John Deal balanced the sack in the palm of one work-worn hand and looked hard at the Messenger. He could see only her eyes.

[Illustration: "'Turn around,' said the Special Messenger."]

"Reckon you ain't the same trooper as come yesterday."

"No."

"What might be yoh regiment?"

The Messenger was looking hard at the beehives. The door of one of the hives, a new one, was shut.

"What regiment did you say, suh?" repeated Deal, showing his teeth in a friendly grin; and suddenly froze rigid as he found himself inspecting the round, smoky muzzle of a six-shooter.

"Turn around," said the Special Messenger. Her voice was even and passionless.

John Deal turned.

"Cross your hands behind your back. Quickly, please! Now back up to this horse. Closer!"

There was a glimmer, a click; and the man stood handcuffed.

"Sit down on the grass with your back against that tree. Make yourself comfortable."

Deal squatted awkwardly, settled, and turned a pallid face to the Messenger.

"What'n hell's this mean?" he demanded.

"Don't move and don't shout," said the Messenger. "If you do I'll have to gag you. I'm only going over there to take a look at your bees."

The pallor on the man's face was dreadful, but he continued to stare at the Messenger coolly enough.

"It's a damned outrage!" he began thickly. "I had a pass from your Colonel----"

"If you don't keep quiet I'll have to tie up your face," observed the Messenger, dismounting and flinging aside her cloak.

Then, as she walked toward the little row of beehives, carrying only her riding whip, the farmer's eyes grew round and a dull flush empurpled his face and neck.

"By God!" he gasped; "it's _her_!" and said not another word.

She advanced cautiously toward the hives; very carefully, with the butt of her whip, she closed the sliding door over every exit, then seated herself in the grass within arm's length of the hives and, crossing her spurred boots, leaned forward, expectant, motionless.

A bee arrived, plunder-laden, dropped on the sill and began to walk toward the closed entrance of his hive. Finding it blocked, the insect buzzed angrily. Another bee whizzed by her and lit on the sill of another hive; another came, another, and another.

Very gingerly, as each insect alighted, she raised the sliding door and let it enter. Deal watched her, fascinated.

An hour passed; she had admitted hundreds of bees, always closing the door behind each new arrival. Then something darted through the range of her vision and alighted, buzzing awkwardly on the sill of a hive--an ordinary, yellow-brown honey bee, yet differing from the others in that its thighs seemed to be snow-white.

Quick as a flash the Messenger leaned forward and caught the insect in her gloved fingers, holding it by the wings flat over the back.

Its abdomen dilated and twisted, and the tiny sting was thrust out, vainly searching the enemy; but the Messenger, drawing a pin from her jacket, deftly released the two white encumbrances from the insect's thighs--two thin cylinders of finest tissue paper, and flung the angry insect high into the air. It circled, returned to the hive, and she let it in.

There was a groan from the manacled man under the trees; she gave him a rapid glance, shook her head in warning, and, leaning forward, deftly lifted a second white-thighed bee from the hive over which it was scrambling in a bewildered sort of way.

A third, fourth, and fifth bee arrived in quick succession; she robbed them all of their tissue-paper cylinders. Then for a while no more arrived, and she wondered whether her guess had been correct, that the nine peaches and wet pits meant to John Deal that nine bees were to be expected--eager home-comers, which he had sent to his mistress and which, as she required their services, she released, certain that they would find their old hives on John Deal's farm and carry to him the messages she sent.

And they came at last--the sixth, seventh--then after a long interval the eighth--and, finally, the ninth bee whizzed up to the hive and fell, scrambling, its movements embarrassed by the tiny, tissue cylinders.

The Messenger waited another hour; there were no more messengers among the bees that arrived.

Then she opened every hive door, rose, walked over to the closed hive that stood apart and opened the door of that.

A _black_ honeybee crawled out, rose into the air, and started due south; another followed, then three, then a dozen; and then the hive vomited a swarm of _black_ bees which sped southward.

Sandy River lay due south; also, the home-hive from which they had been taken and confined as prisoners; also, a certain famous officer lingered at Sandy River--one, General J. E. B. Stuart, very much interested in the beehives belonging to a friend of his, a Mr. Enderly.

When she had relieved each messenger-bee of its tissue-paper dispatch, she had taken the precaution to number each tiny cylinder, in order of its arrival, from one to nine. Now she counted them, looked over each message, laid them carefully away between the leaves of a pocket notebook, slipped it into the breast of her jacket, and, rising, walked over to John Deal.

"Here is the key to those handcuffs," she said, hanging it around his neck by the bit of cord on which it was dangling. "Somebody at Sandy River will unlock them for you. But it would be better, Mr. Deal, if you remained outside our lines until this war is ended. I don't blame you--I'm sorry for you--and for your mistress."

She set toe to stirrup, mounted easily, fastened her cloak around her.

"I'm really sorry," she said. "I hope nobody will injure your pretty farm. Good-by."

Miss Carryl was standing at the end of the beautiful, oak-shaded avenue when the Messenger, arriving at full speed, drew bridle and whirled her horse.

Looking straight into the pretty Southern woman's eyes, she said gravely:

"Miss Carryl, your bees have double stings. I am very sorry for you--very, very sorry. I hope your property will he respected while you are at Sandy River."

"What do you mean?" asked Miss Carryl. Over her pale features a painful tremor played.

"You know what I mean. And I am afraid you had better go at once. John Deal is already on his way."

There was a long silence. Miss Carryl found her voice at length.

"Thank you," she said without a tremor. "Will I have any trouble in passing the Yankee lines?"

"Here is your passport. I had prepared it."

As the Messenger bent over from the saddle to deliver the pass, somehow her hat, with its crossed gilt sabres, fell off. She caught it in one hand; a bright blush mantled throat and face.

The Southern woman looked up at the girl in the saddle, so dramatically revealed for what she was under the superb accusation of her hair.

"_You?_"

"Yes--God help us both!"

The silence was terrible.