The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story

When morning came, the pair of women hid themselves between two logs that lay in a dense thicket, and there they remained throughout the daylight hours. There, too, before noon, they consumed the last fragments of their food.

During the next night they made small progress. They succeeded, indeed, in crossing a deep and muddy creek that lay in front of them, but it was only to find themselves confronted by a roadway, which ran athwart their line of march, and which, on this night, at least, was heavily picketed and constantly patrolled by scouting squads of cavalry.

Agatha crept on her hands and knees, and quite noiselessly, to a point from which she could make out the situation, and there the pair remained in hiding among the weeds and bushes that skirted an old and partially destroyed fence, until daylight came again.

With the daylight came a considerable thinning of the line of videttes in front, and toward nightfall, after a day of toilsome crawling back and forth in search of a way of escape, the two women succeeded in crossing the road unobserved. After crawling for a hundred yards or so beyond the road, they hid themselves as securely as they could, and waited for night to come again.

They were suffering the pangs of excessive hunger and thirst now, and gnawing roots and twigs by way of appeasing the terrible craving. It was obvious to Agatha that this night must make an end of her attempt in one way or another. She must reach the Confederate lines before the coming of another day, or both she and her companion must perish of hunger, or surrender themselves and be hanged. She suggested this thought to Martha, whose only answer was:

"Anyhow, you'se got your pistol, Miss Agatha."

There were still two miles or more to go before reaching the little patch of briars and young chestnut-trees just in front of the Fairfax Court-house village, which was Agatha's objective. During her peddling trips, Martha had learned that Federal sharpshooters were thrown into this thicket every night, usually between midnight and morning, for the purpose of annoying the Confederate pickets, stationed not fifty yards away. She had learned, too, that nearly every morning, about daylight, the Confederates were accustomed to rid themselves of the annoyance by sending out a cavalry force to charge the thicket and clear it of its occupants. It was Agatha's plan to hide herself and her maid there, and be captured by Stuart's men when they should come.

But she could not enter the bushes until the sharpshooters should be in position. Otherwise they would be sure to discover her while placing themselves. As soon as the riflemen had crept to their posts, Agatha, favoured by the unusual darkness of a thickly clouded night, crept to a hiding-place just in rear of the men. There she and Martha lay upon the ground during long hours, well-nigh famished, and suffering severely from cold, for the autumn was now well advanced.

Unfortunately for Agatha's plan, the Confederates had adopted new methods for this night. Instead of ordering cavalry to clear the thicket, they had decided to clear it with canister. Accordingly, a battery of artillery had been ordered to the front, and bivouacked half a mile in rear of Fairfax Court-house. Thence just before daylight two guns had been dragged forward by prolonge ropes, and stationed under the trees of a little grove about fifty yards in front of the cover from which the Federal sharpshooters were occasionally firing.

Just at dawn, these two guns suddenly and furiously opened upon the bushes with canister in double charges.

The effect was terrific. The bushes were mown down as with a scythe, and it seemed impossible to the two women that any human being should survive the iron hailstorm for a single minute. The sharpshooters scurried away precipitately, one of them actually stumbling over Agatha's prostrate form, which he probably took to be that of some comrade slain. But Agatha and her maid remained, and the fearful fire continued. They remained because there was nothing else for them to do. They could not retreat. They could not surrender. They were starving. They must go forward or die.

Then the courage and daring of her race came to Agatha's soul, and she resolved to make a last desperate attempt to save herself, not by running away from the fire, – which would be worse than useless, – but by running into it. The danger in doing this was scarcely greater, in fact, though it seemed so, than that involved in lying still, but it requires an extraordinary courage for one unarmed and not inspired by the desperate all-daring spirit of battle, to rush upon guns that are belching canister in half-gallon charges, at the rate of three or four times a minute.

The sharpshooters were completely gone now, and nothing lay between the young woman and her friends except a canister-swept open space fifty yards in width. This the heroic girl – baffled of all other resource – determined to dare. Directing Martha to follow her closely, she rose and in the gray of the dawn ran like a deer toward the bellowing guns. Fortunately, some one at the guns caught sight of the fleet-footed pair when they had covered about half the distance, and, in the increasing light, saw them to be women. Instantly the order, "Cease firing!" was given, and the clamorous cannon were hushed, but a heavy musketry fire from the enemy broke forth just as Agatha and her maid fell exhausted between the guns. A voice of command rang out:

"Pick up those women, quick, and carry them out of the fire!" Half a dozen of the men responded, and strong arms carried the nearly lifeless women to a small depression just in rear, where they were screened from the now slowly slackening shower of bullets.

When the fire had completely ceased, Captain Baillie Pegram ordered his guns, "By hand to the rear," and rode back to inquire concerning his captives. It was then that he discovered for the first time who the fugitives were, and the horror with which he realised what he supposed to be the situation, set him reeling in his saddle.

He had heard nothing of Agatha's mission to the north, of course. He now knew only that she had been hiding within the enemy's lines, and only one interpretation of that fact seemed possible. Agatha Ronald – the woman he loved, the woman upon whose integrity and Virginianism he would have staked his life without a second thought – had turned traitor! He did not pause to ask himself how, in such a case, she had come to be in the thicket among the sharpshooters. He was too greatly stunned to think of that, or otherwise to reason clearly.

Nor did he question her, except to ask if she or her maid had been wounded, and when she assured him of their safety, he said:

"I don't know whether to thank God for that or not. It might have been better, perhaps, if both had fallen."

Agatha heard the remark, and understood in part at least the thought that lay behind it. But she did not reply. She only said, feebly:

"We are starving."

"Bring two horses, quickly," Baillie commanded. "Lieutenant Mills, take the guns back to the bivouac. Our work here is done."

Then turning to Agatha, he explained:

"We have no rations here; can you manage to ride as far as our bivouac? It is only half a mile away, and we'll find something to eat there."

Agatha's exhaustion was so great that she could scarcely sit up, but she summoned all her resolution and managed to hold herself in place on the McClellan saddle which alone was available for her use. Martha was carried by the men on an improvised litter.

At the bivouac, no food was found except a pone or two of coarse corn bread and a few slices of uncooked bacon. But the delicate girl and her maid devoured these almost greedily, eating the bacon raw in soldier fashion, for, of course, no fires were allowed upon the picket-line.

Food and rest quickly revived Agatha, and Baillie remembered certain very peremptory orders he had received as to his course of procedure should "any woman whatever" come into his lines.

"I must escort you presently to a safer place than this," he said.

"Am I to go under compulsion, Captain Pegram," the girl asked, "or of my own accord?"

"With that," he answered, "I am afraid I have nothing to do. My sole concern is to take you out of danger. It is not my business to ask you questions as to how you have come into danger in a way so peculiar."

"And yet," she replied, "that is a matter that I suppose requires inquiry, and I am ready for the ordeal."

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."

"O, as to that," answered Stuart, "I never shared any such belief. Why, women keep secrets so well that we never know even what they think of us. Is not that so, Captain Pegram?"

"Yes, and perhaps it is fortunate for us, too, sometimes."

"But I did betray a secret to Captain Pegram this morning," Agatha continued, speaking gravely now. "He seemed so troubled at having to arrest me under the circumstances in which I seemed to have placed myself, that I relieved his mind by telling him I was acting under your orders, or, at least, with your consent."

"Perhaps you'd like to prefer charges against the captain? I dare say he was very stern and inconsiderate."

Instantly the girl flushed, and speaking with unusual seriousness, she answered:

"I beg to assure you, General Stuart, that Captain Pegram was altogether generous and kind to me – far more so than I had a right to expect. I can never sufficiently thank him."

To Baillie, this speech was inscrutable and bewildering. It might mean one thing, or another – much or little – according to the interpretation put upon the words. It might refer only to Baillie's care for her physical comfort and safety, or, as Baillie scarcely dared believe, it might obliquely include in its intent, an acknowledgment of the passionate declaration of love that he had been betrayed into making. It might be interpreted to mean that the words surprised from his lips were not unwelcome to her who had heard them. She had bidden him forget what he had said, but might it not be that she herself remembered and was not displeased with the recollection?

He resolved to ask her for the answer to that riddle at the earliest possible moment, but for the present he flushed crimson and kept silent.

Stuart, however, had accomplished his purpose. He had found out, or believed that he had found out, what he wished to know concerning the attitude of these two toward each other, and he was mightily pleased with the discovery. He abruptly changed the course of the conversation.

"When would you like to go to your home, Miss Agatha?"

"I should like to set out early to-morrow, General, if I may – if I am released from arrest."

"O, I shall not release you yet. You are much too dangerous a conspirator for that. I shall send you home under guard, and I have selected Captain Pegram to be your safe-keeper. I shall send him with you, under orders to remain at Willoughby for a week, keeping you under close surveillance. If at the end of that time he finds you sufficiently subdued, he will have orders to put you on parole, and return to his command. As he and you are 'almost strangers,' he will be a safer judge of the propriety of releasing you than any other officer I could send for that purpose."

The two were sorely embarrassed by this announcement, coming as it did without warning to either. Neither knew what to say, or whether the arrangement was welcome or unwelcome to the other. The sudden announcement of it, at any rate, was very embarrassing to both, and Pegram received it with a feeling of consternation for the moment. In the next instant, he realised the opportunity it would give him to renew the morning's conversation, and to learn definitely what Agatha's attitude toward him was to be after such a declaration as he had made. For whatever else happens, an avowal of that kind, made with such earnestness, never fails to work some change in a true woman's mind and soul. Baillie managed, with some difficulty, to say: