The Iron Game Part 35

"You are sure you do not repent? You can stay if you choose," Jack said, as they entered the dressing-room.

"Where you go, I go; what you say is right I know is right, and I will do it." d.i.c.k looked away confusedly as he said this. They were surrounded by young officers, all of whom the two young men knew.

"Ah, ha, Mr. Perley! I have stolen a march on you; I have secured the first waltz from Miss Rosa," a young man at the mirror cried, as d.i.c.k adjusted his gloves.

"Then, Captain Warrick, I'm likely to be a wall-flower, for the second, third, and fourth were promised yesterday."

"Fortunes of war, my dear fellow--fortunes of war. You must lay siege to another fortress."

"d.i.c.k," Jack whispered, "it's an omen. It will give us time to slip out and change our garments without the danger of excuses, for, though nothing is suspected, any incautious phrase may destroy us."

"Don't fear for me. I shall be prudent as a confessor. We can't go, however, just yet. I must have a little talk with Rosa. I may never see her again. If you were in love and going from the light of her eye, perhaps never to see her again, you wouldn't be so cool. We must, anyway, take the ladies to the host and hostess for presentation; then a few words and I am ready." d.i.c.k was trembling visibly and blushing like a school-girl at first facing a cla.s.s-day crowd. Jack's heart went out to the lad, and he thought the chances about even that when the moment of trial came the boy's resolution would give way. The ladies were waiting for them when they emerged into the corridors--Rosa began, prettily, to rally d.i.c.k on his tardiness. It took time to thread the constantly increasing crowd in the hallways, the corridors, and on the stairs, but they finally reached the group in which Mrs. Davis was receiving the confused salutations of the throng at the drawing-room door. As soon as this formality was ended, Rosa whisked d.i.c.k in one direction while Mrs. Atterbury asked Jack to take her to the library.

Here, by a happy chance, she came upon a group of dowagers--friends of her youth from other towns--brought to the capital by the event, or their husbands' official duties in the new government. Jack bowed low as he relinquished the good lady's arm, feeling as if he were embarking on some odious treason, in view of her persistent and generous treatment of him and his.

"Now that you are among the friends of your youth, I will leave you; who knows whether I shall see you again?" he faltered, as she turned an affectionate glance upon him.

"Oh, you needn't think that you can take _conge_ for good, Jack. I may want to dance during the night. If I do I shall certainly lay my commands upon you. You may devote yourself to the young people now, but I warn you I am not to be thrown over so easily. Besides, I want to present you to a dozen friends that you have not yet met at my house."

"You will always know where to find me; but I am not so sure that I shall be as able, as I am willing, to come to you," Jack said, trembling at the double meaning of his words.

"Oh, I know you're dying to get to the dancers."

"I can go to no one that it will give me more happiness to please than you. Indeed, I'm going into danger when I quit you. Give me your blessing, as if it were Vincent going to the wars."

She had turned from the throng of ladies, who were discussing a political secret, and her eyes melted tenderly as Vincent's name pa.s.sed Jack's lips. She touched his bowed head gently, saying:

"Why, how serious you are! One would think beauty a battery, and you on the way to charge."

"You are right. It is a murderous ambush."

"Well, if you regard it so seriously--G.o.d bless you in it."

Her gentle eyes rested tenderly on him; he seized the kind hand, and, raising it to his lips in the gallant Southern fashion, turned and hurried away among the guests.

"Ah, Mrs. Atterbury, conquests at your age, from hand to lip, there's but short interval," and the President held up a warning finger as he came closer to the lady.

"Oh, no, age makes a long route between hand and lip--thirty years ago you kissed my hand, and you never reached the lip."

"It wasn't my fault that I didn't."

"Nor your misfortune either," and Mrs. Atterbury glanced archly at her rival, Mrs. Davis, the mature beauty of the scene.

d.i.c.k, meanwhile, not so dexterous in expedients or ready in speech as his mentor, became wedged in an eddy, just outside the main stream, pouring drawing-room ward, so that, returning to the spot where they had separated, Jack did not, for the moment, discover him.

Rosa's gayety and delight deepened the depression that made d.i.c.k so unlike himself. At first, in the exuberance of the scene, the girl did not heed this. She knew everybody, and, though in daily contact with most of them, there were no end of whispered confidences to exchange and tender rea.s.surances in ratification of some new compact. Then there were solemn notes of comparison as to the fit and form of gowns, or the fit of a furbelow, exhaustively discussed, perhaps that very afternoon. Keen eyes, merry and tantalizing, were lifted to d.i.c.k's sulky face during this pretty by-play, but all the gayety of the comedy was lost to him.

When he could contain himself no longer, with another bevy of cronies in sight coming down the stairs, he cried out, desperately:

"For Heaven's sake, Rosa, don't wait here like the statue in St.

Peter's, to be kissed by everybody on the way to the pope; it's simply sickening to stand here like a shrine to be slopped by girls that you see every day. Come away; I want to say something to you."

Rosa turned her astonished eyes upon the railer, and, with a comic movement of immense dignity, drew her arm from his sheltering elbow, and, in tones of freezing _hauteur_ retorted:

"And since when, sir, are you master of my conduct? I am my own mistress, I believe. I shall kiss whom I please."

"O Rosa, Rosa, I didn't mean that; I don't know what I meant. I--O Rosa, don't be fretful with me now! I can't bear it. I am ill--I mean I am tired. Come and sit with me."

Several on the outer edge of the flowing current turned curiously as this sharp cry of boyish pleading rose above the noisy clamor. It was impossible, however, to push backward, but in an instant the lovers were sheltered in an alcove near the doorway. Rosa had taken his rejected arm again in a panic of guilty repentance, and, looking at his half-suffused eyes, cried, piteously:

"Oh, forgive me, Richard, forgive me--I did not mean it! I forgot you were ill. Ah, please, please forgive me! You know--I--I--"

But d.i.c.k, now conscious that inquiring eyes were fastened upon them, curious ears listening, seized her arm, and, by main force, reached the hall doorway, now nearly deserted.

"Rosa, I am not well--that is, I have a headache, or heartache--it's the same thing. I didn't mean to tell you, for I didn't want to destroy your pleasure, and you have looked forward so long to this; but I--I--can not dance. Jack and I are going to walk a little while, and then we--we shall be more ourselves."

Poor d.i.c.k had only the slightest idea what he was saying, and Rosa listened with wide-open eyes and little appealing caresses, not quite certain what the distracted lover did mean.

"All your dances are taken up. Young Warrick just told me he had the first. You gave Gayo Brotherton two yesterday, so you will have no need of me for hours yet."

"But I will cut them if you say so. Only you know that it is our way here to give the first who ask."

"Yes, yes; that's right. I--I couldn't dance now. I shall be all right, presently if--if I see you happy. Ah, Rosa, if--if I should die--if I should be carried away, would you always love me, would you always believe in me?"

"Why, d.i.c.k, you are really ill; let me feel your wrist." Rosa seized d.i.c.k's hand and began a convulsive squeezing. "Yes, you certainly have a fever. You must go home. I shall go with you. It is your wound. It has broken out again--I know it has. You shall go home this instant. I will send for the carriage. Come straight up-stairs, you wicked boy! To let me come here when you are so ill! I shall never forgive myself--never!"

"A large vow for a small maid."

"Mr. Jack!"--for the voice was Jack's--"d.i.c.k is very ill, and he must go home at once. Will you not get the carriage and take us?"

"I will not take you. I am very experienced in d.i.c.k's ailments, and I have already summoned a physician, who is waiting for us. But he can not attend his patient if you are present."

"Yes, Rosa, Jack is right. I will leave you now, and when you see me again you will see that I am not ill--that I--I--"

"I will stop for you at the door, d.i.c.k. You know the physician can not be kept waiting, so make your parting brief. Short shrift is the easiest in love and war."

"A doctor is as dreadful to me as a battle, Rosa. Kiss me as if I were going to the field," d.i.c.k whispered as Jack's back was turned. A minute later he had joined his mentor, and the two hurried through the square and down toward the river.

"I can't do it, Jack," d.i.c.k suddenly broke out, as they hurried through the dark street. "I must leave Rosa a line telling her my motive. What will she think of me sneaking away like this without a word? Now, you go on to Blake's cabin and change your clothes. I will get an old suit of Vint's. It will really make no difference in the time, and it will be safer for us to reach the prison separately than together."

"No, d.i.c.k, be a man. Every line you write will add to our peril. She will, of course, show it to her mother. Our night will be known in the morning. Mrs. Atterbury is too loyal to the Confederacy to conceal anything. You will thus give the authorities the very clew they need.

No, d.i.c.k, you must be guided by me in this; besides, you can send Rosa letters through Vincent at headquarters as soon as we reach Washington."

"I can't help it. I know you are right, but I must do it. I will be with you in less than an hour. I'm off."

"Listen!--Good G.o.d, he's gone!" Jack e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed as d.i.c.k, taking advantage of a cross-street, shot off into the darkness. Jack halted. To call would be dangerous; to run after him excite comment, perhaps pursuit and discovery. There was nothing to be done but wait at the rendezvous. He would come back--Jack tried to make himself believe that he could depend on that. When, after a circuitous walk of half an hour, he reached the cabin of Blake, the colored agent of Mrs. Gannat, he found a note from his patroness warning him that the prison authorities had become alert. A rumor of a plot to escape had penetrated the War Department, and orders had been given to increase the precaution of the guards. The reception at the President's was a stroke of good fortune for the prisoners, as all the higher officials would be detained there until morning. Perhaps, in view of the chance, it would be better to antic.i.p.ate the hour of flight, as, unfortunately, the horses that had been got together for the fugitives were in use for the Davis guests, and on such short notice others could not be provided without exciting suspicion or pointing to the agency by which the liberation had been brought about.

"Ah, if d.i.c.k were only here," Jack groaned, "we could go to the square and lead away enough staff or orderly horses to serve the purpose. The little wretch! It would serve him properly to leave him here mooning over his sweetheart." Then his heart took up a little tremor of protest.

He sighed gently. He, too, had loitered when his heart pleaded. Why should d.i.c.k be firmer than he? It was after midnight when he reached the sheltering, broken, ground along the river. The provost prison fronted the water. It had been a tobacco warehouse, built long before, and hastily transformed into its present military purpose. It was set in what was called a "cut" in the heavy clay bank, thus bringing the lower windows below the level of the surrounding land. There were sentries stationed in front and rear, who walked at regular intervals from corner to corner. The sentinel on the high level to the rear could not see the ground along the wall, and it was this fact which Jack calculated upon to enable him to help the prisoners to remove the _debris_ of the wall through which they were to presently emerge. The night was pitchy dark.

This had been taken into consideration long before. Heavy clouds hung over the river, throwing the prison and its environs into still more security for Jack's purpose. He reconnoitred every available point, searched every corner of possible danger, and as the time pa.s.sed he began to rage with impatience against d.i.c.k, whose delay was now periling the success of the enterprise.