The Purchase Price Part 1

The Purchase Price.

by Emerson Hough.

CHAPTER I

A LADY IN COMPANY

"Madam, you are charming! You have not slept, and yet you smile.

No man could ask a better prisoner."

She turned to him, smiling faintly.

"I thank you. At least we have had breakfast, and for such mercy I am grateful to my jailer. I admit I was famished. What now?"

With just the turn of a shoulder she indicated the water front, where, at the end of the dock on which they stood, lay the good ship, _Mount Vernon_, river packet, the black smoke already pouring from her stacks. In turn he smiled and also shrugged a shoulder.

"Let us not ask! My dear lady, I could journey on for ever with one so young and pleasant as yourself. I will give you my promise in exchange for your parole."

Now her gesture was more positive, her glance flashed more keenly at him. "Do not be too rash," she answered. "My parole runs only while we travel together privately. As soon as we reach coach or boat, matters will change. I reserve the right of any prisoner to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I shall endeavor, believe me--and in my own way."

He frowned as she presently went on to make herself yet more clear.

"It was well enough when we traveled in our own private express, from Washington here to Pittsburgh for then there was no chance for escape. I gave my parole, because it pleased you and did not jeopardize myself. Here my jailer may perhaps have some trouble with me."

"You speak with the courage and fervor of the true leader of a cause. Madam," he rejoined, now smiling. "What evil days are these on which I have fallen--I, a mere soldier obeying orders!

Not that I have found the orders unpleasant; but it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons! Such is not the usage of civilized warfare. Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves."

"Arrogate is quite the right word. It is especially fit for a jailer."

This time the shaft went home. The florid countenance of young Captain Carlisle flushed yet ruddier beneath its tan. His lips set still more tightly under the scant reddish mustache. With a gesture of impatience he lifted his military hat and pa.s.sed a hand over the auburn hair which flamed above his white forehead. His slim figure stiffened even as his face became more stern. Clad in the full regimentals of his rank, he made a not unmanly figure as he stood there, though hardly taller than this splendid woman whom he addressed--a woman somewhat reserved, mocking, enigmatic; but, as he had said, charming. That last word of description had been easy for any man who had seen her, with her long-lashed dark eyes, her clear cheek just touched with color, her heavy dark hair impossible to conceal even under its engulfing bonnet, her wholly exquisite and adequate figure equally unbanished even by the trying costume of the day. She stood erect, easy, young, strong, fit to live; and that nature had given her confidence in herself was evidenced now in the carriage of head and body as she walked to and fro, pausing to turn now and then, impatient, uneasy, like some caged creature, as lithe, as beautiful, as dangerous and as puzzling in the matter of future conduct. Even as he removed his cap, Carlisle turned to her, a man's admiration in his eyes, a gentleman's trouble also there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carlisle turned, a man's admiration in his eyes]

"My dear Countess St. Auban," said he, more formally, "I wish that you might never use that word with me again,--jailer! I am only doing my duty as a soldier. The army has offered to it all sorts of unpleasant tasks. They selected me as agent for your disappearance because I am an army officer. I had no option, I must obey. In my profession there is not enough fighting, and too much civilian work, police work, constable work, detective work.

There are fools often for officers, and over them politicians who are worse fools, sometimes. Well, then, why blame a simple fellow like me for doing what is given him to do? I have not liked the duty, no matter how much I have enjoyed the experience. Now, with puzzles ended and difficulties beginning, you threaten to make my unhappy lot still harder!"

"Why did you bring me here?"

"That I do not know. I could not answer you even did I know."

"And why did I come?" she mused, half to herself.

"Nor can I say that. Needs must when the devil drives; and His Majesty surely was on the box and using his whip-hand, two days ago, back in Washington. Your own sense of fairness will admit as much as that."

She threw back her head like a restless horse, blooded, mettlesome, and resumed her pacing up and down, her hands now clasped behind her back.

"When I left the carriage with my maid Jeanne, there," she resumed at length; "when I pa.s.sed through that dark train shed at midnight, I felt that something was wrong. When the door of the railway coach was opened I felt that conviction grow. When you met me--the first time I ever saw you, sir,--I felt my heart turn cold."

"Madam!"

"And when the door of the coach closed on myself and my maid,--when we rolled on away from the city, in spite of all I could do or say--, why, then, sir, you were my jailer. Have matters changed since then?"

"Madam, from the first you were splendid! You showed pure courage.

'I am a prisoner!' you cried at first--not more than that. But you said it like a lady, a n.o.blewoman. I admired you then because you faced me--whom you had never seen before--with no more fear than had I been a private and you my commanding officer."

"Fear wins nothing."

"Precisely. Then let us not fear what the future may have for us.

I have no directions beyond this point,--Pittsburg. I was to take boat here, that was all. I was to convey you out into the West, somewhere, anywhere, no one was to know where. And someway, anyway, my instructions were, I was to lose you--to lose you.

Madam, in plain point of fact. And now, at the very time I am indiscreet enough to tell you this much, you make my cheerful task the more difficult by saying that you must be regarded only as a prisoner of war!"

Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers. She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat. Then, woman-like, she did the unlocked for, and laughed at him, a low, full ripple of wholesome laughter, which evoked again a wave of color to his sensitive face. Josephine St. Auban was a prisoner,--a prisoner of state, in fact, and such by orders not understood by herself, although, as she knew very well, a prisoner without due process of law. Save for this tearful maid who stood yonder, she was alone, friendless. Her escape, her safety even, lay in her own hands. Yet, even now, learning for the first time this much definitely regarding the mysterious journey into which she had been entrapped--even now, a prisoner held fast in some stern and mysterious grasp whose reason and whose nature she could not know--she laughed, when she should have wept!

"My instructions were to take you out beyond this point," went on Carlisle; "and then I was to lose you, as I have said. I have had no definite instructions as to how that should be done, my dear Countess." His eyes twinkled as he stiffened to his full height and almost met the level of her own glance.

"The agent who conveyed my orders to me--he comes from Kentucky, you see--said to me that while I could not bow-string you, it would be quite proper to put you in a sack and throw you overboard.

'Only,' said he to me, 'be careful that this sack be tightly tied; and be sure to drop her only where the water is deepest. And for G.o.d's sake, my dear young man,' he said to me, 'be sure that you do not drop her anywhere along the coast of my own state of Kentucky; for if you do, she will untie the sack and swim ash.o.r.e into my const.i.tuency, where I have trouble enough without the Countess St.

Auban, active abolitionist, to increase it. Trouble '--said he to me--'thy name is Josephine St. Auban!'

"My dear lady, to that last, I agree. But, there you have my orders. You are, as may be seen, close to the throne, so far as we have thrones in this country."

"Then I am safe until we get below the Kentucky sh.o.r.e?" she queried calmly.

"I beg you not to feel disturbed,--" he began.

"Will you set me down at Louisville?"

"Madam, I can not."

"You have not been hampered with extraordinary orders. You have just said, the carte blanche is in your hands."

"I have no stricter orders at any time than those I take from my own conscience, Madam. I must act for your own good as well as for that of others."

Her lip curled now. "Then not even this country is free! Even here there are secret tribunals. Even here there are hired bravos."

"Ah, Madam, please, not that! I beg of you--"

"Excellently kind of you all, to care so tenderly for me--and yourselves! I, only a woman, living openly, with ill will for none, paying ray own way, violating no law of the land--"

"Your words are very bitter, Madam."

"The more bitter because they are true. You will release me then at Cairo, below?"

"I can not promise, Madam. You would be back in Washington by the first boats and trains."

"So, the plot runs yet further? Perhaps you do not stop this side the outer ways of the Mississippi? Say, St. Louis, New Orleans?"

"Perhaps even beyond those points," he rejoined grimly. "I make no promises, since you yourself make none."