The Littlest Rebel Part 29

The General relaxed--and smiled.

"Another fine distinction," he said, resuming his seat. He knocked the ashes from his cigar and presently looked up with another one of those terribly vital questions which came so simply from his lips. "Did you ever penetrate the Federal lines by means of a uniform--of blue?"

The Confederate drew back as he felt the a.s.sault on his rights as a soldier.

"As to that, General Grant, there is--"

"Answer me!" came the sharp command. "'Yes' or 'No'!"

"One moment, General," interrupted Harris, with a lawyer's quick objection. "If--"

"No interference, Harris," came the curt order. "Answer me, Captain.

'Yes' or 'No'!"

The Southerner's face flushed and he threw back his head with the superb defiance that General Grant knew so well--which was his one eternal stumbling block, and due to continue for another full year of blood.

"Under the rulings of court-martial law," the Confederate Captain said in ringing tones, "I deny even _your_ right to the question."

To the surprise of everyone the General merely nodded.

"That is all, sir. Thank you," he said, and Cary, with a look of surprise, slowly resumed his seat.

"Mr. Morrison!"

The Union officer rose and saluted.

"As a military servant of the United States Government you were ordered to pursue this man and take him--dead or alive. In this you failed."

Morrison inclined his head gravely but shot a look of respectful objection at his superior.

"In part--I failed."

Instantly the accusing forefinger was leveled at him across the desk and the point made with terrible directness.

"_And knowing he was a spy!_"

Morrison shook his head.

"Not to my personal knowledge, sir. I hunted him many times; but never while he wore a Federal uniform."

"And when you captured him?"

In reply, Morrison simply indicated Cary's tattered coat of gray.

"Ah! Then you _did_ capture him?"

"Yes," came the quiet answer.

"And he _was_ the escort mentioned in your pa.s.s."

"Yes," Morrison answered slowly.

"H'm," said the General. He rose and turned to Harris.

"I am afraid, my dear Harris, that in spite of fine spun distinctions and your legal technicalities, the findings of our court were not far wrong."

Dropping his handful of papers on the desk he caught Morrison's eye and rasped out his a.n.a.lysis of the case.

"Captain Cary practically admits his guilt! _You_ were aware of it! And yet you send him through the very center of our lines! A _pa.s.s_! Carte blanche to learn the disposition of our forces--our weakness and our strength--and to make his report in Richmond. He was an enemy--with a price on his head! And you trusted him! _A spy!_"

As the General had been speaking the first few words of his contemptuous summing up Morrison saw where they would lead and his manhood instantly leaped up in reply.

"I trusted, not the spy, but _Herbert Cary_," he said with honest courage. Then, as the General turned his back on him with a contemptuous snap of his fingers--

"General! I have offered no defense. If the justice of court-martial law prescribes a firing squad--I find no fault. I failed. I pay."

With a gesture which indicated Gary the disgraced officer of the Army of the Potomac shot out his one and only defense of his action--at an unyielding back.

"I took this man--hunted--wounded--fighting to reach the side of a hungry child. I captured him and, by the rules of war, I was about to have him shot. Then he asked me to get his little girl safely to Richmond, and not to let her know--about him."

"And she believed in _me_. _Trusted_ me--even as I trusted Herbert Cary to pierce the very center of your lines--as a father--not a spy!"

From behind the unyielding back came a statement of fact, firm and pitiless.

"And it cost you your sword--your life."

Morrison centered his eyes on the back of the General's head and sent his answer home with all the power of his voice and spirit.

"_And I have no regret_" he said. "In the duty of a military servant--I have failed. But my prisoner still lives! I could _not_ accept the confidence of his child--the trust of innocence--a baby's kiss--with the blood of her father on my hands!" He dropped his hands and half turned away.

The General turned, a little at a time--first his head and then his shoulders.

"A very pretty sentiment," he remarked dryly. "But you seem to forget that we are not making love but _war_."

With a supreme burst of anger at his helplessness before the brute forces which would presently send him forth to the firing squad, Morrison wheeled on his commanding general and flared forth with his last reply.

"Yes, _war_! And the h.e.l.lish laws that govern it. But there is another law--_Humanity_! Through a trooper in my command the home of an enemy was turned to ashes--his loved ones flung out to starve. When a helpless tot had lost its mother and a father would protect it, then _war_ demands that I smash a baby's one last hope--in the name of the Stars and Stripes. And then--to march back home, to a happy, triumphant North--and meet _my_ baby--with the memory of a butcher in my heart--_By Heaven, sir! I'd rather hang!_"

For a moment General and Colonel regarded each other fixedly and then the General turned away to pace the floor. Presently he came to his decision and walked slowly back to his desk.

"Lieutenant Harris," he said in tones whose significance could not be misunderstood, "I was right. You have wasted your time--and mine."

Then he sighed wearily and made a last gesture to Forbes.

"_The guard_" he said.

It was all over.