen, cold eye on Prescott, who never quivered.

"I, Mr. Sefton?" he replied. "I have no thoughts at all upon such a subject; for two reasons: first, my training as a soldier tells me to let alone affairs which are not my own; and second, you say this spy is a woman; know then that it is the prayer of every soldier that God will preserve him from any military duty which has to do with a woman, as it means sure defeat."

There was a laugh, and Mrs. Markham asked:

"Do you mean the second of your reasons as truth or as a mere compliment to my s*x?"

"Madam," replied Prescott with a bow, "you are a living illustration of the fact that I could mean the truth only."

"But to return to the question of the spy," said Mr. Sefton, tenaciously, "have you really no opinion, Captain Prescott? I have heard that you assisted Mr. Talbot when he was detailed to search Miss Grayson's house--a most commendable piece of zeal on your part--and I thought it showed your great interest in the matter."

"Captain Prescott," said Mrs. Markham, "I am surprised at you. You really helped in the searching of Miss Grayson's house! The idea of a soldier doing such work when he doesn't have to!"

Prescott laughed lightly--a cloak for his real feelings--as Mrs. Markham's frank criticism stung him a little.

"It was pure chance, Mrs. Markham. I happened to be near there when Talbot passed with his detail, and as he and I are the best of friends, I went with him wholly out of curiosity, I assure you--not the best of motives, I am willing to admit."

"Then I am to imply, Mrs. Markham," said the Secretary in his smooth voice, "that you condemn me for instituting such a search. But the ladies, if you will pardon me for saying it, are the most zealous upholders of the war, and now I ask you how are we men to carry it on if we do not take warlike measures."

She shrugged her shoulders and the Secretary turned his attention again to Prescott.

"What do you think of our chances of capture, Captain?" he said. "Shall we take this woman?"

"I don't think so," replied Prescott, meeting the Secretary's eye squarely. "First, you have no clue beyond the appearance of a woman wearing a certain style of costume in the Government building on a certain day. You have made no progress whatever beyond that. Now, whoever this woman may be, she must be very clever, and I should think, too, that she has friends in the city who are helping her."

"Then," said the Secretary, "we must discover her friends and reach her through them."

"How do you propose going about it?" asked Prescott calmly.

"I have not made any arrangements yet, nor can I say that I have a settled plan in view," replied the Secretary; "but I feel sure of myself. A city of forty thousand inhabitants is not hard to watch, and whoever this spy's friends are I shall find them sooner or later."

His cold, keen eyes rested upon Prescott, but they were without expression. Nevertheless, a chill struck the young Captain to the marrow. Did the Secretary know, or were his words mere chance? He recognized with startling force that he was face to face with a man of craft and guile, one who regarded him as a rival in a matter that lay very close to the heart's desire, and therefore as a probable enemy.

But cold and keen as was the look of the Secretary, Prescott could read nothing in his face, and whether a challenge was intended or not he resolved to pick up the glove. There was something stubborn lying at the bottom of his nature, and confronted thus by formidable obstacles he resolved to protect Lucia Catherwood if it lay within his power.

General Wood, a look of discontent on his face, entered the room at this moment. An electrical current of antagonism seemed to pass between him and the Secretary, which Mrs. Markham, perhaps from an impulse of mischief and perhaps from a natural love of sport, fostered, permitting Prescott, to his relief, to retire into the background.

The Secretary's manner was smooth, silky and smiling; he never raised his voice above its natural pitch nor betrayed otherwise the slightest temper. He now led the talk upon the army, and gently insinuated that whatever misfortunes had befallen the Confederacy were due to its military arm; perhaps to a lack of concord among the generals, perhaps to hasty and imperfect judgment on the field, or perhaps to a failure to carry out the complete wishes of the Executive Department.

He did not say any of these things plainly, merely hinting them in the mildest manner. Prescott, though a representative of the army, did not take any of it to himself, knowing well that it was intended for the General, and he watched curiously to see how the latter would reply.

The General surprised him, developing a tact and self-command, a knowledge of finesse that he would not have believed possible in a rough and uneducated mountaineer. But the same quality, the wonderful perception, or rather intuition, that had made Wood a military genius, was serving him here, and though he perceived at once the drift of the Secretary's remarks and their intention, he preserved his coolness and contented himself for awhile with apparent ignorance. This, however, did not check the attack, and by and by Wood, too, began to deal in veiled allusions and to talk of a great general and devoted lieutenants hampered by men who sat in their chairs in a comfortable building before glowing fires and gossiped of faults committed by others amid the reek of desperate fields.

It was four o'clock in the morning when Prescott stood again in the street in the darkness and saw the Secretary taking Helen home in his carriage.

CHAPTER X

FEEDING THE HUNGRY

"It is now the gossip in Richmond," said Mrs. Prescott to her son as they sat together before the fire a day or two later, "that General Wood makes an unusually long stay here for a man who loves the saddle and war as he does."

"Who says so, mother?"

"Well, many people."

"Who, for instance?"

"Well, the Secretary, Mr. Sefton, as a most shining instance, and he is a man of such acute perceptions that he ought to know."

Prescott was silent.

"They say that Mr. Sefton wants something that somebody else wants," she continued. "A while back it was another person whom he regarded as the opponent to his wish, but now he seems to have transferred the rivalry to General Wood. I wonder if he is right."

She gazed over her knitting needles into the fire as if she would read the answer in the coals, but Prescott himself did not assist her, though he wondered at what his mother was aiming. Was she seeking to arouse him to greater vigour in his suit? Well, he loved Helen Harley, and he had loved her ever since they were little boy and little girl together, but that was no reason why he should shout his love to all Richmond. Sefton and Wood might shout theirs, but perhaps he should fare better if he were more quiet.

Lonely and abstracted, Prescott wandered about the city that evening, and when the hour seemed suitable, bending his head to the northern blast, he turned willing steps once more to the little house in the cross street, wondering meanwhile what its two inmates were doing and how they fared.

As he went along and heard the wind moaning among the houses he had the feeling that he was watched. He looked ahead and saw nothing; he looked back and saw nothing; then he told himself it was only the wind rattling among loose boards, but his fancy refused to credit his own words. This feeling that he was watched, spied upon, had been with him several days, but he did not realize it fully until the present moment, when he was again upon a delicate errand, one perhaps involving a bit of unfaithfulness to the cause for which he fought. He, the bold Captain, the veteran of thirty battles, shook slightly and then told himself courageously that it was not a nervous chill, but the cold. Yet he looked around fearfully and wished to hear other footsteps, to see other faces and to feel that he was not alone on such a cold and dark night--alone save for the unknown who watched him. At the thought he looked about again, but there was nothing, not even the faintest echo of a footfall.