The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 87

For a long while no words were spoken. With gentle touch he soothed her trembling body, bending to kiss the waves of rich brown hair.

She pushed him at arm's length at last and looked up smiling.

"I can't help it--I love you!"

"When will you learn that we must trust where we love--"

He stopped suddenly. Her brown eyes were fixed with terror on a single strand of curling blond hair caught on the b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat.

"What is it?" he asked in alarm.

She drew the hair from his coat carefully and held it to the light in silence.

"You can't be jealous?"

She looked at him curiously.

"Yes. I have a rival--"

"A rival?"

Her eyes pierced him.

"Your love for the Union! I've suspected you before. You've evaded my questions. Our love has been so big and sweet a thing that you have always stammered and hesitated to tell me a deliberate lie. It's not necessary now. I know. Ulrich Dahlgren is the age of my brother Billy.

They used to play together in Washington at Commodore Dahlgren's home and at ours. He had the most peculiarly beautiful blond hair I ever saw on a man. I'd know it anywhere on earth. That strand is his, poor boy!

Besides, d.i.c.k Welford captured your messenger with that pathetic little bundle on his way to Washington--"

Socola started in spite of his desperate effort at self-control and was about to speak when Jennie lifted her hand.

"Don't, please. It's useless to quibble and argue with me longer. We face each other with souls bare. I don't ask you why you have deceived me. Your business as a Federal spy is to deceive the enemy--"

"You are not my enemy," he interrupted in a sudden burst of pa.s.sion.

"You are my mate! You are mine by all the laws of G.o.d and nature. I love you. I worship you. We are _not_ enemies. We never have been--we never shall be. With the last breath I breathe your name shall be on my lips--"

"You may speak your last word soon--"

"What do you mean?"

"I am going to surrender you to the authorities--"

"And you have just been sobbing in my arms--the man you have sworn to love forever?"

"It's the only atonement I can make. Through you I have betrayed my country and my people. I would gladly die in your place. The hard thing will be to do my duty and give you up to the death you have earned."

"You can deliver me to execution?"

"Yes--" was the firm answer. "Listen to this--"

She seized a copy of the morning paper.

"Colonel Dahlgren's instructions to his men. This doc.u.ment was found on his person when shot. There is no question of its genuineness--"

She paused and read in cold hard tones:

"Guides, pioneers (with oak.u.m, turpentine and torpedoes), signal officer, quarter master, commissary, scouts, and picket men in rebel uniform--remain on the north bank and move down with the force on the south bank. If communications can be kept up without giving an alarm it must be done. Everything depends upon a surprise, and no one must be allowed to pa.s.s ahead of this column. All mills must be burned and the ca.n.a.l destroyed. Keep the force on the southern side posted of any important movement of the enemy, and in case of danger some of the scouts must swim the river and bring us information. We must try to secure the bridge to the city (one mile below Belle Isle) and release the prisoners at the same time. If we do not succeed they must then dash down, and we will try to carry the bridge from each side. The bridges once secured, and the prisoners loosed and over the river, the bridges will be secured and the city destroyed--"

Jennie paused and lifted her eyes burning with feverish light.

"Merciful G.o.d! How? With oak.u.m and turpentine. A city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, under the cover of darkness--men, women and children, the aged, the poor, the helpless!"

Socola made no answer. A thoughtful dreamy look masked his handsome features.

Jennie read the next sentence from the Dahlgren paper in high quivering tones:

"The men must be kept together and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed and _Jeff Davis and his Cabinet_ killed--"

The girl paused and fixed her gaze on Socola.

"The man who planned that raid came with the willful and deliberate murder of unarmed men in his soul. The man who helped him inside is equally guilty of his crime--"

She resumed her reading without waiting for reply.

"Prisoners will go along with combustible material. The officer must use his discretion about the time of a.s.sisting us. Pioneers must be prepared to construct a bridge or destroy one. They must have plenty of oak.u.m and turpentine for burning, which will be rolled in soaked b.a.l.l.s, and given to the men to burn when we get into the city--"

Socola lifted his hand.

"Please, dear--these instructions are not mine. I do not excuse or palliate them. The daring youngster who conceived this paid the penalty with his life. It's all that any of us can give for his country. There's something that interests me now far more than this sensation--far more than the mere fact that my true business here has been discovered by you and my life forfeited to your Government--"

"And that is?"

"That the woman I love can deliver me to death--"

"You doubt it?"

"I had not believed it possible."

"I'll show you."

Jennie stepped to the door and pulled the old-fashioned bell-cord.

A servant appeared.