The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story

The moment she spoke that word, which was the fourth in the series that Stuart had given her, and the one he had selected as a test for this day, Baillie Pegram flinched as if he had been struck, while his face turned white. Hoping that her use of the word had been accidental, or that the emphasis she had placed upon it had been unintended, he asked:

"What did you say?"

"I said," she responded, very deliberately, "that I am ready for the ordeal."

The look of consternation on Baillie's face deepened. Without replying, he walked away in an agitation of mind which he felt must be hidden from others at all costs. Pacing back and forth under screen of some bushes, he tried to think the matter out. Under his orders, he must arrest Agatha and take her to Stuart, who had been more than usually anxious, as Baillie knew, to capture this particular prisoner. But to do that, he felt, must mean Agatha's disgrace and shameful death, and the staining of an ancient and honoured name. Yet what else could he do?

"Would to God!" he exclaimed, under his breath, "that my canister had done its work better!"

Then he fell into silence again, questioning himself in the vain hope of finding a way through the blind wall of circumstances.

"Agatha," he thought, "has been with the enemy, and has been trying to get back again in order to render them some further traitorous service. Stuart has obviously learned all about the conspiracy in which she had been engaged. That is why he has been so eager for her arrest. That is how he knew what signal-words she would use in her endeavour to find some fellow conspirator among us. But why did she use the word to me. Surely the conspiracy cannot have become so wide-spread among us that she deemed me a person likely to be engaged in it. Perhaps she spoke for other ears than mine, hoping to find a traitor among those who stood by.

"And the worst of it is that I still love her. Knowing her treachery and her shame, I still cannot change my attitude of mind. What shall I do? I could turn traitor for her sake. I could manage to secure her escape, and then give myself up, confess my crime, and accept the shameful death that it would merit."

For the space of a minute he lingered over this idea of supreme self-sacrifice with which the devil seemed to be luring him to destruction. Then he cast it aside, and reproached himself for having let it enter his mind.

"No love is worth a man's honour," he thought. "A better way would be to kill her myself, and then commit suicide. No, not that. Suicide is the coward's way out; and killing her would only reveal and emphasise her crime."

Just then one of his men approached him, and announced that orders had come for the battery's return to its camp. Baillie walked back to the bivouac, and said to his lieutenant:

"Take command and march to the camp at once. I have some personal orders to execute."

With that promptitude which all men serving under Stuart learned to regard as one of the cardinal virtues, the lieutenant had the battery mounted and in motion within a few minutes. Not until it had made the turn in the road did Baillie approach Agatha. Then he faced her, and staring with strained and bloodshot eyes into her face, he abruptly said:

"I love you, Agatha Ronald. In spite of what you have done, that fact remains. I love you!"

"This is neither the time nor place in which to tell me so," she interrupted. Then, after a brief moment of hesitation, she broke down and burst into tears. It was only a very few moments before she controlled herself, and forced herself to speak clearly, though she did so with manifest difficulty.

"Please forget what you have just said," she began. "I realise your position. I understand. I think I know what you have been thinking. You have contemplated a crime for my sake, – the highest crime of all. For my sake you have been tempted to sacrifice not only your life – which to a brave man means little – but your honour, which is more precious to a brave man than all else in the world. Tell me, please, and tell me quickly, that you have put that temptation aside – that you have utterly repudiated the horrible thought."

"I have done so certainly," he replied, in a hard voice. "But why do you care so much for that?"

"Why? Because your honour – all honour – is precious to me, and I could not respect you if you had consented to the thought of dishonour even in your mind. I should loathe and detest your soul if for my sake or any sake you could have done that. No, don't interrupt me, please," seeing that he was trying to speak, "let me finish. I, too, am under orders, one of which is to keep my lips sealed. But under such circumstances as these I may disobey my orders without dishonour. I am not a soldier. Let me tell you a little, then, so that you may not suffer on my account. No harm will come to me when you take me, as you must, to General Stuart. I am here by his own orders, and I was over there," motioning toward the enemy's lines, "with his full knowledge and consent. There. That is all I may tell you."

The strong man turned deathly pale under the shock of the relief that the young woman's words brought to his mind. For a moment Agatha thought that he would fall, but recovering himself, he ejaculated, "Thank God!" and those were the only words he spoke for a space.

He presently ordered the horses brought, and helped Agatha to mount.

"Can you manage to ride a McClellan saddle?" he asked. "There is no other to be had."

"I suppose not," Agatha answered, with returning spirits. "I suppose the quartermaster's department does not issue side-saddles to the mounted artillery for the use of errant damsels whom they capture. But I can do very well on a cavalry saddle."

XVII

At headquarters

Agatha was well-nigh exhausted by the terrible strain she had endured. She could scarcely sustain herself in the saddle, as she and Baillie set out, her maid riding a-pillion behind her. She would have liked – if she had dared risk it – to keep the silence of extreme weariness during the journey to Stuart's headquarters, two or three miles away, but in fact she talked incessantly, in a hard, constrained voice, limiting the conversation strictly to external matters. She asked her companion about his battery, the number and character of his guns, how many men he might have under his command, the nature of his duties, and many other things, chatter about which served as a substitute for the more personal conversation that she was determined to avoid. She was fencing for position, and her purpose was plain enough to Baillie Pegram, but at the end of the ride the girl herself was more inscrutably a riddle to him than she had been before. For just as they arrived, and when it was too late for him to say any word in reply, she suddenly turned to him, and said:

"Before we part, Captain Pegram, I want to thank you for all you have done for me, and still more for what you have felt – I mean your wish to save me. I am very grateful, but – "

There she broke off, leaving him to torture himself with almost maddening conjectures as to what should have followed that bewildering "but."

At that moment Stuart, who had heard of the capture and was waiting, came hurriedly from the piazza of his headquarters to greet and welcome the arriving pair. With strong arms he lifted the girl from her saddle and placed her on her feet, as he might have done with an infant child. For he was a giant in strength, and his muscles were as obedient to his will as were the troopers who so eagerly followed him in every fray.

Seeing the girl's bedraggled condition, and understanding how sorely shaken her nerves must be, he made no reference to the circumstances of her coming, but cheerily said:

"I am doubly fortunate, Miss Agatha, in having you again for a visitor, and in having the ladies of my household with me just now; for God bless these Virginia women," addressing this part of his remark to Captain Pegram, "they are always with us when we need them."

With that he hurried Agatha into the house, and placed her in feminine charge, with orders that she should have food and rest and sleep, and especially that she should not be annoyed by any questionings until such time as she should herself desire to speak with him.

"You will remain with us to dinner, Captain Pegram, if you please. There are matters about which I wish to talk with you."

When the two were left alone, he said:

"Tell me, now, all you know about how Miss Agatha became your prisoner – the details, I mean."

When Baillie had finished the narrative, expressing wonder that the girl had passed unharmed through that hailstorm of canister, Stuart said, simply:

"I'm glad your gun practice was no better."

"So am I," the young man answered.

It was not until late in the afternoon that Stuart was summoned to meet his guest, who was also his prisoner. She had in the meantime divested herself and her maid of their burden, and the precious drug had been carefully packed for shipment under guard to Richmond. She had also slept long and well after her breakfast, and was now as fresh and as full of spirit as if she had known no hardship, and passed through no danger.

Before the dinner hour, Stuart had taken pains to send away all the members of his staff, each upon some errand manufactured for the occasion. At dinner there was no one present but his own family, Agatha, and Captain Baillie Pegram.

Stuart was all eagerness to learn not only the results, but the details of the perilous journey, and to that end he required Agatha to begin at the beginning and relate each day's experience. She did so, explaining the arrangements she had made for her underground railway, and telling him of a plan she had formed to give to that line a number of termini at various points in Virginia, each under charge of some trusty "Dixie girl," in order that there might be no interruption of the traffic, whatever the future movements of the two armies might be.

"It's the very crookedest railroad you ever heard of, General," she added, when her account of it was finished, "but I expect it to do a considerable traffic. I am to be its general freight agent, and I have impressed all my agents with the fact that the preservation of our secret is of far greater importance than the safe delivery of any one consignment of goods. They will take plenty of time at every step, and not risk discovery for the sake of speed."

"That is excellent. But I wish I had suggested to you to make some arrangement by which you might – "

"O, I did that," she interrupted. "I took a leaf out of your book. Of course, it will often be possible to get little letters through, but letters are very dangerous – at least, when they say anything. So I have taken your signal-words as my model, and laboriously constructed a system by which I can say the most dangerous things in a letter without seeming to say anything at all."

"By signal-words?"

"Yes, partly, but more in other ways."

"For example?"

"Well, if I send a foolish, chattering girl's note about nothing, and I happen to write it in a 'back hand,' that fact will tell my correspondent what I want to tell her. So if I write in an ordinary hand, that will mean something quite different. In the same way, if I write, 'My dear Mary,' it will signify one thing, while 'Dear Mary' will mean another; I've arranged fourteen different forms of address, each having its own particular meaning. The punctuation will mean something, too, and the way I sign myself, and the colour of my ink, and the occasional slight misspelling of a word – all these and a dozen other things are carefully arranged for, so that I can tell a friend pretty nearly anything I please, while seeming only to tell her the colour of my new gown – if I ever have a new gown again – or anything else of the kind that girls are fond of writing letters about."

"But you and all your correspondents must have copies of your code for all this. Isn't there great danger that one or another of them may be discovered?"

The girl laughed before answering.

"Even you, General Stuart, must have found out that it is difficult to discover what is in a young woman's mind. This code exists nowhere else in the world. We've all learned it by heart, and can recite it backward or forward or even sideways. No word of it has ever been written down on paper, or ever will be. You gentlemen are fond of saying that we women cannot keep a secret. You shall see how well we keep this."