Part 14 (2/2)

”Do you,” I asked, gaining some slight control over myself, ”refer to the lady who came in with his party last evening?”

”Most certainly; she was presented to all of us as Mrs. Brennan, she has been a.s.signed rooms at his quarters, and she wears a wedding-ring.

Far too fine a woman in my judgment for such a master, but then that is not so uncommon a mistake in marriage. Why, come to think about it, you must have met her yourself. Have you reason to suspect this is not their relations.h.i.+p?”

”Not in the least,” I hastened to answer, fearful lest my thoughtless exclamation might become the basis for camp gossip. ”Indeed I was scarcely in the lady's presence at all coming in, as I was left in charge of the sergeant.”

He looked at me keenly through the darkness.

”It seems somewhat curious to me that such deep enmity has grown up between you two in so short a time. One almost suspects, as in most cases, there may be a woman at the bottom of it.”

I laughed carelessly.

”Not in the least, my friend. But there are indignities a captor can show to his prisoner which no true gentleman would ever be guilty of and no soldier would forgive.”

I could see in the torch-light his face flush with sudden indignation.

”You are right,” he returned heartily, ”and from my knowledge of Brennan I can understand your meaning. What business has such a man to possess a wife?”

Perhaps he felt that he had already said too much, for we tramped on in silence until we drew near a large, square white building standing directly beside the road.

”This is the old Culverton tavern, known as the Mansion House,” he said. ”It is a tremendous big building for this country, with as fine a ballroom in it as I have seen since leaving New York. We utilize it for almost every military purpose, and among others some of the strong rooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt are found valuable for the safe-keeping of important prisoners.”

We mounted the front steps as he was speaking, pa.s.sing through a cordon of guards, and in the wide hallway I was turned over to the officer in charge.

”Good-night, Captain,” said Caton, kindly extending his hand. ”You may rest a.s.sured that I shall say all I can in your favor, but it is to be regretted that Brennan has great influence just now at headquarters, and Sheridan is not a man to lightly overlook those hasty words you spoke to him.”

I could only thank him most warmly for his interest, realizing fully from his grave manner my desperate situation, and follow my silent conductor down some narrow and steep stairs until we stood upon the cemented floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt. Here a heavy door in the stone division wall was opened; I was pushed forward into the dense darkness within, and the lock clicked dully behind me. So thick was the wall I could not even distinguish the retreating steps of the jailer.

Tired as I was from the intense strain of the past thirty-six hours, even my anxious thoughts were insufficient to keep me awake. Feeling my way cautiously along the wall, I came at last to a wide wooden bench, and stretching my form at full length upon it, pillowed my head on one arm, and almost instantly was sound asleep.

When I awoke, sore from my hard bed and stiffened by the uncomfortable position in which I lay, it was broad daylight. That the morning was, indeed, well advanced I knew from the single ray of sunlight which streamed in through a grated window high up in the wall opposite me and fell like a bar of gold across the rough stone floor. I was alone. Even in the dark of the previous night I had discovered the sole pretence to furniture in the place. The room itself proved to be a large and almost square apartment, probably during the ordinary occupancy of the house a receptacle for wood or garden produce, but now peculiarly well adapted to the safeguarding of prisoners.

The solid stone walls were of sufficient height to afford no chance of reaching the great oak girders that supported the floor above, even had the doing so offered a favorable opening for escape. There were, apparently, but three openings of any kind,--the outside window through which the sunlight streamed, protected by thick bars of iron; a second opening, quite narrow, and likewise protected by a heavy metal grating; and the tightly locked door by means of which I had entered. The second, I concluded, after inspecting it closely, was a mere air pa.s.sage leading into some other division of the cellar. I noted these openings idly, and with scarcely a thought as to the possibility of escape. I had awakened with strange indifference as to what my fate might be. Such a feeling was not natural to me, but the fierce emotions of the preceding night had seemingly robbed me of all my usual buoyancy of hope. In one sense I yet trusted that Mrs. Brennan would keep her pledge and tell her story to Sheridan; if she failed to do this, and left me to face the rifles or the rope, then it made but small odds how soon it should be over. If she cared for me in the slightest degree she would not let me die unjustly, and to my mind then she had become the centre of all life.

Despondency is largely a matter of physical condition, and I was still sufficiently f.a.gged to be in the depths, when the door opened suddenly, and an ordinary army ration was placed within. The soldier who brought it did not speak, nor did I attempt to address him; but after he retired, the appetizing smell of the bacon, together with the unmistakable flavor of real coffee, drew me irrresistibly that way, and I made a hearty meal. The food put new life into me, and I fell to pacing back and forth between the corners of the cell, my mind full of questioning, yet with a fresh measure of confidence that all would still be well.

I was yet at it when, without warning, the door once again opened, and Lieutenant Caton entered. He advanced toward me with outstretched hand, which I grasped warmly, for I felt how much depended on his friends.h.i.+p, and resolved to ask him some questions which should solve my last remaining doubts.

”Captain Wayne,” he began soberly, looking about him, ”you are in even worse stress here than I had supposed, but I shall see to it that you are furnished with blankets before I leave.”

”You have nothing new, then, to communicate regarding the possibility of release?” I asked anxiously.

”Alas, no; Brennan appears to hate you with all the animosity of his strange nature, and his influence is so much stronger than mine that I have almost been commanded not to mention your name again.”

”But surely,” I urged, ”I am to receive the ordinary privilege of a prisoner of war? General Sheridan will not condemn me without evidence or trial, merely because in a moment of sudden anger I used hasty words, which I have ever since regretted?”

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