The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 58

"I don't know you----"

Ned drew a sigh of relief. One danger was pa.s.sed. He couldn't recognize him. The rest should be easy.

"You don't need to, my boy," he whispered. "You're looking for a friend--money?"

"Yes. I'll sell my soul into h.e.l.l for it right now," he gasped.

"You don't need to do that." Ned drew two hundred dollars in gold from his pocket and clinked the coin.

"You see that gold?"

"Yes, yes--what do you want for it?"

"I want you to get for me to-morrow morning the exact number of men in McClellan's army. I want the figures from Stanton's office--you understand. I want the name of each command, its numbers and its officers. I know already half of them. So you can't lie to me. Give me this information here to-morrow night and the gold is yours. Will you do it?"

The boy glanced at Ned for a moment:

"I'll see you in h.e.l.l first. I've a notion to arrest you--d.a.m.ned if I don't----"

He wheeled and started toward the corner.

Ned's left hand gripped his with the snap of a steel trap, his right holding his revolver.

"Don't you be a fool. I know that you're ruined. I saw you in Joe Hall's----"

The boy's jaw dropped.

"You saw me?" he stammered.

"Yes. You're done for, and you know it. Bring me those figures and I'll double the pile--four hundred dollars."

The weak eyes shifted uneasily. He hesitated and faltered:

"All right. Meet me here at seven o'clock. For G.o.d's sake, don't speak to me if there's anyone in sight."

All next day Ned watched Betty's house in vain. At dark, in despair and desperation, he wrote a note.

"DEAR MISS BETTY:

"For one look into your dear eyes I am here. I've tried in vain to meet you. I can't leave without seeing you. I'll wait in the park at the foot of the avenue to-morrow night at dusk. Just one touch of your hand and five minutes near you is all I ask----"

There was no signature needed. She would know. He mailed it and hurried to his appointment.

The boy was prompt. There was no one in sight. Ned hurriedly examined the sheet of paper, verified the known commands and their numbers and, convinced of its genuineness, handed the money to the traitor.

"For G.o.d's sake, never speak to me again or recognize me in any way," he begged through chattering teeth. "I got those things from Stanton's desk and copied them."

Ned nodded, placed the precious doc.u.ment in his pocket, and watched the fool hurry with swift feet straight to Joe Hall's place and disappear within.

Betty failed to come at the appointed time and he was heartsick. He would finish his work in six hours to-morrow and he should not lose a moment in pa.s.sing the Federal lines. The precious figures he had bought were memorized and the paper destroyed. In six hours next day he completed the drawings of the fort on which information had been asked and was ready to leave.

But he had not seen Betty. He tried to go and each effort only led him to the corner from which he watched her house. He lingered until night and waited an hour again in the dark. And still she had not come. And then it slowly dawned on him that she must have realized from the moment she read his message the peril of his position and the danger of his betrayal in their meeting.

He turned with quick, firm tread to pa.s.s the Federal lines without delay, and walked into the arms of two secret service men.

Without a word he was manacled and led to prison. The boy he had bribed had been under suspicion since his first visits to Joe Hall's. Stanton had discovered that his desk had been rummaged. Five of his nine Southern comrades had been arrested and he was the sixth. The rage of the Secretary of War had been boundless. He had thrown out a dragnet of detectives and every suspicious character in the city was pa.s.sing through it or landing in prison.

The men stripped him and searched with the touch of experts every st.i.tch of his clothing, ripped the lining of his coat, opened the soles of his shoes, split the heels and found nothing. He had been ordered to dress and given permission to go, when suddenly the officer conducting the search said:

"Wait!"

Ned stopped in the doorway. It was useless to protest.

"Excuse my persistence, my friend," he said apologetically. "You seem all right and my men have apparently made a mistake, all the same I'm going to examine your mouth----"

Ned's eyes suddenly flashed and his figure unconsciously stiffened.

"I thought so!" the officer laughed.

The door was closed and the guard stepped before it.

And then, with quick sure touch as if he saw the object of his search through the flesh, the detective lifted Ned Vaughan's upper lip and drew from between his lips and teeth the long, thin, delicately folded tinfoil within which lay the tissue drawing of the fort.

The drumhead court-martial which followed was brief and formal. The prisoner refused to give his name or any clue to his ident.i.ty. He was condemned to be hanged as a spy at noon the next day and locked in a cell in the Old Capitol Prison.

On his way they pa.s.sed Senator Winter's house. Six hours' delay just to look into her face had cost him his life, but his one hopeless regret now was that he had failed to see her.

Betty Winter read the account of the sensational arrest and death sentence. He had been arrested at the trysting place he had appointed.

She dropped the paper with a cry and hurried to the White House. She thanked G.o.d for the loving heart that dwelt there.

Without a moment's hesitation the President ordered a suspension of sentence and directed that the papers be sent to him for review.

In vain Stanton raged. He shook his fist in the calm, rugged face at last:

"Dare to interfere with the final execution of this sentence and I shall resign in five minutes after you issue that pardon! I'll stand for some things--but not for this--I warn you!"

"I understand your position, Stanton," was the quiet answer. "And I'll let you know my decision when I've reached it."

With a muttered oath, the Secretary of War left the room.

Betty bent close to his desk and whispered:

"You'll give me three days to get his mother here?"

"Of course I will, child, six days if it's necessary. Get word to her.

If I can't save him, she can say good-bye to her boy. That can't hurt anybody, can it?"

With a warm grasp of his hand Betty flew to the telegraph office and three days later she saw for the first time the broken-hearted mother.

The resemblance was so startling between the mother and both sons she couldn't resist the impulse to throw her arms around her neck.