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 subst.i.tute 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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sionate 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 att.i.tude 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 embarra.s.sed 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 embarra.s.sing 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 att.i.tude 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:

"I will be glad to carry out your orders, General."

Agatha said nothing. What she thought and felt, it would be idle to inquire.