The Crisis Part 64

We are not permitted, alas, to go behind these stern walls and discover how Captain Colfax pa.s.sed that eventful Sunday of the Exodus. We know that, in his loneliness, he hoped for a visit from his cousin, and took to pacing his room in the afternoon, when a smarting sense of injustice crept upon him. Clarence was young. And how was he to guess, as he looked out in astonishment upon the frightened flock of white boats swimming southward, that his mother and his sweetheart were there?

On Monday, while the Colonel and many prominent citizens were busying themselves about procuring the legal writ which was at once to release Mr. Colfax, and so cleanse the whole body of Camp Jackson's defenders from any, veiled intentions toward the Government, many well known carriages drew up before the Carvel House in Locust Street to congratulate the widow and the Colonel upon the possession of such a son and nephew. There were some who slyly congratulated Virginia, whose martyrdom it was to sit up with people all the day long. For Mrs. Colfax kept her room, and admitted only a few of her bosom friends to cry with her. When the last of the callers was gone, Virginia was admitted to her aunt's presence.

"Aunt Lillian, to-morrow morning Pa and I are going to the a.r.s.enal with a basket for Max. Pa seems to think there is a chance that he may come back with us. You will go, of course."

The lady smiled wearily at the proposal, and raised her hands in protest, the lace on the sleeves of her dressing gown falling away from her white arms.

"Go, my dear?" she exclaimed, "when I can't walk to my bureau after that terrible Sunday. You are crazy, Jinny. No," she added, with conviction, "I never again expect to see him alive. Comyn says they may release him, does he? Is he turning Yankee, too?"

The girl went away, not in anger or impatience, but in sadness. Brought up to reverence her elders, she had ignored the shallowness of her aunt's character in happier days. But now Mrs. Colfax's conduct carried a prophecy with it. Virginia sat down on the landing to ponder on the years to come,--on the pain they were likely to bring with them from this source--Clarence gone to the war; her father gone (for she felt that he would go in the end), Virginia foresaw the lonely days of trial in company with this vain woman whom accident made her cousin's mother.

Ay, and more, fate had made her the mother of the man she was to marry.

The girl could scarcely bear the thought--through the hurry and swing of the events of two days she had kept it from her mind.

But now Clarence was to be released. To-morrow he would be coming home to her joyfully for his reward, and she did not love him. She was bound to face that again and again. She had cheated herself again and again with other feelings. She had set up intense love of country in the shrine where it did not belong, and it had answered--for a while. She saw Clarence in a hero's light--until a fatal intimate knowledge made her shudder and draw back. And yet her resolution should not be water.

She would carry it through.

Captain Lige's cheery voice roused her from below--and her father's laugh. And as she went down to them she thanked G.o.d that this friend had been spared to him. Never had the Captain's river yarns been better told than at the table that evening. Virginia did not see him glance at the Colonel when at last he had brought a smile to her face.

"I'm going to leave Jinny with you, Lige," said Mr. Carvel, presently.

"Worington has some notion that the Marshal may go to the a.r.s.enal to-night with the writ. I mustn't neglect the boy."

Virginia stood in front of him. "Won't you let me go?" she pleaded

The Colonel was taken aback. He stood looking down at her, stroking his goatee, and marvelling at the ways of woman.

"The horses have been out all day, Jinny," he said, "I am going in the cars."

"I can go in the cars, too."

The Colonel looked at Captain Lige.

"There is only a chance that we shall see Clarence," he went on, uneasily.

"It is better than sitting still," cried Virginia, as she ran away to get the bonnet with the red strings.

"Lige,--" said the Colonel, as the two stood awaiting her in the hall, "I can't make her out. Can you?"

The Captain did not answer.

It was a long journey, in a b.u.mping car with had springs that rattled unceasingly, past the string of provost guards. The Colonel sat in the corner, with his head bent down over his stick At length, cramped and weary, they got out, and made their way along the a.r.s.enal wall, past the sentries to the entrance. The sergeant brought his rifle to a "port".

"Commandant's orders, sir. No one admitted," he said.

"Is Captain Colfax here?" asked Mr. Carver

"Captain Colfax was taken to Illinois in a skiff, quarter of an hour since."

Captain Lige gave vent to a long, low whistle.

"A skiff!" he exclaimed, "and the river this high! A skiff!"

Virginia clasped his arm in terror. "Is there danger?"

Before he could answer came the noise of steps from the direction of the river, and a number of people hurried up excitedly. Colonel Carvel recognized Mr. Worington, the lawyer, and caught him by the sleeve.

"Anything happened?" he demanded.

Worington glanced at the sentry, and pulled the Colonel past the entrance and into the street. Virginia and Captain Lige followed.

"They have started across with him in a light skiff----four men and a captain. The young fool! We had him rescued."

"Rescued!"

"Yes. There were but five in the guard. And a lot of us, who suspected what they were up to, were standing around. When we saw 'em come down, we made a rush and had the guard overpowered But Colfax called out to stand back."

"Well, sir."

"Cuss me if I understand him," said Mr. Worington. "He told us to disperse, and that he proposed to remain a prisoner and go where they sent him."

There was a silence. Then--"Move on please, gentlemen," said the sentry, and they started to walk toward the car line, the lawyer and the Colonel together. Virginia put her hand through the Captain's arm. In the darkness he laid his big one over it.

"Don't you be frightened, Jinny, at what I said, I reckon they'll fetch up in Illinois all right, if I know Lyon. There, there," said Captain Lige, soothingly. Virginia was crying softly. She had endured more in the past few days than often falls to the lot of one-and-twenty.

"There, there, Jinny." He felt like crying himself. He thought of the many, many times he had taken her on his knee and kissed her tears. He might do that no more, now. There was the young Captain, a prisoner on the great black river, who had a better right, Elijah Brent wondered, as they waited in the silent street for the lonely car, if Clarence loved her as well as he.

It was vary late when they reached home, and Virginia went silently up to her room. Colonel Carvel stared grimly after her, then glanced at his friend as he turned down the lights. The eyes of the two met, as of old, in true understanding.

The sun was still slanting over the tops of the houses the next morning when Virginia, a ghostly figure, crept down the stairs and withdrew the lock and bolt on the front door. The street was still, save for the twittering of birds and the distant rumble of a cart in its early rounds. The chill air of the morning made her s.h.i.+ver as she scanned the entry for the newspaper. Dismayed, she turned to the clock in the hall.

Its hands were at quarter past five.

She sat long behind the curtains in her father's little library, the thoughts whirling in her brain as she watched the growing life of another day. What would it bring forth? Once she stole softly back to the entry, self-indulgent and ashamed, to rehea.r.s.e again the bitter and the sweet of that scene of the Sunday before. She summoned up the image of the young man who had stood on these steps in front of the frightened servants. She seemed to feel again the calm power and earnestness of his face, to hear again the clear-cut tones of his voice as he advised her. Then she drew back, frightened, into the sombre library, conscience-stricken that she should have yielded to this temptation then, when Clarence--She dared not follow the thought, but she saw the light skiff at the mercy of the angry river and the dark night.

This had haunted her. If he were spared, she prayed for strength to consecrate herself to him A book lay on the table, and Virginia took refuge in it. And her eyes glancing over the pages, rested on this verse:--

"Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands."

The paper brought no news, nor mentioned the ruse to which Captain Lyon had resorted to elude the writ by transporting his prisoner to Illinois.

Newspapers were not as alert then as now. Colonel Carvel was off early to the a.r.s.enal in search of tidings. He would not hear of Virginia's going with him. Captain Lige, with a surer instinct, went to the river.

What a morning of suspense! Twice Virginia was summoned to her aunt, and twice she made excuse. It was the Captain who returned first, and she met him at the door.

"Oh, what have you heard?" she cried.

"He is alive," said the Captain, tremulously, "alive and well, and escaped South."

She took a step toward him, and swayed. The Captain caught her. For a brief instant he held her in his arms and then he led her to the great armchair that was the Colonel's.

"Lige," she said, "--are you sure that this is not--a kindness?"

"No, Jinny," he answered quickly, "but things were mighty close. I was afraid last night. The river was roarin'. They struck out straight across, but they drifted and drifted like log-wood. And then she began to fill, and all five of 'em to bail. Then---then she went down. The five soldiers came up on that bit of an island below the a.r.s.enal. They hunted all night, but they didn't find Clarence. And they got taken off to the a.r.s.enal this morning."