The Iron Game Part 51

"Not a line, not a word concerning them has been heard. Mrs. Sprague sent agents so soon as the _Herald_ paragraph was shown to Olympia. They are in Washington now on the quest. It was there we got track of you--before you were sent here,"'

"Why was I sent here?"

Kate was about to speak. Again the shadow of her first fear--again the dread of some malevolent purpose on her father's part--choked her speech.

"I--I--don't know," she faltered.

"Who came with me?"

"My father."

"Ah!" Jones's eyes were penetrating her now. She felt the questioning in them, and turned her face to the clinging folds of the veil.

"Miss Boone, you seem to be deeply interested in these boys. Are you really their friend?"

"Ah, believe me, I am heart and soul their friend!"

"Does your father know it?"

"Yes: he knows that I am seeking them."

"Does he approve your search?"

"No, he does not."

"Good. Now listen. We have short time to work in. You have a carriage outside. Your father will be here any moment. I could never keep from him my indignation and even distrust. I shall get into that carriage with you, and you must conceal me somewhere and give me time to set the proper machinery in motion to find these boys. There is no other way.

Your father has some reason for keeping their whereabouts concealed. I may know the purpose and I may not. The boys may have been killed in the volley that struck me. It will require a mere telegram to find out. I know whom to address, but I must be where I can use trusted agents. I have no money. You can, I hope, provide me with that, or the Spragues if you can't."

He spoke with a flush deepening on his face, and arose with something like vigor.

"Ample means--you shall have any sum you need," Kate said, handing him a well-filled purse.

"Good--I have one or two articles in my room. I will fetch them and follow you to the carriage."

Ten minutes later the carriage was whirling over the broad road to Warchester. By Jones's advice it was stopped at the hospital. Here he proposed remaining for the night, to mislead suspicion if any one had taken the precaution to follow.

"I will remain with our friend Elkins to-night, as you suggest," Jones said; "to-morrow I will send you word of my whereabouts, and you may expect to have news of the boys within the week."

"My address will be in Washington," Kate said. "I shall go at once to the Spragues. They have been there, as I told you, to seek every possible source of information. I left them to follow you, hoping that through you I should find the missing."

"You made no mistake. I shall find them. You can tell your friends that," and he added, with a gleam of savage malice, "G.o.d help the man that has raised the weight of a feather against them, for he has put a heavy hurt on me if he has harmed them!"

Kate shuddered. Was she never to emerge from this hideous circle of vengeful hatred--this condition of pa.s.sionate vendetta--where men were seeking each other's harm? On reaching home she addressed a note to her father explaining frankly that she had entered into communication with Jones; that who had been pained by all that she had heard; that the inquiry had now pa.s.sed out of her hands and was in that of the authorities, and begging him to drop any partic.i.p.ation he might have meditated In a late letter Olympia had given good news of her mother, saying that Kate could return with safety, and, informing her father of this, Kate bade him good-by for a time.

When Kate reached Washington she found Mrs. Sprague convalescent, but painfully feeble. The poor mother reproached herself for the interruption of the search, and implored the two girls to begin again without a moment's delay. Kate gave her as much hope as she dared. She hinted something of the outlines of what she had done and the new agent in the field. With this Mrs. Sprague was greatly comforted, but begged then to remit no efforts of their own. It was after three days'

fruitless searching among the records of the department and among the men of the Caribee regiment, now returned to Washington _en route_ to the front, that Kate bethought herself of her father's probable presence in the city. She got out of the carriage and entered the long reception room of Willard's to make inquiry. The boy who came at her call said, as soon as she asked for Mr. Boone:

"Why, I jast saw him at the desk, paying his bill. He is probably there still. Wait here until I see."

But Kate, fearing that he might be gone before she could reach him, followed the boy. There was no sign of her father at the desk, and, turning hastily out of the main corridor, filled with officers and the clank of swords almost stunning her, she reached the porch just as a cab set out toward the station. She might a glimpse of her father's face in it. He was leaving the city. She must see him. The inspiration of the instant suggested by a cabman was followed. She hastily entered the vehicle and bade the driver keep in sight of the one her father was in until it came to a stop. The driver whipped up his horses, but there wasn't much speed in them. Kate dared not look out of the window, and sat in feverish anxiety while she was whirled along Pennsylvania Avenue, almost to the Baltimore Station, then the only one in the city connecting with the North. To her surprise, the driver stopped near the curb a block or more short of the railway. She looked out, and as she did so the driver pointed to her father's carriage halted just ahead.

She took out her purse, but was delayed a moment in getting the fare, keeping her eye, however, on her father as he hurried from the cab to a building before which a sentry was lazily pacing. She was not two minutes in reaching the doorway, but he had disappeared.

The soldier asked her no questions, and of course she could ask none, as probably her father was unknown to the military filling the place. She must follow on until she overtook him. There were clerks busy at long desks, military officials moving about with files of doc.u.ments. The presence of a few women in widow's weeds rea.s.sured Kate, and as no one molested her she persisted in her design. He was not on the lower floor, and, coming back, she ascended a broad stairway. The hall was wide, and filled with people all in uniform. She could hear a monotonous voice reading in front, where the crowd cl.u.s.tered thickest. She looked about helplessly, and tried to push forward. Suddenly she heard the words: "Guilty of taking the life of the same Wesley Boone. Specification third: And that the said John Sprague is guilty of the crime of spying inside the lines of the armies of the United States." For a moment Kate stood stupefied--rooted to the floor. Jack was undergoing an ignominious trial for murder--for desertion! All fear, all timidity, all sense of the unfitness of feminine evidence in such a place fled from her. She pushed her way through the astonished throng which fell aside as they saw her black dress and flowing drapery. She reached the last range of benches, where men were seated, some writing, some consulting doc.u.ments, while the clerk read the charges. Her eye fell upon her father seated near the place of the presiding officer. She grew confident and confirmed by the sight: it was a signal to the daring that fired her.

"Stop!" she said, in a clear voice. "I don't know what this place is; I don't know what meaning these proceedings have. I heard a charge that is not true. It is false that John Sprague murdered Wesley Boone. Wesley Boone was my brother, and he was killed in the dark by one of several shots fired at the same instant. Furthermore, my brother was armed and in the sleeping-room of the mistress of the house at the dead of night.

If John Sprague's bullet killed him it was shot in self-defense and in the safeguarding of two terrified women. He had no more idea of whom he was struggling with than--than the soldier who fires in battle.

Furthermore, he is no spy. He risked his life to rescue prisoners. He saved the life of one of them who can be brought here to testify. He--"

But here Kale broke down. She had spoken with a pa.s.sionate, resentful vehemence, her mind all the time seething with the fear and shame of her father's responsibility for this hideous attack upon the absent. She stretched out her hand exhaustedly for support. A young officer near her pushed up a chair and helped her into it. Boone had turned in speechless amazement as the first words of the voice sounded in his ears. His back was toward the door, and he had not seen Kate. He turned as she broke into this fervid apostrophe. Whether from surprise, prudence, or anger he sat silent, uninterrupting till she tottered into the seat placed for her by a stranger. Then he arose and went to her side, in nowise angry or discomposed so far as his outward demeanor betrayed him. The presiding officer of the court-martial had attempted to silence Kate by a gesture, but with eyes fixed steadily upon him she had disregarded his command. Now, however, he spoke:

"Madame, you must know this is highly disorderly and indecorous. The court can take no cognizance of this sort of testimony. Do you desire to be heard by counsel? If you do, the judge-advocate will give you all lawful a.s.sistance."

"If the court please, this lady is my daughter. She is somewhat excited.

I will take the necessary measures in the matter," Boone began.

Kate pushed her father from before her and again addressed the president.

"I refuse my father's aid in this case. I don't know what is necessary, but I ask this court, if it has anything to do with John Sprague, to give his friends an opportunity to present his story truthfully and without prejudice."

"The judge-advocate will give you all necessary information. Meanwhile, the case will be adjourned until to-morrow."

Elisha Boone stood beside his daughter, a figure of perplexity and chagrin. He dared not remonstrate openly. He was forced to hear the judge-advocate question this extraordinary witness, and instruct her on the steps necessary to be taken; worse than all, hear him inform Kate that the citations to John Sprague had been regularly issued, and that the evidence of his desertion rested wholly on the fact that he had put in no answer to the charges promulgated against him by his commanding officer; that the trial was proceeding on the ground that Sprague had deserted to the enemy, and refused to answer within the time allowed by law.

"But he has never heard of the charges," Kate cried, indignantly. "He has not been heard of since he escaped from Richmond."

"As we understand it, he reached the Union lines merely to ambuscade our outposts, and then returned to Richmond."

"His sister left Richmond ten days after his flight, and he had then pa.s.sed into our lines, as she had the surest means of knowing."

"There is some extraordinary error in all this. If Sprague can be produced before the term fixed by the regulations, he can vindicate himself by establishing the facts you have told me. If not, we have no alternative but to condemn him to death as a spy and deserter. The testimony on these specifications is uncontradicted. The murder we may not be able to establish, though we have witnesses of the shooting."

It was arranged that Sprague's counsel should see the judge-advocate at once, Kate giving him the address in case by any accident she should be prevented from seeing the Spragues. As she left the room, under a fusillade of admiring glances, she leaned on her father's arm, trembling but resolute. She now knew the worst, and she had no further terror. As they reached the door, her father asked:

"Where are you going? I suppose I need not tell you that I was on my way home when I came here, for I suppose you have been spying on my movements."

"Never. I feared you were acting unwisely, but I never dreamed of watching you. Providence has put your plans in my hands at nearly every step, but I was so ignorant that, of myself, the information would have done but little service to poor Jack. I came into the court by the merest chance. I saw you get into the cab at Willard's, and as I had only reached Washington, I wanted to see you before you went away. I drove after you--followed without the slightest suspicion of the place or your purpose in it."

"Well, all your running about is useless. He will be sentenced to death and the family disgraced. Nothing can now prevent that."

"Yes, Jack can prevent it! I can prevent it!"

"How?"

"Jack will be found. Surely they dare not commit such a monstrous crime against the absent, the undefended!"

"Well, we won't talk of it. I suppose you are with the Spragues?"

"Yes; I shall remain with them until this is ended."

"What if I should tell you to come home with me?"