Before the Dawn Part 59

Again he imitated the Secretary's example of self-repression and waited to see what Winthrop would do. General Wood trimmed off a shaving so long that it coiled all the way around his wrist. Then he took it off carefully, dropped it on the floor with the others, and at once went to work whittling a new one.

"Let's see the article," said Winthrop.

Harley handed it to him and he read it carefully.

"A fine piece of work," he said; "who wrote it--you or Redfield?"

"Oh, we did it together," replied Harley with a smile of appreciation.

Redfield uttered a denial, but it was too late.

"A fine piece of work," repeated Winthrop, "admirably adapted to the kindling of fires. Unfortunately my fire is already kindled, but it can help on the good cause."

With that he cast the paper into the stove.

Harley uttered an oath.

"What do you mean?" he cried.

"I mean that you can't use my paper to gratify your private revenge. If you want to do that sort of thing you must get a newspaper of your own."

"I think you are infernally impertinent."

"And I think, Vincent Harley, that you are a d.a.m.ned fool. You want a duel with the man about whom you've written this card, but for excellent reasons he will decline to meet you. Still I hate to see a man who is looking for a fight go disappointed, and just to oblige you I'll fight you myself."

"But I've no quarrel with you," said Harley sullenly.

"Oh, I can give you ample cause," said Winthrop briskly. "I can throw this water in your face, or if you prefer it I can give you a blow on the cheek, a hard one, too. Take your choice."

Prescott arose.

"I'm much obliged to you, Winthrop," he said, "for taking up my quarrel and trying to shield me. All of you know that I am meant in that card which he calls such 'a piece of good news.' I admire Colonel Harley's methods, and since he is so persistent I will fight him on the condition that the meeting and its causes be kept absolutely secret. If either of us is wounded or killed let it be said that it was in a skirmish with the enemy."

"Why these conditions?" asked Redfield.

"For the sake of others. Colonel Harley imagines that he has a grievance against me. He has none, and if he had the one that he imagines he is certainly in no position to call me to account. Since he will have it no other way, I will fight him."

"I object," said Winthrop with temper. "I have a prior claim. Colonel Harley has tried to use me, an unoffending third party, as the instrument of his private revenge, and that is a deadly offense. I have the reputation of being a hot-blooded man and I intend to live up to my reputation."

A gla.s.s of water was standing by the cooler. He lifted it and hurled the contents into Harley's face. The man started back, strangling and coughing, then wiped the water from his face with a handkerchief.

"Do you dispute the priority of my claim over Captain Prescott?" asked Winthrop.

"I do not," said Harley. "Mr. Redfield will call on you again in my behalf within an hour."

Prescott was irresolute.

"Winthrop," he said, "I can't permit this."

"Oh, yes, you can," said Winthrop, "because you can't help yourself."

Then General Wood upreared his gigantic form and ran the fingers of his left hand solemnly through his black whiskers. He put his bowie-knife in its sheath, brushed the last shaving off his trousers and said:

"But there's somebody who can help it, an' I'm the man. What's more, I mean to do it. Colonel Harley, General Lee transferred your regiment to my command yesterday and I need you at the front. I order you to report for duty at once, and I won't have any delay about it either. You report to me in Petersburg to-morrow or I'll know the reason why; I go myself at daylight, but I'll leave a request with the Government that Captain Prescott also be despatched to me. I've got work for him to do."

The man spoke with the utmost dignity and his big black eyes shot fire.

"The king commands," said Raymond softly.

Wood put his hand on Harley's arm.

"Colonel," he said, "you are one of my lieutenants, and we're thinkin'

about a movement that I've got to talk over with you. You'll come with me now to the Spotswood Hotel, because there's no time to waste. I don't reckon you or I will get much sleep to-night, but if we don't sleep to-night we'll doze in the saddle to-morrow."

"The king not only commands, but knows what to command," said Raymond softly.

It was the general of the battlefield, the man of lightning force who spoke, and there was none who dared to disobey. Harley, himself a brilliant soldier though nothing else, yielded when he felt the hand of steel on his arm, and acknowledged the presence of a superior force.

"Very well, General," he said respectfully; "I am at your service."

"Good-night, gentlemen," said Wood to the others, and he added laughingly to the editors: "Don't you boys print anythin' until you know what you're printin'," and to Prescott: "I reckon you'd better say good-by to-morrow to your friends in Richmond. I don't allow that you'll have more'n a couple of days longer here," and then to Harley: "Come along, Colonel; an' I s'pose you're goin' out with us, too, Mr.

Redfield."

He swept up the two with his glance and the three left together, their footsteps sounding on the rickety steps until they pa.s.sed into the street.

"There goes a man, a real man," said Raymond with emphasis. "Winthrop, it takes such as he to reduce fellows like you and Harley to their proper places."

"It is unkind of him to kidnap Harley in that summary fashion," said Winthrop ruefully. "I really wanted to put a bullet through him. Not in a vital place--say through the shoulder or the fleshy part of the arm, where it would let blood flow freely. That's what he needs."

But Prescott was devoutly thankful to Wood, and especially for his promise that he, too, should speedily be sent to the front. What he wished most of all now was to escape from Richmond.

The promise was kept, the order to report to General Wood himself in Petersburg came the next day and he was to start on the following morning.

He took courage to call upon Lucia and found her at home, sitting silently in the little parlour, the glow from the fire falling across her hair and tinting it with deep gleams of reddish gold. Whether she was surprised to see him he could not judge, her face remaining calm and no movement that would betray emotion escaping her.

"Miss Catherwood," he said, "I have come to bid you farewell. I rejoin the army to-morrow and I am glad to go."

"I, too, am glad that you are going," she said, shading her eyes with her hands as if to protect them from the glow of the fire.

"There is one thing that I would ask of you," he said, "and it is that you remember me as I was last winter, and not as I have appeared to you since I returned from the South. That was real; this is false."

His voice trembled, and she did not speak, fearing that her own would do the same.

"I have made mistakes," he said. "I have yielded to rash impulses, and have put myself in a false position before the world; but I have not been criminal in anything, either in deed or intent. Even now what I remember best, the memory that I value most, is when you and I fled together from Richmond in the cold and the snow, when you trusted me and I trusted you."

She wished to speak to him then, remembering the man, stained with his own blood, whom she had carried in her strong young arms off the battlefield. With a true woman's heart she liked him better when she was acting for him than when he was acting for her; but something held her back--the shadow of a fair woman with lurking green depths in her blue eyes.

"Lucia!" exclaimed Prescott pa.s.sionately, "have you nothing to say to me? Can't you forget my follies and remember at least the few good things that I have done?"