Part 39 (1/2)
”We have won a glorious victory, Irene, but many of our n.o.ble soldiers are wounded. I knew you would be anxious, and we came----”
”Is my father killed!”
”Your father was wounded. He led a splendid charge.”
”Wounded! No! he is killed! Andrew, tell me the truth--is father dead?”
The faithful negro could no longer repress his grief, and sobbed convulsively, unable to reply.
”Oh, my G.o.d! I knew it!” she gasped.
The gleaming arms were thrown up despairingly, and a low, dreary cry wailed through the stately old mansion as the orphan turned her eyes upon Nellie and Andrew--the devoted two who had petted her from childhood.
Judge Harris led her into the library, and his weeping wife endeavoured to offer consolation, but she stood rigid and tearless, holding out her hand for the despatch. Finally they gave it to her and she read:--
”CHARLES T. HARRIS--
”Huntingdon was desperately wounded at three o'clock to-day, in making a charge. He died two hours ago. I was with him. The body leaves to-morrow for W----.
”HIRAM ARNOLD.”
The paper fell from her fingers; with a dry sob she turned from them, and threw herself on the sofa, with her face of woe to the wall. So pa.s.sed the night.
CHAPTER x.x.x
THE BLOCKADE RUNNER
”I intend to trust you with important despatches, Miss Grey--for I have great confidence in female ingenuity, as well as female heroism. The meekest of women are miniature Granvelles; nature made you a race of schemers. Pardon me if I ask, how you propose to conceal the despatches?
It is no easy matter now to run the blockade of a Southern port, especially on the Gulf; and you must guard against being picked up by the Philistines.”
”I am fully aware of all the risk attending my trip; but if you will give me the papers, prepared as I directed in my note from Paris, I will pledge my life that they shall reach Richmond safely. If I am captured and carried North, I have friends who will a.s.sist me in procuring a pa.s.sport to the South, and little delay will occur. If I am searched, I can bid them defiance. Give me the despatches, and I will show you how I intend to take them.”
Electra opened her trunk, took out a large portfolio, and selected from the drawings one in crayon representing the heads of Michael Angelo's Fates.
Spreading it out, face downward, on the table, she laid the closely-written tissue paper of despatches smoothly on the back of the thin pasteboard; then fitted a square piece of oil-silk on the tissue missive, and having, with a small brush, coated the silk with paste, covered the whole with a piece of thick drawing paper, the edges of which were carefully glued to those of the pasteboard. Taking a hot iron from the grate, she pa.s.sed it repeatedly over the paper, till all was smooth and dry; then in the centre wrote with a pencil: ”Michael Angelo's _Fates_, in the Pitti Palace. Copied May 8th, 1861.” From a list of figures in a small note-book she added the dimensions of the picture, and underneath all, a line from Euripides.
Her eyes sparkled as she bent over her work, and at length, lifting it for inspection, she exclaimed triumphantly--
”There, sir! I can baffle even the Paris detective, much more the lynx-eyed emissaries of Lincoln, Seward & Co. Are you satisfied? Examine it with your own hands.”
”Perfectly satisfied, my dear young lady. But suppose they should seize your trunk? Confiscation is the cry all over the North.”
”Finding nothing suspicious or 'contraband' about me, except my Southern birth and sympathies, they would scarcely take possession of the necessary tools of my profession. I have no fear, sir; the paper is fated to reach its destination.”
”Are your other despatches sealed up pictorially?”
She laughed heartily.