The Debatable Land Part 18

On Sat.u.r.day, the end of the week after Antietam, the troop rode westward along the line of a railroad. The Confederates had been at it, some of them within a day or two, for the burned ties were still smoking. They had bent the rails by heating them in the middle and twisting them around the trees. At regular intervals were black circles of the fires and charred ends of ties. It was too systematic for guerillas.

"There," said a lieutenant to Mavering, "you can write your papers there are twenty or thirty miles of this, all done under the nose of the chief."

"A vigilant, aggressive man, the latter, I infer, is your matured opinion," said Mavering; and the lieutenant replied, dryly, "Something like that."

The sandy road-bed curved through woods that must have been straggling and discouraged in their green days, and now were black and smoking, for the abandoned fires had spread. The wind mourned through the desolation, and blew thin veils and streamers of smoke overhead.

"And no doubt Captain Map's opinion coincides with yours in favor of activity and vigilance."

"He's a hot-and-cool man to ride with. You might write that we're on a line which was burned through yesterday or the day before, and just now a lot of hostile cavalry are cavorting round the neighborhood somewhere, likely to drop on us any moment. We're out to find about this line and that cavalry, and get back if we can."

"I notice--a point that strikes an artist in realistic description inevitably--that Captain Map is calmly reading something as he rides.

Such things ill.u.s.trate."

"His nerve? Oh, that's all right."

"But the artist's imagination proceeds. Reading what? A newspaper? No, a written sheet, which the wind blows about in his hands. Perhaps instructions--or, better, a love letter."

"Likely enough."

"They do more than ill.u.s.trate. They fill in the foreground with humanity against the background of nature and event. You are an army officer, lieutenant, unlessoned, uninspired, unreflective, and may take the word of one old in variety, that the gist of life lies in men and women rather than in event, and that men and women are more worthy of consideration in persons than in ma.s.ses. The play is played in the foreground, and there is the plot and the crisis and the solution; there the action lies; practicable scenery left and right, practicable mob of courtiers, soldiers, or peasants in the rear--and--"

Morgan pulled in his horse and flung up his hand, the white paper fluttering in it. The troop halted short, plunging and scattering sand.

"Enter," observed Mavering, "a practicable enemy, lieutenant, from a practicable wood."

A quarter of a mile away the sandy road-bed curved and disappeared. A large body of cavalry swung around it. Morgan shaded his eyes with his hand and the fluttering paper. The troops sat stiff and intent. He shouted and wheeled his horse.

"Left wheel! Hard!"

Whirl, plunge, and shout. Mavering's horse slipped on the sand-bank, lost footing, and fell headlong into the ditch. Mavering struck the opposite bank in a heap, unlimbered, and came down with his feet across the horse's neck. He seized the bridle, jumped, and tugged. The troop was two hundred feet away, the squadron a thousand. A white paper, blown by the wind, danced and twinkled along in the sand. He tugged harder, leaning forward, and caught the paper, thinking, "That's Map's love-letter," heaved and shouted. The horse half rose; something went "thud" in his neck; he screamed and dropped again. Another bullet whined by Mavering's ear. He dropped the bridle--"I'm done, then"--and saw Morgan two hundred feet away, his horse halted and half turned, lifting his revolver again. Mavering dove down the sand, lay still in the ditch, and heard the third bullet whine close by, an inch from his ear, then the swift flight of Morgan's horse and the coming thunder of the squadron.

"Blanked if I don't read his blanked letter! What in--'Pa.s.s man wearing loose black clothes, broad, stiff-brimmed hat, shaven lips, black beard, smooth hair, of sect called Dunkers, carrying saddle-bags, riding bay horse with white forefoot, through all Union lines--bears important information, give all facilities, forward to Washington, signed--' And no signature."

But the rattle and roar were at hand, and the sense of a thousand hors.e.m.e.n about to charge into the small of his back. He thought, "I'll be searched in a minute," swept a handful of sand over the paper, clambered up the bank and sat on the burned turf above, hugging his angular knees. The head horseman pulled to the right and shouted.

"Follow 'em half a mile, Cary, and wait there."

The bulk of the squadron swept on.

"Search that man, you there! Pull that paper out of the sand."

Mavering groaned disgustedly. Two men were up the bank, feeling him all over with skilled precision. The colonel pulled his chin-whisker over the mysterious writing. "What's all this?" Mavering sat down again and brushed the sand from his trousers and long black coat-tails. His hat lay in the ditch. The troop remaining gathered in a semicircle, the colonel and Mavering in the centre, with ditch and the prostrate kicking horse between, practicable scenery of a September sky and burned woods around.

"I don't know, colonel," said Mavering, in solemn and rhythmic ba.s.s, "but I judge it's a job put up on you by the recondite and taciturn captain of the troop lately departed. He appeared to drop it with a policy and plugged at me with a revolver when I picked it up."

"You hid it, sir"--sharply.

"So I did. The truth is ever beautiful. He plugged my horse. Supposing he meant that for you, I'm not backing his game to-day. It's too deep for me, anyhow."

A young officer broke in at the colonel's elbow.

"Dunker? We pa.s.sed that man Monday up by the river, colonel. He was scattering tracts."

"Did? Here, then--Martinsburg, or further up! Go hard. Now, then, who are you?"

"Correspondent. You've got my credentials with the rest of the loot, of which you might lend me a dollar and a half and return the note-book containing a half-written but masterly article on--"

"Note-book? Article? Very good. Do for a Richmond paper. Credentials?

Where--Oh!"

"Sign it J.R. Mavering, and tell 'em the price is forty dollars."

The colonel was a small man, high-voiced, quick-eyed, but not without a certain cheerfulness. He glanced up from the papers with an appreciative twinkle. The men slouched easily in their saddles. The horses stamped and shifted.

"Here! Give these back to him."

"Don't we take him, colonel?"

"No. What for? Give him back everything. All ready! Forward! Wait!" He pulled up suddenly.

"Mr. Mavering." The little colonel was dignified.

Mavering pocketed his property calmly, as if in the common flux of things, the flowing change of time, scene, and event, it was not strange, whatever went and came, or however suddenly. Anyway, this world was a fleeting show, an incessant comedy without plot.

"Sir."

"Such Northern newspapers as yours, which have--in the past, at least--been inclined to criticise the unprovoked invasion of Virginia, it is desired by the authorities that such newspapers should be treated with consideration. You follow me, sir?"

"With strict attention." Mavering leaned forward, his hands on the burned turf. His feet dangled against the bank.

"Distinguished consideration. You will mention that att.i.tude, no doubt."

"No doubt at all."

"Good-morning, sir."

"Good-morning, colonel."

The troop departed with crowded thud of hoofs and scatter of sand.

Mavering watched them out of sight, then slid down the bank and picked up his hat. He lifted the head of the prostrate horse, but the eyes were dull, the throat full of blood; unbuckled the bridle and slung it over his arm. The long, yellow level of the road-bed to the nearest curves was empty in both directions. He was quite alone in the desolation. He muttered and hummed in profoundest ba.s.s. "Singular game--'Plaidie to the angry airt'--recondite, astrological. Make a note of it; cavalry officers as a cla.s.s are eccentric and deep. It's not my funeral. It appears to be the anchorite's. 'The brightest jewel in my crown'"--He crossed the road-bed, picked his way eastward into the woods, long-stepping, bridle on arm, gaunt and black, over the black ground among the gaunt, black stumps of the charred trees--"Wad be my queen."