In Hostile Red Part 33

His face showed deep concern.

"Don't be afraid that we will repeat your opinion to your hurt in the general's good graces," said Marcel, with a laugh that was pathetic. "We won't have many opportunities in the next twenty-four hours, and after that--well, the best story in the world will not interest us."

We were put in a one-room house of logs, and we sat there in silence for many hours watching the day fade. I was still hot with indignation. We deserved punishment, it was true, I repeated, but not death, an ignominious death such as that decreed for us. What good end could be served by such a deed?

But with the fading of the day my anger faded also. Then I thought of Mary Desmond, the curve of her check, the blue of her eye, and the sunshine in her hair. She did not hate me I knew. "O Mary," I said under my breath, "I shall never see you again!" and I covered my face with my hands.

"Bob," said Marcel, presently, holding out his hand, "forgive me."

"Forgive you, for what?"

"For leading you into that wild adventure. It was I who dared you to do it, who provoked you into joining me."

I could not accept any such a.s.sertion, and I told him so, adding that I did not wholly regret our excursion into Philadelphia.

"Miss Desmond!" said Marcel, understandingly, "she is worth any man's winning, and you might have won her if--if--"

Then he stopped abruptly and stared blankly at me, unwilling to finish the sentence. The night came presently, and they brought us food, which we scarcely touched. There was no light in our prison, but through the single iron window we could see flickering camp-fires outside. The low murmur of the army came to us.

We sat on our stools for a long time in silence. I was trying to prepare myself for the future, and I suppose that Marcel was occupied with a similar task. It must have been past 10 o'clock when the door of the prison was opened and our colonel came in. Sincere sorrow was written plainly on the good man's face.

"I have heard about you," he said, "and I went to him at once, and pleaded with him. I urged your previous good service and your youth, but I could not shake him a particle. There have been too many desertions lately, and the army is at a low ebb. You are officers, and your fate will be an example for all."

"Our case is past mending," said Marcel. "We thank you for your good wishes and your efforts, but I don't think that anything can be done."

"That is so," said the colonel. "The next life is what you must now consider."

Our colonel was a good man and a good soldier, but he was never noted for tact. Somehow he could not get off the subject of our execution, and when he left with tears in his eyes, and an expressed hope that he might deliver our last messages for us, he took with him our few remaining grains of courage, and we felt that death was very, very near.

Bye and bye, two more officers whom we knew well came to bid us good-bye. They had obtained permission from the general, they said, and they too had interceded for us, but fruitlessly; they could offer us no hope whatever. They were frank in condemning the severity of General Washington, and this knowledge that our friends regarded our punishment as far out of proportion to our crime, made it all the more bitter to us.

"General Washington may be a great man and a fine commander," said Marcel, after they had gone; "but he will never get forgiveness for this."

I pressed my dry lips together and said nothing. In an hour three more officers came, and one by one bidding us farewell went out again. Their gloomy manner depressed us still further.

"Curse it!" exclaimed Marcel. "I wish they wouldn't come here with their solemn faces, and their parting sermons! They make me afraid of death!"

He expressed my state of mind exactly, but there were more farewells. It was about midnight when the last of them came, a major who had been a minister once, and was never known to laugh. He talked to us so dolefully about the future, and the duty of all men to be prepared for the worst, that my nerves were jumping, and I could scarce restrain myself from insulting him. We were glad to see him go, and if ever I was thoroughly unprepared for death it was when the major left us.

The long night dragged wearily on, every minute an hour. Once I laughed aloud in my bitterness, when I thought of Mary Desmond hearing the news of my death.

We slept by s.n.a.t.c.hes, a few minutes at a time; but we were wide-eyed when the day came. I saw black lines under Marcel's eyes, and I knew that my own face was haggard too. The sentinel brought us breakfast; but did not retire as we ate, and when I looked at him inquiringly, he said,--

"Your escort is waiting outside."

The food choked me, and I could eat no more. "Come," I said to Marcel, "let's get it over."

We arose, and, walking out at the door, met soldiers who fell in before and behind us. The camp, or at least nearly all of it, was yet slumbering. Only a few fires were burning. Over the forests and fields the new-risen sun shone with a clear light.

They marched us to a little grove, and there General Washington and a half-dozen officers, our colonel among them, met us.

"I think that he might have stayed away," said Marcel, when he saw the commander-in-chief.

But General Washington, looking closely at us, said: "You do not appear to have slept well."

"Our time was so short that I thought we could not afford to waste any of it in sleep," I replied, with a sad attempt at a jest.

"General, kindly shoot us at once and have done with it!" exclaimed Marcel, who was ever an impatient man and now, expecting death, felt awe of n.o.body.

"Who said that I was going to have you shot?" asked General Washington, regarding us intently.

"Did you not tell us so yesterday?" I exclaimed.

"Not at all," he replied, his grim face relaxing. "I merely said that I would dispose of you to-day. I said nothing about shooting. That is an a.s.sumption of your own, although it is what you had a right to expect, and perhaps my words indicated such action. At any rate you seem to have had a fore-taste of what you expected."

The officers, all high in rank, our colonel among them, laughed aloud.

At another time I would have been deeply mortified, but not now. I began to see. I understood that our punishment was not to be death; but we had already paid the price, the night's expectation of it.

"Fortune loves us," whispered Marcel to me.

"What did you say?" asked the commander-in-chief, seeing the motion of his lips.

"I was telling Lieutenant Chester how thankful we should be that our understanding of your words was a misunderstanding," replied Marcel, promptly, and with that smile of his which few people could resist.

"Call it a jest. Do you imagine that you are the only jesters in this camp?" said the general, laughing a little. "I thought that you needed punishment, and you were too brave and useful to be shot. So I decided upon another plan, and I think it has been successful."

This, they say, was the only jest of General Washington's life, but I thank G.o.d that he made the exception. Marcel joins me.

"Moreover, some pleas have been made in your favor," continued the general. "Sir William Howe himself, before leaving, took the trouble to write to me and ask that you be treated gently. You are lads whom he loves, he said. Certainly I could afford to do so small a favor for the man who has made it necessary for his successor to give up to me the city of Philadelphia. And there is a young lady, too, who speaks well of you."

"A young lady!" I cried, suspecting.

"Yes, a young lady, Miss Mary Desmond, to whom we owe much, and who has just added to our debt, because last night when you were preparing so well for your future life, she was riding to us with the news that the British were about to depart from Philadelphia. She has told too, Mr.

Chester, how she met you that night you were on the way to warn us of the British attack, and how you rode on together. The circ.u.mstance was much in your favor. Yonder she is. You might speak to her, and then make ready for duty, like the valiant and loyal officers that you have been always--that is nearly always."

He smiled in kindly fashion, and patted us both on the shoulder. We thanked him with deep and fervent sincerity, and then I hurried away to Mary Desmond.

She stood under the boughs of one of the trees, holding her horse by the bridle.

"I am glad to see you, Lieutenant Chester, in your own proper guise,"

she said.

I took her warm little hand in mine, as I replied: "And I to see you again in yours." Then I added: "You have brought the news that the British are leaving Philadelphia?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Then may I come to see you there, still in my own proper guise?"

"If General Washington gives you time," she replied. "But to tell you the truth, I don't think you will stay long in Philadelphia. Now, good-bye."