The Iron Game Part 27

"The tribes in the Fiji Islands believe man-eating an ordinance of the G.o.ds!"

"Well, this sort of discussion leads to nothing," Vincent said, ruefully. "The world is well lost for the woman one loves, when I come to you shorn of my world!"

"Ah! then, Vincent, you will find another!"

He drew her hand from the clinging vines and kissed it.

"I am very happy. I shall lose my world with a very light heart."

"The world is a very tough brier; we sometimes bring it closer, when its thorns p.r.i.c.k us more painfully in the struggles to cast it off."

"Then I'll cut the brambles, and not risk tearing my flesh!"

"That's the soldier's way--the heroic way; but wait for the future; I am young and you are not old."

Vincent's gayety when they returned to the drawing-room attracted the observant d.i.c.k, and he slyly whispered to the warrior, "Been practicing the Roman strategy with the Sabines?"

"No, I've been at the Temple of Minerva and taken a pledge to hold my tongue."

"Ah! the G.o.ddess of the owls; but, as they see light only in darkness, I fear you groped in blackness."

The whole household were to meet President Davis and his party in Williamsburg, a.s.sist at the review, and get back with the distinguished guests in time for a state dinner. Merry and Mrs. Sprague were reluctant to go, but they feared a refusal would be misunderstood. Poor Merry was very tearful and disconsolate at the thought of leaving d.i.c.k, but she strove heroically to hide her grief when the cavalcade set out, the elder ladies driving, the young people mounted. The ancient capital of Virginia was aflame with the new rebel bunting. President Davis, with Generals Lee and Magruder, were in place on the pretty green before the old colonial college edifice when the Rosedale people came up. Davis saluted Mrs. Atterbury with cordial urbanity; but, as the troops were already in column, there was only time for hasty presentation of the strangers.

Jack watched the rather piebald pageant with absorbed interest. The infantry marched wretchedly. The arms were as varied as the uniforms, and the artillery seemed a relic of Jackson's time. But the cavalry was superb. Never had he seen such splendid ranks, such n.o.ble horses. At sight of the tall, elegant figure of the President, the troops broke into the peculiar shrill cheer that afterward became a sound of wonder, almost terror, to unaccustomed Northern ears. It was a mingling of the boyish treble of college cries and the menacing shriek of the wild-cat.

Jack was secretly very much delighted with the review. More than half the rank and file were mere boys; and he could see that they were unruly, almost to point-blank disregard of their officers commands, or the prescriptions of the manual. It would take short work for the disciplined hosts the new Northern general was training, to sweep such chaff from the field of war. Vincent saw something of this in his comrade's eye, and a good deal nettled himself by the slovenly march and humorous abandon of the men, he said:

"You must remember, Jack, our army is made up of gentlemen's sons; the gentry of the South are all in arms, and we can't at once reduce them to the mere machines a more heterogeneous soldiery can be made. The men who won Mana.s.sas pa.s.sed in review a day or two before the battle, and they made the same impression upon me--upon Beauregard himself--that I see these men have made on you. Depend upon it, in a fight they will be good soldiers."

"Let me have the poor comfort of underrating my enemy, the thing above all others that a wise man shuns and a fool indulges."

"Oh, on that theory revile them if you like."

"No, indeed; I'm far from reviling them. The cavalry is magnificent. I don't think we have a regiment in our army that can compare with that brigade. Who commands it?"

"Jeb Stuart--the Murat of the South," Vincent said, proudly. "I'm going to tell the President what you said of the brigade; you know he is pa.s.sionately fond of the army, and really wanted to be the commander-in-chief, when they made him President at Montgomery."

At sunset the President and General Lee entered the carriage with Mrs.

Atterbury and Mrs. Sprague, Merry driving in a phaeton with Kate, who didn't enjoy so long a ride on the horse.

"I'm glad we've got such important hostages as yourself and son," Davis said gallantly to Mrs. Sprague, as the carriage pa.s.sed out of the clamor of acclamation the crowd set up. "I knew the Senator, your husband, intimately. If he had lived, I doubt whether we should have been driven out of the Union. He was, in my mind, one of the most prudent statesmen that came from the North to Congress."

"He certainly never would have consented to break up the Union," Mrs.

Sprague said, in embarra.s.sment.

"Nor should I, madam, if there had been any further security in it. The truth is, there was nothing left for us but to go out or be kicked out.

The leaders of the Abolition party long ago proclaimed that. However, war settles all such problems. When it is settled by the sword we shall be satisfied."

Mrs. Atterbury changed the conversation by asking how Mrs. Davis liked Richmond.

"Oh, she has been treated royally by the people there. I declare Richmond is as Southern a city as Charleston. I have been agreeably surprised by the absolute unanimity of gentle and simple in the cause.

My wife receives a clothes-basketful of letters every morning from the mothers of the Confederacy proffering time, money, and service wherever she can suggest anything for them to do. I propose later on establishing an order something like the Golden Fleece, which shall confer a certain social precedence upon the wearers. I have thousands of letters on the subject, and as the society of the South is, as a matter of fact, a society of gentle-folk--for the most part lineally descended from the n.o.bility of older countries--I think it proper and right that lineage should have certain acknowledged advantages in the new commonwealth. But I propose to go further, and inst.i.tute an order of something like n.o.bility for women--who have thus far given us great help and encouragement. Indeed, there are many in the Congress--a dozen Senators I could name--who think that we ought to make our regime entirely different from the North, and that we should adopt a monarchical form--"

"I'm sure, I think we should," Mrs. Atterbury exclaimed, delightedly.

"We are really as unlike the Northern people as the French or the Germans."

"The strongest argument for declaring the Confederacy an empire is the one that weighed with Napoleon I. We should at one stroke secure the alliance of all the monarchies. They have never looked with favor on the experiment of a powerful republic over here, and it is almost certain they would befriend us for transforming this mighty infant state into an empire. However, that is for future action. Our agents abroad have sent us full reports on the matter."

"I doubt the wisdom of ever hinting such a thing," General Lee said, gravely. "We must show that we are able to act independently in selecting our form of government. I doubt very much whether the ma.s.ses would listen favorably to an empire established by foreign aid."

"Possibly, general, possibly. As I said before, there will be time enough for that when, like Napoleon, we have made our armies the masters of this continent. Then, with boundaries embracing Mexico, Canada, and the Western States--for they can never exist independent of us--we can choose empire, republic, or a Venetian oligarchy."

As they came in sight of Rosedale, Davis stood up in the carriage to get a better view of the landscape, which showed swift alternations of dense thickets and wood and rolling acres of rich crops.

"What a State Virginia is!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "It has the climate and soil to support half of Europe. Mother of Presidents in the past, it will be the granary and magazine of the Confederacy in ten years. My own State, Mississippi, is rich in land, but the climate is hard for the stranger. It enervates the European at first. But we are an agricultural people, or rather we give our energies to our staple, cotton; that is to be the chief treasure of the Confederacy."

Dinner was ready for the table when the guests came from their rooms.

Davis excused his lack of ceremonial dress, saying pleasantly:

"I am something of a soldier, you know, and travel with a light train.

Lee, there, has the advantage of me. A soldier's uniform is court costume the world over."

"But you are the commander-in-chief, Mr. President. Don't you have a uniform?"

"No. I am commander-in-chief only in law. Congress is really the commander-in-chief. The man that a.s.sumes those duties can attend to them alone. He is, of course, subject to the executive; but only in general plans, rarely in details."

Davis was placed at Mrs. Atterbury's right, Mrs. Sprague at her left, General Lee sat at Vincent's right, _vis-a-vis_ to Jack, who was lost in prodigious admiration of the Socratic-like chieftain--Lee was as yet unknown to all but a discriminating few in the Confederacy. He was as tall as Davis fully six feet--but more rounded and symmetrical. He spoke with great gravity, but seemed to enjoy the jests that the young people found opportunities to indulge in, when it was seen that the President devoted his talk exclusively to the hostess or Mrs. Sprague. Davis was a good talker, and charmed the company with reminiscences of old times in Congress.

"I don't remember Lincoln distinctly," he said, concluding a reminiscence, "but I think he's the man that used to be so popular in the House cloak-room, telling stories which were said to be extremely droll."

"Mrs. Lincoln is in some sort kin to Mrs. Davis, isn't she?" Mrs.

Atterbury asked. "I have read it somewhere."

"Very distant. Mrs. Lincoln is of the Kentucky Tods, and they were in some way kin of my wife's family, the Howells. Not enough to put on mourning, if Mrs. Lincoln should become a widow."

"Is it true, Mr. President, that a society in the North has offered a million dollars for your capture--abduction? I heard it in Williamsburg, and saw an allusion to it in _The Examiner_ the other day."

"Oh, I'm sure I can't say. If the offer were authenticated, I should be tempted to go and get the reward myself. With a million dollars I could do a good deal more for the cause in the North than I can here, making brigadiers and settling questions of precedence between Cabinet ministers, judges, and Senators."

"Mr. President, give me an exchange North, and I will ascertain the facts in the million-dollar offer and write you faithfully how to set about getting the money," Jack said, very soberly, from his end of the table.

"Ah! the Yankee spoke there--nothing if not a bargain. Sir, you deserve your clearance papers, but I'm too good a friend of Mrs. Atterbury and her daughter to bring about the loss of company that I am sure must be agreeable. Then, too, there's no telling the miracles of conversion that may be brought about by such ministers as Miss Rosa there."

Rosa blushed, Jack felt foolish, and everybody laughed except d.i.c.k, who looked unutterable things at his adored, and boldly entered the lists against the great personage by asking, in a quivering treble:

"Doesn't the Bible say that the wife shall cleave to the husband; that his people shall be her people, his G.o.d her G.o.d, where he goes she goes?"

"It is so said in the Bible, sir; but it was a woman that uttered it, and she was in love. When you know more of the s.e.x, you will understand that women in love are like poets; they say much that they don't mean, and more that they don't understand."

"But, Mr. President, what the one woman said in the Bible all women practice. You never knew a woman that didn't believe her husband's beliefs, hate his hates, love his loves."