The Young Lieutenant Part 41

"How came you in such a place?" asked the sergeant as they walked up the stairs.

"Well, my friend, the farmer here, suggested the idea to me. He said his son had crawled in there a great many times."

"I?" exclaimed Rigney. "I never said a word about the drean."

"You must be looked after," added the sergeant, with a menacing look at the discomfited farmer. "You have concealed a deserter in your house for weeks; and now we find that you hide Yankees too."

"I didn't hide him!" protested Rigney.

"Didn't you agree to keep me here till night?" asked Somers, who despised him beyond expression.

"If I did, it was only to have the soldiers ketch yer."

The sergeant declared that Rigney was a traitor, and that he must go along with him; but Somers, with more magnanimity than many men would have exercised towards such a faithless wretch, told the whole story exactly as it was, thus relieving him of a portion of his infidelity to the Southern Confederacy; and the sergeant was graciously pleased to let him remain at home, while his victim was marched off to the rebel camp.

CHAPTER XXVI

A NIGHT IN PETERSBURG

The sergeant who had captured our hero seemed to be a very clever fellow, and appreciated the sterling merits of his captive. While he was rigidly devoted to the discharge of his duty, he treated his prisoner with all the consideration which one human being has the right to expect of another, whatever the circ.u.mstances under which they meet.

Somers was disgusted with the result of the adventure, even while he had no reason to blame himself for any want of care or skill in conducting his affairs under the trying circ.u.mstances. He was only a few hours behind his late companion, Captain de Banyan; whom he had now a reasonable expectation of meeting again before the close of the day.

If Somers was disgusted with the issue of the adventure, he did not yet despair of effecting his escape. This was all he had to live for at present; and he was determined not to lose sight of this great object of existence. Libby Prison was a flourishing inst.i.tution, even at the time of which we write; and he was determined not to be sent there, if human energy and perseverance could save him from such a fate. It was easier to avoid such a trap than it would be to get out of it after he had fallen into it. As he walked along with the talkative sergeant, he kept his eyes open, ready to avail himself of any opportunity which might afford him a reasonable prospect of shaking off his disagreeable companion.

His captor asked him a great many questions in regard to himself, and to the Army of the Potomac on the other side of the river, which Somers answered with skill and discretion; though we suppose that even a rigid moralist would have excused some slight variations from the strict letter of the truth which crept into his replies. He was an officer in the Yankee army; but he dared not acknowledge his rank, lest he should be accused of being a spy. If he was a captain, he ought to have worn the uniform of his rank in order to have it recognized. As he was a private, his chance of spending the summer on Belle Isle was better than that for Libby. But, as Somers was fully resolved not to go to Richmond in advance of the n.o.ble army whose fortunes and misfortunes he had shared, he did not deem it necessary to consider what quarters he should occupy.

The sergeant was a faithful soldier. Somers found no opportunity to slip away from his guard on the way to the camp. He was duly delivered to the officer of the day, and his intimacy with his good-natured captor was at an end. The officer who was responsible for him made some inquiries in regard to the prisoner, and learned that he had escaped from the troopers in the morning. When he understood the case, as it was only eight miles to the railroad station, where the other prisoner was probably waiting a conveyance in the camp, he decided to send Somers forward at once, fearful that he might again take leave of his captors. From what he had heard from Captain Osborn and the cavalry soldiers in charge of him, he concluded that the young man was a person of more consequence than he appeared to be--that he was either high in rank, or guilty of enormous military misdemeanors.

A two-horse wagon used for general business about the camp was brought up, and Somers was sent forward in charge of two soldiers, who were especially ordered to shoot him if he attempted to escape; which they would probably have done of their own free will and accord, without any orders. The captive looked in vain for an opportunity to elude the vigilance of the guard; they hardly took their eyes off him during the ride. Possibly they thought the young fellow was President Lincoln in disguise, and that the salvation of the Southern Confederacy depended upon his safe delivery into the hands of the provost-marshal at Richmond.

The roads were very muddy from the recent rains, and it required two hours to accomplish the distance to the railroad station. On their arrival, Somers was handed over to another officer in charge of the camp at the station. Captain de Banyan had already been sent forward to Petersburg, and another train would not depart till evening. Somers was carefully guarded during the remainder of the day, and an attempt to get away would have been equivalent to committing suicide. At dark he was put into a baggage-car, with two soldiers to guard him; and in a short time reached the city of Petersburg. With several other unfortunate Union soldiers, he was placed in a small room in the station-house, to remain until a train should start for Richmond. Of course, they were carefully guarded; and Somers began to fear that he should, after all, be compelled to visit the rebel capital without the army.

The room was on the second floor, with two windows opening into the street; but the prisoners were charged, on penalty of being shot, not to look out at them. There was not the ghost of a chance to operate under such unfavorable circ.u.mstances; and Somers gave up all thoughts of doing anything that night. Stretching himself on the floor, he tried to sleep; but his spirit was too great to permit him calmly to view the prospect of a rebel prison. As he lay on the floor, he ransacked his brain for some expedient which would save him from the horrors of Libby or Belle Isle.

The best scheme that suggested itself was to leap from the cars on the way to Richmond. It involved the liability to a broken neck or a broken limb; but he determined to watch for an opportunity to execute this reckless purpose. His companions in bondage were worn out with long marches, and all of them slept on the floor around him in a few moments after they entered the room. They had asked him some questions; but he kept his own counsel, and endeavored to cheer their desponding spirits with the hope of being soon exchanged.

At last Somers went to sleep himself, after he had heard a church clock in the city strike eleven. He had slept none on the preceding night, and his slumbers were as sound as if he had been in his attic-chamber in the cottage at Pinchbrook. Even the opening of the door, and the entrance of three men with a lantern, did not disturb him. One of the party was an officer. He wore a military cloak over the gray uniform of the Confederate army.

"Which is the man?" demanded he in sharp tones of the two soldiers who accompanied him.

"I don't know which he is now," replied the corporal of the guard.

"What's his name?"

"Tom Leathers," answered the officer.

The corporal then pa.s.sed round among the sleeping prisoners, and roughly kicked those who were asleep, including Somers, who sprang to his feet, and was rather disposed to make a "row" on account of this rude treatment, before he remembered where he was.

"Now they are all awake," said the corporal when he had been the rounds.

"Is there any such man as Tom Leathers here?"

"Tom Leathers," repeated the officer in a loud tone.

No one answered to the name; but, in a moment, Somers happened to think that this was the appellative which he had a.s.sumed when he was a pilot down on the creek by the James River. He was evidently the person intended; but he was in doubt whether to answer the summons. The antecedents of the young pilot of the James were not such as to ent.i.tle him to much consideration at the hands of the rebels; and he was disposed to deny his ident.i.ty. While he was debating the question in his own mind, the corporal repeated the name.

"There's no such man here," he added, turning to the officer.

"He must be here. He came up in the night train."

"He don't answer to his name."

"Hold your lantern, and let me look these prisoners in the face."

The corporal pa.s.sed from one to another of the captives till he came to Somers; thrusting the lantern into the face of each, so that the officer could scan his features.

"What's your name?" he asked, as the corporal placed the lantern before Somers.

Not having made up his mind as to the effect of acknowledging his ident.i.ty with the pilot, he made no reply.

"That's the man," said the officer decidedly.

"Is your name Tom Leathers?" added the corporal, as he made a demonstration with his bayonet at the prisoner.

"Put down your musket, corporal; you needn't be a brute to your prisoners."

"I only wanted to make him answer the question. If you give me leave, I'll find a tongue for him."

"He is the man I want; bring him out," replied the officer.

"Bring him out? I beg your pardon, sir; but I don't know who you are. I can't give up a prisoner without orders."

The officer, who seemed to be suffering with a bad cold, and wore the collar of his cloak turned up so as to conceal the greater part of his face, opened the lower part of his garment, so that the corporal could see his uniform. At the same time he took from his pocket a paper, which he opened, and handed to the guard.

"That's all right," said the latter, when he had read the doc.u.ment. "Of course, you will leave this with me?"

"Certainly. Now bring out the man; and lose no time, for I am in a hurry."

Somers was conducted from the room to the car-house below, where the officer asked for a soldier to guard the prisoner to the office of the provost-marshal, who was waiting for him. The corporal furnished the man; and the captive walked off between his two companions, bewildered by the sudden change which had taken place in the course of events. He could not imagine why he had been singled out from the rest of the prisoners in the station-house, unless some specific and more definite charge than being in arms against the great Southern Confederacy had been laid at his door.

The most unpleasant thought that came to his mind was that Captain de Banyan had betrayed the object of his mission to the south side of the river. There was good evidence that his fellow-officer had come over as a spy; and the hope of saving his own life might have induced him to sacrifice even one who had been his best friend.

It was not pleasant to think of Captain de Banyan as capable of doing so mean an act; for he had been regarded in the regiment as the soul of honor,--of worldly honor, which scorns to do a vile thing if public opinion has condemned it. But the astounding information which he had obtained among the rebels concerning his friend's antecedents had destroyed his confidence in him, and he was prepared for anything from him. In this light, his situation was almost hopeless; for the evidence would certainly condemn him before any court-martial in the Confederacy, and the chances of escape were lessened by his separation from his unfortunate companions in arms. He had probably been taken away from them to prevent even the possibility of exercising his talent in getting away, as he had done after his capture.

They walked in silence along the gloomy and deserted streets; and Somers felt just as if he were marching to his execution. He knew that the rebel officers had a summary way of dealing with cases like his own; and he was prepared to be condemned, even before another sun rose to gladden him with his cheerful light. He thought of his mother, of his father, of the other members of the family, and of the blow it would be to them to learn that he had been hanged as a spy. He thought of Pinchbrook, of the happy days he had spent there, and of those who had been his true friends. He thought of Lilian Ashford, the beautiful one, in the remembrance of whose sweet smile he had reveled every day since they parted, and which he had hoped to enjoy again when war should no more desolate the land, and he should be proudly enrolled with the heroes who had saved the nation from ruin.

All these pleasant memories, all these bright hopes, all these loving forms, though present in his heart, seemed dim and distant to him. He had nothing to hope for in the future on this side of the grave, nothing in the present but an ignominious death on the scaffold. Yet it was sweet to die for one's country; and, disgraceful as his end might be in its form, it was still in the service of the nation. He felt happy in the thought; and, if there was nothing more on earth to hope for, there was still a bright heaven beyond the deepest and darkest grave into which the hate of traitors could plunge him, where the ruptured ties of this life are again restored, never again to be subject to change and decay.