The Master of Warlock Part 26

I tell you, Agatha, I must break out of this. As soon as I have strength enough to ride a horse, I must find a way of getting back to Virginia.

And with the stimulus of strong desire, I shall not be long now in regaining that much of strength. In the meanwhile, I must think out a plan by which I can pa.s.s the Potomac without falling into the enemy's hands."

"I have already thought of all that," returned his companion, "and I have had others thinking of it, too,--all the friends in Maryland with whom I am in correspondence. After studying the conditions minutely we are agreed in the positive conviction that it will be impossible for you to get through the Federal lines, which are more rigidly drawn and more vigilantly guarded now than ever before. You cannot even start on such a journey without being arrested and imprisoned, and that would completely defeat your purpose."

"I must take the chances, then. For I simply will not sit idly here after I get well enough to sit in a saddle."

"Listen," commanded Agatha. "You are exciting yourself, and that is very bad for you. Besides, it is wholly unnecessary, for I have thought myself not into despair, but into hopefulness, rather. I have devised a plan, the success of which is practically a.s.sured in advance, by which you and I are going back into the Confederacy. No, I will not tell you what it is just now. You have excited and wearied yourself too much already. You must go back to your bed now, and sleep for several hours.

When you wake, you shall have something to eat, and after that, if I find you sufficiently calm, I will tell you all about it. In the meantime, you may rest easy in your mind, for my plan is sure to succeed, and it will not be difficult of execution."

XXVIII

_WHEN A MAN TALKS TOO MUCH_

When Baillie had had his rest, he asked Agatha again to tell him of her plans. She explained that it was understood in the little town that he was a French gentleman who had suffered a severe hemorrhage; that as soon as he should be sufficiently recovered, it was his purpose to return to his own country in charge of his French nurse; that she planned in that way to sail with him from New York for Liverpool, where he would be free, as soon as his health should return, to go to the Bahamas and sail thence for Charleston, Wilmington, or some other Southern port, in one of the English blockade-runners that were now making trips almost with the regularity of packets.

Baillie approved the plan, though he lamented the length of time its execution must consume.

"Agatha," he said,--for since that morning at Fairfax Court-house he had addressed her only by her first name,--"I owe you my life, and I shall owe you my liberty, too, as soon as this admirable plan of yours can be carried out. I owe you, even now, such liberty as I have, for but for you--"

"You mustn't forget Sam," she interrupted; "it was he and not I who rescued you from the prison hospital."

"O, my appreciation of Sam's devotion is limitless, and my grat.i.tude to him will last so long as I live. But it was you who brought him North; it was you who planned my rescue at terrible risk to yourself, and put Sam in the way of accomplishing it. And the doctor tells me without any sort of qualification that but for your coming to me as a nurse when you did, I should have died certainly and quickly. Don't interrupt me, please, I'm not going to embarra.s.s you with an effort to thank you for what you have done. There is a generosity so great that expressions of thanks in return for it are a mockery--almost an insult, just as an offer to pay for it would be. I shall not speak of these things again--not now at least, not until time and place and circ.u.mstance shall be fit. I only want you to know that silence on my part does not signify indifference."

Baillie made no reference to that occasion when an untimely declaration of his love had been wrung from him only to be met by a pa.s.sionless reminder that the time and place were inappropriate. He felt instinctively that any reference to that utterance of his would be in effect a new declaration of his love. In this spirit of chivalry, Baillie scrupulously guarded both his manner and his words at this time, lest his feelings should betray him into some expression that might embarra.s.s the woman whose care of him must continue for some time to come. Feeling, on this occasion, that he had approached dangerously near to some utterance which might subject his companion to embarra.s.sment, he resolutely turned the conversation into less hazardous channels.

"Your plan is undoubtedly the best that could be made under the circ.u.mstances," he said, "and as for the waste of time, we must simply reconcile ourselves to that. After all, I cannot hope to be strong enough for several months to come, to resume command of my battery in such campaigns as this great leader of ours will surely give us. For he is really and truly a great leader, Agatha. Only a great general could have wrought the marvels he has achieved. He would have proved himself great if he had done nothing more than prevent McClellan's reinforcement by sending Jackson to the valley. That was a great thought. And the next was greater. Having compelled the Federals to divert their reinforcing army from its purpose, he brought Jackson to Richmond, and fell upon McClellan with a fury that compelled his vastly superior army to abandon its campaign and retreat to the cover of its gunboats. There was a second achievement of the kind that only great generals accomplish. And even that did not fulfil the measure of his greatness. With a truly Napoleonic impulse, and by truly Napoleonic methods, he instantly converted his successful defence of Richmond into an offence which has been equally successful, so far. By his prompt movement against Pope he has compelled the complete abandonment of McClellan's campaign and the withdrawal of his army from Virginia. By his crushing defeat of Pope, he has cleared Virginia of its enemies, and changed the aspect of the war, from one of timorous defence on the part of the Confederates to one of confident aggression."

"What a pity it is," answered Agatha, "that some such man was not in command when the first battle of Mana.s.sas was won!"

"Yes. Such a man, with such an opportunity, would have made a speedy end of the trouble. He would never have given McClellan a chance to organise such an army as that which has been besieging Richmond. However, that is not what I was thinking of. I was going to say that a man capable of doing what Lee has done, will not rest content with that. He will continue in the aggressive way in which he has begun, and we shall hear presently of other battles and other campaigns. Agatha, I simply _must_ bear a part in all this. I am getting stronger every day now, and can sit up two hours at a time. Why can we not now carry out your plan? Why can we not go at once to New York in our a.s.sumed personalities, and sail immediately, so as to save all the time we can?"

"I have thought of that," the young woman answered, "but the doctor peremptorily forbids it for the present. He hopes you will be well enough two or three weeks hence to make the effort, but to make it short of that time, he says, would be almost certainly to spoil all by bringing on a relapse. You must be patient; we shall in that way make our success a certainty, and the war will last long enough for you to have your part in it, surely."

"Yes, unhappily for our country, it will last long enough."

The next morning brought news of a startling character. Lee was already beginning to fulfil Baillie's prediction by an aggressive campaign.

Having driven the enemy out of Virginia, he now undertook to transfer the scene of the fighting to the region north of the Potomac. He had sent Jackson again to clear the valley, and was marching another corps northward upon a parallel line east of the mountains, while holding the remainder of his small but potent army in readiness to form a junction with either of the detached corps when necessary. The movement clearly foreshadowed a campaign in Maryland which, if it should prove successful, would place the Confederates in rear of Washington, and render that capital untenable, if Lee should win a single decisive battle north of the Potomac.

The alarm in Washington was such as almost to precipitate a panic. For had not Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia proved themselves far more than a match for every general and every army that had tried conclusions with them? Moreover, as they were advancing, full of the enthusiasm of recent victory, and free to pursue whatever routes they pleased, there was n.o.body to meet them except one or the other of two generals already discredited by defeat at Lee's hands, and an army drawn from those that the Army of Northern Virginia had so recently overthrown in the field.

Pope was no longer thought of as a leader fit for the task of meeting Lee. His campaign in Virginia had ended so disastrously, that men forgot all his former achievements, at Island Number Ten in the Mississippi, and elsewhere. He had already been removed from command and sent to fight Indians in the Northwest. There remained only McClellan, whom Lee had already outmanoeuvred and outfought, and both the government and the army had lost confidence in him. But the emergency was great, and McClellan, who had been removed, was again ordered to take command.

From the two armies that had been driven out of Virginia, a new one was quickly organised, which greatly outnumbered Lee's force. But instead of moving quickly to the a.s.sault, as Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas would have done under like circ.u.mstances, McClellan moved at a tortoise-like pace, giving his adversary ample time in which to unite his three columns, pa.s.s the Potomac unmolested, and push forward into Maryland.

All this was to come a little later, however. On the morning when Agatha read the newspapers to Baillie, all that was known was that Lee was rapidly moving northward, with evident intent to invade Maryland and push his columns into the rear of Washington.

"This is good news for us, Agatha," Baillie said, when the despatches had been read. "Unless Lee receives a check, the Army of Northern Virginia will be swarming all about us here within three or four days.

If that occurs, you and I and Sam will have no difficulty in going to Virginia by a much more direct route than the one we have been planning to follow. An ambulance ride with liberty for its objective will do me no harm, while you and Sam shall be provided with good horses. Stuart will take care of that, even if he has to capture the horses from the enemy."

"We may safely trust him for so much of accommodation," answered the girl. "But if you excite yourself as you are doing now, you'll be ill again, and spoil all. You must go back to bed at once and go to sleep.

That is your shortest road to rescue, now, whether Lee comes this way or is beaten back. In either case you will need all of strength that you can manage to acc.u.mulate."

The sick man obeyed, so far at least as going to bed was concerned. But he found it impossible to comply with his nurse's further injunction by going to sleep. His pulses were throbbing violently with the excitement of hope, and his nerves were tense almost to the verge of collapse. When the doctor returned from his round of visits he found his patient in a fever that, in one so weak, was dangerous. During the following night Baillie grew worse, and by the next morning the physician was convinced that he had lost most if not all of the ground that he had gained during three weeks of convalescence.

"Mademoiselle Roland," he said, "I must command you to forbid him to talk hereafter, even in French."

Baillie heard the remark, and came instantly to Agatha's defence.

"It was not her fault, Doctor," he said. "It was all my own."

"O, I know that," answered the physician. "She's the discreetest nurse I ever knew, while you are without question the most obstinate, cantankerous, and unruly patient a nurse was ever called upon to keep in subjection."

"Am I all that?" Baillie asked Agatha, when the doctor had left the room; "all that he said?"

"No, certainly not. But you mustn't talk. Go to sleep."

"Thank you!" was all that he could say in the stupor which the physician had induced with a sleeping potion.

XXIX

_A STRUGGLE OF GIANTS_

When Baillie woke from his drug-compelled sleep, his condition was far better than the doctor had antic.i.p.ated. Lee was coming now, and the sick man was buoyed and strengthened by a confident hope of speedy rescue.

The Army of Northern Virginia was in Maryland, and Baillie was sure that it would push rapidly eastward to and beyond the town where he had so long lain ill.

So it would have done if all had gone well. But there was a Federal force of eleven thousand men at Harper's Ferry. By all the principles of strategy it ought to have retired as soon as Lee crossed the Potomac above or below that point. To remain was to be cut off and to invite capture. McClellan, as a trained and scientific soldier, understood this perfectly, and he wished the force at Harper's Ferry to be withdrawn and added to his army. He was overruled by the civilian authorities at Washington, and the detached force remained in its entrenchments, completely isolated and helpless.

But in the meanwhile its presence at Harper's Ferry completely blocked Lee's only secure route of retreat in case of disaster. It was absolutely necessary for him to reduce it before continuing his progress northward or eastward. To that end he was obliged to send Jackson back across the Potomac, with orders to a.s.sail Harper's Ferry from the south, while other forces, detached for that purpose, should hold positions north and east of the town, thus preventing the garrison's escape.

Jackson did his part promptly and perfectly, as it was his custom to do.

He carried the place, capturing the entire garrison of eleven thousand men, and all the guns, ammunition, and military stores, which had been acc.u.mulated there in vast quant.i.ties.

This was a very important capture, but in order to accomplish it, Lee had been compelled to scatter his forces in a dangerous fashion, besides losing the advantage that would have attended a rapid advance against an enemy who could not know whither he purposed to go, but must guard all roads at once. For from Lee's position after he had crossed the river it was open to him to advance upon Washington or Baltimore or Philadelphia as he might elect, keeping his adversary in the meanwhile in a state of embarra.s.sing uncertainty as to his purposes.

But when he sent Jackson back and detached other strong forces to hold the avenues of escape from Harper's Ferry, his army was badly scattered, its several parts lying at too great a distance from each other for ready cooperation.

During the consequent days of waiting, McClellan was advancing in leisurely fashion to meet the Confederate movement, and his army was every day adding to its strength by the hurrying forward of fresh regiments and brigades to its reinforcement.

Finally Lee issued an order setting forth in detail his plan for concentrating his scattered forces. Copies of this order, showing the exact location of each part of the army and the movements to be made by each, were sent to all of the corps commanders. One of those copies was lost, and fell into McClellan's hands.

For once that most leisurely of generals was in a hurry. His opportunity had come to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia by beating it in detail. He threw a strong force forward to a.s.sail certain of its positions. The a.s.sault proved successful, but the success did not come so quickly as it should have done. By determined fighting Lee gained time in which to bring his scattered forces together again at Sharpsburg before his adversary could fall upon him in force. There, on Antietam Creek, on the 17th of September, 1862, was fought a battle which is reckoned the bloodiest of all the war, in proportion to the numbers engaged.