The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Ii Part 4

The Cerberus clutched the proffered coin and eyed it with feverish intensity. It was evidently the first quarter he had seen since the commencement of his services in that hole. The man's better nature was touched. "Hist!" he said, drawing Mr. PETERS aside and speaking in a whisper: "I can no longer conceal the truth. I am a Southern Union man."

It is a beautiful peculiarity of our common nature, _mon ami_, that crime never sinks so deeply nor perversion spreads so obstinately in the human soul, but there is still a deeper current of normal rect.i.tude responsive to the force of currency. That this was known to the ancients, is evinced by the antique custom of placing coins on the eyes of the dead, thereby signifying to all concerned that, whatever faults might have perished with the deceased, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_.

"Can't I have a room to myself?" asked BOB, after a short pause.

"Follow me," was the response; and he followed the keeper through a crowd of curious prisoners, up a stair-way against a wall, to a room on the next floor. The keeper opened the door with a key from one of his pockets, and led the way into an apartment whose only furniture was a bed, a ricketty chair and a bit of looking-gla.s.s on a shelf.

"I sleep here sometimes myself," said the keeper; "but you shall stay here for a small rent. Make yourself comfortable."

"Stop a minute," said BOB, as the man turned to leave. "Do you know how I came to be arrested?"

"I don't know exactly," was the answer; "but I believe you was informed upon by some woman. Good night. Here's the candle."

The prisoner cast himself upon the bed, as the key grated again in the lock, and was fast asleep before the poor fellows down stairs had extinguished their miserable lights.

In the morning the friendly keeper brought him his breakfast, consisting of a cup of something very much like "sacred soil" after a heavy rain, two geological biscuits and a copy of the Richmond _Whig_.

"What do you call this stuff?" asked Mr. PETERS, ruefully eyeing the contents of the cup.

"Coffee," replied the keeper, blandly, "real Mocha."

Mr. PETERS was silent. To call such fluid Mocha was sheer mockery.

The biscuits dispatched and the coffee defied, the captive betook himself to deep and admiring contemplation of the newspaper; and was deriving much valuable instruction from an article written to prove how skilfully and ingeniously the Southern Confederacy had struck a telling blow at its ruthless invaders by strategetically surrendering Norfolk, when an early visitor was admitted. Said visitor was a young man contained in a picturesquely-tattered uniform, with a fatigue cap on his head and a rusty sword rattling at his heels.

"BOB, my boy," said he, "how the mischief did you get into this sc.r.a.pe?"

"This is some of your family's Chivalry," responded Mr. PETERS, shortly.

"My governor certainly did come it over you a little," observed the visitor, who was no other than the younger ORDETH; "but you might have gone off safely enough if you'd been at the bridge at quarter-past Twelve, as you were told. I don't like the governor's style any more than you do, and if you had come to time I could have pa.s.sed you out of the lines easily enough."

"I did come to time," answered BOB, with great bitterness, "and a pretty time of night it was. How did I get into this sc.r.a.pe? The Southern Confederacy brought me here. I've had enough of you and your family. It affords me satisfaction to contemplate a perspective in which your family are attending a funeral of one of their number whose demise would be attended with funeral honors, if all his comrades were not engaged in the work of running away from MCCLELLAN."

Mr. PETERS hazarded this cutting insinuation of the future with an expression of countenance rigidly severe.

"But, my dear boy, there is some mistake. You--"

"Enough, Sir!"

"Oh, very well; if you won't you won't," exclaimed the Confederate youth, growing very red in the face. "All I have to say is, that I have done my part as your friend. If you had been at the bridge at quarter-past Twelve last night, you might be back among the Yankees now. And, let me tell you, those same Yankees will never conquer the South."

"Perhaps not," said Mr. PETERS, ironically.

"One of our officers has just invented a new gun that will soon teach the North manners," continued the Confederate, with increasing heat.

"It throws one-hundred-pound b.a.l.l.s as fast as a man can turn the handle."

"Ah!" said BOB, sneeringly.

"Yes; and it has but one defect."

"What's that?" asked BOB, with some appearance of interest.

"The handle won't turn!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young Virginian, darting hastily from the room to hide his emotion.

Mr. PETERS looked vaguely after the retreating form of the sensitive youth, and as one of the keepers relocked the door again from the outside, his face sank upon his hands. What did his visitor mean by accusing him of not making his appearance at the appointed time? It was exactly quarter-past Twelve when he left the house. "I see how it is,"

murmured Mr. PETERS, between his hands; "the boy has been taking something hot."

CHAPTER VI.--ANOTHER VISITOR.

The ladies were taking their usual promenade through the main corridor of the jail, curiously gazing at times through the newly-grated door at the prisoners in the main room, and seasoning their morning gossip with piquant observations on the probable execution of the horrid creatures there confined. Mrs. PEYTON took occasion to inform Mrs. MASON that she wouldn't pa.s.s a day without taking a look at the wretches for all the world; and Mrs. MASON informed Mrs. PEYTON that her life would hardly be endurable if she did not live in hope of seeing all the Abolitionists there yet. Here young Mr. BARON ventured to intimate that the Yankee prisoners were fortunate in being favored with such an array of _fair_ before them; for which he was saluted as an "absurd thing,"

and received a shower of taps from adjacent fans.

Miss ADAMS led her companion, a neighbor's child, to where a keeper was leaning idly against the wall.

"Are these all your prisoners?" she asked.

"All but one that was taken last night and is up stairs," replied the official.

"Is that one on exhibition?"

"I reckon he is, if you want to see him."

"Well," said Miss ADAMS, with an a.s.sumption of indifference, "I don't know that it's worth while; but--well, I reckon I _will_ look at him."

"This way, then, if you please," said the keeper, leading the way up an adjacent flight of stairs and conducting the fair one to the room occupied by Mr. PETERS.

BOB was gazing gloomily out of the window and did not recognize the presence of his new guests until the end of a parasol touched his shoulder.

"Miss ADAMS!" he exclaimed, offering his hand.

The young lady tossed her head haughtily:

"I don't wish to shake hands with an enemy of my country, sir."

"I see," said BOB, coolly, "the presence of a third party obliges us to vail our emotions. Keeper, leave the saloon."

"Pay no attention to him, Keeper," retorted EVE, indignantly, "I wish your attendance."

Not at all abashed by the severity of her tone, Mr. PETERS nodded to the officer and smiled pleasantly.

"Then I must expose you with a witness to it," he said, good-naturedly; "you are offended, Miss EVE because I did not comply with your kind note and meet your friends at a quarter-of Twelve, instead of walking straight into trouble at quarter-past, as I did."

"You are beneath my notice," was the answer of Miss ADAMS; "but since you choose to speak so I must explain myself to this good man here. You are indebted to me for your present situation. I am a Southern woman, sir, and it was my duty as a Southerner, to see that you did not escape to injure our cause by telling some of your Northern falsehoods about us. I wrote you the note you speak of in order that you might be drawn from your hiding place, and also one to the authorities putting them on the watch. I may be a woman, but I have the heart of a man."

If Miss ADAMS did _not_ have the heart of a man it was owing to no neglect on her part of any possible means to catch such a heart. That is to say, all her dearest and most intimate female friends said so.

Her speech was evidently intended to impress the prisoner with a torturing sense of woman's vengeance, but, contrary to her expectation, Mr. PETERS received it with the utmost complacency. In fact, he even evinced a playful disposition and favored the attentive keeper with an insidious wink.