The Littlest Rebel Part 16

He slid to the table and sprang lightly to the floor, facing his troopers with a smile, half-humorous, half in seeming disappointment, as he glanced at Virgie.

"I'm afraid the little rebel's right again. _He isn't there!_"

"Oh!" cried Virgie, then clapped her hands across her mouth, while the troopers slowly looked from her into the level eyes of their commanding officer. He stood before them, straight and tall, a soldier, every inch of him; and they knew that Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison was lying like a gentleman. They knew that their chief was staking the name and t.i.tle of an honorable soldier against the higher, grander t.i.tle of "a man."

Only Corporal Dudley stood disconcerted at the startling statement, but as there was no help for it he could only strangle an oath and give the order to pa.s.s out.

"_'Tention! Right face! Forward! March!_"

They mounted and rode a rod or two away, awaiting orders; while Morrison stood silently and watched them go. He, too--like Virgie--had wrestled with a problem, and it stirred him to the depths. As a trooper must obey, so also must an officer obey a higher will; yes, even as a slave in iron manacles. The master of war had made his laws; and a servant broke them, knowingly. A captured scout was a prisoner, no more; a spy must hang, or fall before the volley of a firing squad. No matter for his bravery; no matter for the faithful service to his cause, the man must die! The glory was for another; for one who waved a flag on the spine of a b.l.o.o.d.y trench; a trench which his brothers stormed--and gave the blood. No matter that a spy had made this triumph possible. He had worn a uniform which was not his own--and the dog must die!

So ruled the G.o.d of warfare; still, did war prescribe disgrace and death for all? If Cary had crept through the Union lines, to reach the side of a helpless little one--_yes, even in a coat of blue_--would the Great Tribunal count his deed accursed? Should fearless human love reap no reward beyond the crashing epitaph of a firing squad, and the powder smoke that drifted with the pa.s.sing of a soul?

"No! No!" breathed Morrison. "In G.o.d's name, give the man his chance!"

He straightened his back and smiled. He took from the table a rumpled paper and turned to the littlest factor in the great Rebellion.

"Here, Virgie! Here's your pa.s.s to Richmond--for you and your escort--through the Federal lines."

She came to him slowly, wondering; her tiny body quivering with suppressed excitement, her voice a whispering caress:

"Do you mean for--for Daddy, too?"

"Yes, you little rebel!" he answered, choking as he laughed; "but I'm terribly afraid you'll have to pay me--with a kiss."

She sprang into his waiting arms, and kissed him as he raised her up; but when he would have set her down, her little brown hands, with their berry-stained fingers, clung tightly about his neck.

"Wait! Wait!" she cried. "Here's another one--for Gertrude! Tell her it's from Virgie! An' tell her I sent it, 'cause her daddy is jus' the best d.a.m.n Yankee that ever was!"

The trap above had opened, and the head and shoulders of the Southerner appeared; while Morrison looked up and spoke in parting:

"It's all right, Cary. I only ask a soldier's pledge that you take your little girl to Richmond--nothing more. In pa.s.sing through our lines, whatever you see or hear--_forget_!"

A sacred trust it was, of man to man, one brother to another; and Morrison knew that Herbert Cary would pa.s.s through the very center of the Federal lines, as a _father_, not a spy.

The Southerner tried to speak his grat.i.tude, but the words refused to come; so he stretched one trembling hand toward his enemy of war, and eased his heart in a sobbing, broken call:

"_Morrison! Some day it will all--be over!_"

In the cabin's doorway stood Virgie and her father, hand in hand. They watched a lonely swallow as it dipped across the desolate, unfurrowed field. They listened to the distant beat of many hoofs on the river road and the far, faint clink of sabers on the riders' thighs; and when the sounds were lost to the listeners at last, the notes of a bugle came whispering back to them, floating, dipping, even as the swallow dipped across the unfurrowed fields.

But still the two stood lingering in the doorway, hand in hand. The muddy James took up his murmuring song again; the locusts chanted in the hot, brown woods to the ba.s.so growl of the big, black guns far down the river.

A sad, sad song it was; yet on its echoes seemed to ride a haunting, hopeful memory of the rebel's broken call, "Some day it will all be over!"

And so the guns growled on, slow, sullen, thundering forth the battle-call of a still unconquered enmity; but only that peace might walk "some day" in the path of the shrieking sh.e.l.ls.

CHAPTER VII

It was afternoon and over on the eastern side of the James where the old Turnpike leads up over the rolling hills to Richmond the sun was pouring down a flood of heat. The 'pike was ankle deep with dust and the fine, white powder, churned into floury softness by artillery and the myriad iron heels of war, had settled down on roadside bush and tree and vine till all the sweet green of summer hung its head under the hot weight and longed for a cooling shower which would wash it clean.

In fairer times the Pike had been an active thoroughfare for the plantations and hundreds of smaller truck farms which fed the capitol, but of late months nearly all this traffic had disappeared. For the days of the Confederacy were drawing slowly but none the less surely to a close.

Inside the breastworks and far flung fortifications which encompa.s.sed Richmond the flower of the rebel arms, the Army of Northern Virginia, lay like a rat caught in a trap. On three sides, north, east and south the Army of the Potomac under Grant beleaguered the city while the tireless Sheridan, with that lately developed arm of the Federals, the cavalry, raided right and left and struck hard blows at the crumbling cause where they were least expected. Yet in this same dark hour there had been a ray of light. Once the Confederacy had come within hairbreadth of overwhelming success, for Early's hard riding troopers had made a dash for Washington but a few weeks before and, with the prize almost in their grasp, had only been turned back by a great force which the grim, watchful Grant suddenly threw in between their guns and the gleaming dome of the nation's capitol.

But even this small success was not for long for when Early, crossing over into the luscious valley of the Shenandoah, began to scourge it with his hosts and threaten a raid into Pennsylvania, Sheridan broke loose from the restriction of telegraph wires and followed him to the death and finally broke the back of the great raid with his mad gallop from Winchester.

Meanwhile around Richmond, Lee and Grant, a circle within a circle, were constantly feeling each other out, shifting their troops from point to point in attack and defense,--for all the world like two fighting dogs hunting for an opening in the fence. And all the time the grim, quiet man in blue kept contracting his lines around the wonderful tactician in gray until the whole world came to know that unless Lee could break through the gap to the southwest the end of the war was plainly in sight.

And so it happened that on this hot July day the only sign of life on the 'pike was a small cloud of dust which drifted lazily in the wake of two people who pa.s.sed along the road on foot.

One of the two was a tired, gaunt man in a ragged uniform of gray who stared up the long, hot road ahead of him with eyes in which there was, in spite of every discouragement the light of a certain firm resolve.

The other of the two was a child with bare, brown legs and tattered gingham dress who limped painfully along beside the man, her sunny hair in a tangle half across her pinched and weary little face.

At a faint sigh of exhaustion from the child the man looked down, gathered her up in his arms and perched her on his shoulder. Then he plodded on again, a prey to weariness and hunger. The turning point in Herbert Cary's life had come. Thanks to a generous enemy; Virgie and he were now reasonably sure of food if once they could reach the Confederate lines but as for himself, with the woman he had loved asleep forever beneath the pines, the future could only be an unending, barren stretch of gray.

Then, almost as quickly, recollection of his duty towards her whom he carried in his arms came to him and he raged at himself for his moment of selfish discouragement. Spurred on by the necessity of gaining a point of safety for his child he began to calculate the distance yet to be covered and their chances of gaining friendly lines before encountering scouting parties of Federals. Behind him, a few miles south on the other bank of the James at Light House Point Sheridan was in camp with two brigades and Cary knew this fast riding, hard striking cavalryman too well not to suspect that the country, even in front of him, was alive with Union men. There was the pa.s.s which Morrison had given him, of course, but the worth of a pa.s.s in war time often depends more on him who receives it than on the signature.

But all those things, even food, would have to wait for a while because he was consumed with thirst and must find water before he went another mile forward.

A tired sigh from Virgie caught his ear and he stopped by a stone wall and let her get down from his shoulder. The child stood up on the broad, flat stones and then gave a little cry of pain. She raised one foot up and nursed it against her dusty, brown leg, meanwhile clutching her doll closer to her neck.

"It's all right, honey; be a brave little girl," her father said consolingly. "There's a spring along here somewhere and we can look after that poor little foot. Ah, there it is," he cried, as he caught sight of a big rock behind a stone wall with a seepage of water under it among some trees at one side. "Just sit still a minute--till I rest--and then we'll have a look." He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes to shut out the dizziness with which exhaustion and hunger filled his aching head.

The child watched him anxiously for a moment and then put a soft little hand on his shoulder:

"Are you _so_ tired, Daddy-man?"

"Yes, dear," he answered with a faint smile as he opened his eyes. "I had to catch my breath, but I'm really all right. Now then, we'll call in the hospital corps."

Virgie slipped down and sat on the top of the wall with her foot in her hand, rocking to and fro, but bravely saying nothing until her father's eye caught the look of pain on her pinched face.

"Does it hurt you much, dear?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. It--it hurts like the mischief," answered Virgie in a small voice. "It keeps jumping up and down."

"Little woman, that's too bad," he said with a consoling pat on the head which seemed to take most of the pain away. "But after we bathe it and tie it up it will feel better."

Kneeling beside the spring he took off his campaign hat of felt and dipped it full of clear, cold water.

"Wow!" cried Virgie suddenly in the interval and she slapped her leg with a resounding whack. "There are 'skeeters roun' this place. One of 'em bit me--an old _he_ one. Jiminy!"