The Storm Centre Part 18

"_You_ seemed to like it well enough to register it."

"With a 'Junior,' if you please."

The other fixed him with a stare of round blue eyes. "I think I understand you, sir."

"Very possibly," said poor Julius. "I am not very deep."

He was thinking that this was doubtless a military detective, a very usual factor for ferreting out schemes, obnoxious to the Federal government and in aid of the Confederacy. He determined to hold hard and sell his life dear.

"Have you any letters or papers--any written communication for me?"

"None whatever," Julius ventured.

"You knew you would meet me here?" the older man apparently wished to say as little as he might.

"I fancied I should meet you, but not in this manner," said Julius, also enigmatical.

The portly gentleman looked painfully nonplussed and ill at ease, as he sat in the light little yellow rocking-chair, which now and again treacherously tilted backward and caused him a momentary but agitated effort at equilibrium, and Julius vaguely remembered to have heard that rocking-chairs were not popular in England, and reflected that this worthy was not accustomed to have his centre of gravity so jeopardized.

"I think I should have had ampler voucher. You will pardon me for saying this?" remarked the stranger, at length.

"I will pardon you for saying anything you like," said Julius, politely.

"The Company informed me that a young man familiar with the country--a native, in fact--would meet me here and that I should be afforded means to identify him. I fancied he would have letters. But when I saw the register I supposed this the mark of identification. Am I right?"

"My dear sir, you must not expect me to guarantee your impressions,"

said Julius. He was glad he was in bed. He felt that he could not have stood up. "I should say, judging from the effect your valuable mental qualities make upon me, that any impression you see fit to entertain would be amply justified by the fact."

He did not know how to appraise the distinction of his own manner and special attractiveness, and he was both amazed and amused to note how Mr. John Wray of Manchester, England, expanded under the compliment.

"I see, I see--I suppose this is even better than a letter, which might have been stolen, or transferred, or--however, or--shall we proceed to our commercial affairs?"

"I don't usually transact commercial affairs in my night-shirt," said Julius, "but if I look sufficiently businesslike to suit you--just fire away; it's all the same to me."

He was growing reckless. The risk involved in this war of words with the supposed detective was overwhelming his reserves. He did not know certainly of what the man suspected him, how fully informed he might have become. He knew it was imprudent to suggest his withdrawal, for the effort at escape might precipitate immediate arrest. Yet he could no longer spar back and forth.

"However," he said, as if with a second thought, "I _should_ like a dabble of a bath, first, and to get on my duds, and to have a whack at breakfast, or dinner,--whichever is on parade by this time."

"Certainly--certainly--by all means. I will meet you in the hotel office, and shall we dine together at two?" He held out the dial of his watch.

"At two," a.s.sented Julius.

His friend was in such polite haste to be gone that he shuffled and plunged awkwardly on his gaitered feet, fairly stumbling over his portmanteau near the door as he opened it; then he went down the hall with a brisk, elastic step. Julius lay dumfounded, staring at the portmanteau, which was of an English make and bore the letters, J. Wray, Manchester, England, on one side. He rose and turned it about. It had not been hastily arranged to mislead him. The lettering had been done long ago. The receptacle was evidently travel-worn, and stamped deep in the bottom was the makers' name, trunk manufacturers, Manchester, England.

Julius dressed in haste, his heart once more agitated with the hope of deliverance. He could hardly control his nerves, his eager desire that this might prove merely an odd coincidence, instead of a detective's deep-laid scheme. It began to seem that the man's name might be really John Wray of Manchester, England, some army jobber, or speculator, perhaps--the country was full of them. He said he had expected to meet an "agent of the company," who knew the country.

"_I_ know the country," said Julius, capably; "I know the country to a t-y ty. I can give him all the information he wants, free, gratis, and for nothing."

Yet in naught, he resolved, would he betray himself. This mistake, on the contrary, might open to him some means of getting through the lines and back to his command with this map--this precious plan of the defences of the place that would be of distinct value to the cause of the Confederacy.

He therefore cast aside his half-formulated scheme of seeking escape from the supposed detective through the street. He had remembered that there were stairs on the galleries, leading from one floor to another, and thence to the quadrangle, as well as the great main staircase from the hallways into the office. He at last took his way, however, down this main staircase, with its blatant publicity, and its shifting groups of Federal officers and busy, newly imported civilians. He recognized the wisdom of his boldness almost immediately. Mr. John Wray of Manchester, England, standing conferring amicably with a cl.u.s.ter of worthies of that marked commercial aspect, alertness, and vim of expression, which imply the successful business man of the heady, venturesome type, since known as "plungers," turned and perceived him, and catching his eye beckoned to him with great empress.e.m.e.nt.

"Allow me, gentlemen, to introduce Mr. John Wray, Junior--the son of my cousin, John Wray," he said.

There ensued the usual greetings, the usual stir of hand-shaking, and if any eye in the office had chanced to note the newcomer with the faint suggestion of doubt or interest or suspicion, which a stranger is apt to excite, it evaporated at once, for the elder Mr. Wray was well known in the hotel and the town, having been here often before, and was a very sufficient voucher for any kinsman.

Genial indeed this group proved at dinner, seated on either side of the upper portion of one of the long tables. Julius found it accorded with his subsidiary character as youthful kinsman of one of the chief spokesmen to maintain an intelligent and receptive silence. Once or twice one of the more jovial of his newly acquired cousin's _confrres_ gave him a glance and lifted his wine-gla.s.s with a nod, as who should say, "To you, sir," in the midst of the general discourse.

This was eagerly commercial, for the most part, and piecing the details together as he plied his knife and fork, Julius learned that his new friend was interested in a flourishing American concern which had large government contracts for ready-made army clothing, the woollen cloth and other textile fabrics being supplied from Manchester, and was indeed one of the English agents. He could not reconcile anything that he heard with a requisite for caution or for any service which he could perform, necessitating secrecy or an alias, or his sudden and affectionate adoption as a kinsman.

"It is a trait of piety to trust in Providence," Julius reflected in this quiescent state. "But I doubt if my confiding reliance in this fix can be set down to my credit. For the Lord knows there's nothing else to do!"

He created the impression of a decorous, well-bred youth, and in the fashionable English clothes he looked little less British than the elder John Wray. There was so much good-fellowship that it was natural that the postprandial cigars with a decanter and gla.s.ses should be taken out to a summer-house in the quadrangle, where at one extremity the river had a slant of the westering sun on its surface. The hills of the distance were of a dull grapelike blue against an intensely turquoise sky; the magnolia trees above their heads already bore fine cream-white blossoms among the densely green and glossy foliage, and the surrounding town was cut off from sight and sound by the three encompa.s.sing sides of the hotel. Yet it was not a solitary place. No one looking at the group could imagine it had been chosen for seclusion. From the galleries of each of the three stories a glance could command it. Guests were continually sauntering into and out of the office. Here and there a Federal officer strolled along the little esplanade above the water-side. On the lower veranda two elderly men--one a chaplain--were playing very slowly and with great circ.u.mspection a game of chess. There were onlookers here, with whom time seemed no object, calmly studying the moves, solaced by a meditative cigar, and at long intervals showing a flicker of excitement at the magic word, "Check!"

The summer-house had already a thatch of vines, but bare columns upheld the roof, and it occupied a little circular s.p.a.ce of gravel, whence a broad gravel walk ran toward each point of the compa.s.s. An approach could be instantly observed, a step instantly heard, and therefore it did not seem to Julius altogether incongruous that business of importance and details of secrecy should presently be broached. The table in the centre was all at once covered with papers, and he began to understand the mysteries that had hitherto baffled him when gradually the details of a very bold and extensive blockade-running scheme were unfolded.

This was in defiance, of course, of the Federal regulations, and in so far militated against no interest of the government that Julius had sworn to serve. But it was a private enterprise for personal profit, and whether the export of cotton from the country to England at this juncture accorded with the policy of the Confederate States he had no means of knowing. At one time, he was aware, there existed an impression that the official withholding of such shipments as could be effected by running the blockade tended to create such paucity of the staple in the English market as might influence the already p.r.o.nounced disposition of the British to interfere in aid of the Confederacy, and bringing the war to an end remove this restriction of manufactures and trade. All this was beyond his province. He held very still, remained keenly observant, watching for the loophole that might enable him to quit these tortuous ways for the very simple matter of fighting the battles of his section.

After these various turmoils of doubt, and hope, and despair, it would be a mere trifle to charge with his company to the muzzles of the biggest howitzers that ever bellowed.

He discovered that these men were in correspondence with secret agents in the Confederacy; they spoke of various depots of the cotton which presently developed as mere caches--bales hidden in swamps, to be brought out only by such craft as could navigate bayous, or in deserted gin-houses on abandoned plantations, or in old tumble-down warehouses on the outskirts of towns,--never much at any one point, but all that could be found and bought, and concealed and held, to be gotten away at last to a foreign market. The system sought to reach to the Gulf of Mexico, to gather up the scattered wayside stores, and either by taking advantage of some lapse of Federal vigilance, or else by strategy, to run the blockade with a ship-load, and away for England! Thus the enterprise was contrary to the policy of both factions. The Company's gold would recruit the endurance of the South, and yet he knew that the Confederate authorities had put the torch to thousands of bales rather than let the cotton fall into their enemy's hands--the precious commodity, then selling at amazing prices in the markets of New York.

Suddenly his own personality came into the scheme with an abruptness that made his head whirl.

"How is it," demanded a sharp-featured man, who had spa.r.s.e sandy hair, very straight, very thin, the head almost bald on top extending the effect of the forehead, watery-blue eyes that nevertheless made out very accurately the surrounding country, metaphorically considered, a somewhat wrinkled face albeit he was not old--"how is it that your cousin should be so well acquainted with the country? I take it that he is an Englishman, too!"

"Why, no, he is not," candidly answered Mr. John Wray, and Julius had an instinct to clutch at him from across the table to hinder the divulging of the imposture, "and, in fact, he is not my kinsman at all. I should be extremely glad if he were," and he smiled suavely across the table at Julius. "He is, I understand, a native of this region." And forthwith he told the story of the register.

The spare, businesslike man, whose name was Burrage, at once laid his cigar down on the table with its ash carefully disposed over the edge.

"And did he bring no letters?"

"None; very properly. It is most unwise to multiply papers in the hands of outside parties."

"But he should have had something definite."

"I think the registry of the name very definite." Mr. John Wray reddened slightly. He was not in the habit of being called in question for precipitancy.

"It strikes me as a most fantastic whim on the part of the Company. You might not have interpreted it correctly--taken as you were by surprise,"

Mr. Burrage rejoined. Then, "Did _you_ have any specific instructions to guide you personally?" The querist turned full on the young man, much to Mr. John Wray's disapproval. But Julius answered easily:--

"None at all. It is my business to hold myself subject to orders."

"What is your name?" queried Mr. Burrage.

"At present--John Wray, very much at your service," Julius replied glibly; then with a sudden recollection of the vicissitudes of "Mr.

Poet" and "Mr. Goat," he burst into his irresistible laugh, that cleared the frown from the brow of the actual Mr. John Wray and his colleagues, and caused the officers pacing along the esplanade, their shadows long now in the sun, to glance in the direction of the sound, sympathetic with the unknown jest.

Mr. Burrage pressed the matter no farther, but as he took up his cigar again, filliping off the ash with a delicate gesture, and placed it between his teeth once more, no physiognomist would have been required to discern in his resolute facial expression a firm determination to have full advices on this subject before he should ever lose sight of the very prepossessing young man introduced by Mr. John Wray.