Like a flash occurred to me the only possible means by which we might escape open discovery--an instant disclosure of my supposed rank, coupled with indignant protest. Already, believing me merely some private soldier straying out of bounds with a woman of the camp as companion, he had thrown himself from the saddle to investigate. Whatever was to be done must be accomplished quickly, or it would prove all too late. To think was to act. Stepping instantly in front of the shrinking girl and facing him, I said sternly:
"I do not know who you may chance to be, sir, nor greatly care, yet your words and actions imply an insult to this lady which I am little disposed to overlook. For your information permit me to state, I am Colonel Curran, Sixth Ohio Light Artillery, and am not accustomed to being halted on the road by every drunken fool who sports a uniform."
He stopped short in complete surprise, staring at me through the darkness, and I doubted not was perfectly able to distinguish the glint of buttons and gleam of braid.
"Your pardon, sir," he ejaculated at last. "I mistook you for some runaway soldier. But I failed to catch your words; how did you name yourself?"
"Colonel Curran, of Major-General Halleck's staff."
"The hell you are! Curran had a full gray beard a month ago."
He took a step forward, and before I could recover from the first numbing shock of surprise was peering intently into my face.
"Damn it!" he cried, tugging viciously at a revolver in his belt, "I know that face! You are the measly Johnny Reb I brought in day before yesterday."
I could mark the flash of the stars on the blue steel of his pistol barrel, and knew from the eager ring of his voice he exulted in the hope that I would give him excuse to fire. Yet I thought in that moment of but one thing--the woman who had compromised her name to help me to attain freedom. I would have died a thousand deaths if it might only be with my hands at his throat, her story unknown. Yet even as I braced my body for the leap, gazing straight into that deadly barrel, there came a quick flutter of drapery at my side, and she, pressing me firmly backward, faced him without a word.
The man's extended arm dropped to his side as though pierced by a bullet, and he took one step backward, shrinking as if his startled eyes beheld a ghost.
"Edith?" he cried, as though doubting his own vision, and the ring of agony in his voice was almost piteous. "Edith! My God! You here, at midnight, alone with this man?"
However the words, the tone, the gesture may have stung her, her face remained proudly calm, her voice cold and clear.
"I certainly am, Major Brennan," she answered, her eyes never once leaving his face. "And may I ask what reason you can have to object?"
"Reason?" His voice had grown hoarse with passion and surprise. "My God, how can you ask? How can you even face me? Why do you not sink down in shame? Alone here,"--he looked about him into the darkness,-- "at such an hour, in company with a Rebel, a sneaking, cowardly spy, already condemned to be shot. By Heaven! he shall never live to boast of it!"
He flung up his revolver barrel to prove the truth of his threat, but she stepped directly between us, and shielded me with her form.
"Put down your pistol," she ordered coldly. "I assure you my reputation is in no immediate danger unless you shoot me, and your bullet shall certainly find my heart before it ever reaches Captain Wayne."
"Truly, you must indeed love him," he sneered.
So close to me was she standing that I could feel her form tremble at this insult, yet her voice remained emotionless.
"Your uncalled-for words shame me, not my actions. In being here with Captain Wayne to-night I am merely paying a simple debt of honor--a double debt, indeed, considering that he was condemned to death by your lie, while you deceived me by another."
"Did he tell you that?"
"He did not. Like the true gentleman he has ever shown himself to be, he endeavored to disguise the facts, to withhold from me all knowledge of your dastardly action. I know it by the infamous sentence pronounced against him and by your falsehood to me."
"Edith, you mistake," he urged anxiously. "I--I was told that he had been sent North."
She drew a deep breath, as though she could scarcely grasp the full audacity of his pretence to ignorance.
"You appeared to be fully informed but now as to his death sentence."
"Yes, I heard of it while away, and intended telling you as soon as I reached our quarters."
I could feel the scorn of his miserable deception as it curled her lip, and her figure seemed to straighten between us.
"Then," she said slowly, "you will doubtless agree that I have done no more than was right, and will therefore permit him this chance of escape from so unmerited a fate; for you know as well as I do that he has been wrongly condemned."
He stepped forward with a half-smothered oath, and rested one hand heavily upon her shoulder.
"An exceedingly neat trap," he said, with a grim laugh, "a most ingenious snare; yet hardly one I am likely to be caught in. I am not quite so green, my lady. What! let that fellow go? become the laughing stock of you and your Johnny Reb lover? I rather guess not, madam. Damn him! I will hang him now higher than Haman, just to show Queen Esther that it can be done. Out of the way, madam!"
Rendered desperate by her slight resistance and his own jealous hatred, he thrust the woman aside so rudely that she fell forward upon one knee. His revolver was yet in his right hand, gleaming in the starlight, but before he could raise or fire it I had grasped the steel barrel firmly, and the hammer came down noiselessly upon the flesh of my thumb. The next instant we were locked close together in fierce struggle for the mastery. He was the heavier, stronger man; I the younger and quicker. From the first every effort on both sides was put forth solely to gain command of the weapon,--his to fire, mine to prevent, for I knew well at the sound of the discharge there would come a rush of blue-coats to his rescue. My first fierce onset had put him on the defensive, but as we tugged and strained his superiority in weight began to tell, and slowly he bore me backward, desperately contesting every inch I was thus compelled to yield.
We struggled voiceless, neither having breath for useless speech, and each realizing that the end would probably mean death either to the one or the other. Only our heavy breathing, the quick shuffling of feet on the stony road, and an occasional rending of cloth, evinced the desperation in which we strove. Once, as we turned partially in the struggle, I caught a passing glimpse of the woman standing helpless, her face buried in her hands, and the sight yielded me new strength and determination. For her sake I must win! Even as this thought came, my burly antagonist pressed me backward until all the weight of my body rested upon my right leg. Then there occurred to me like a flash a wrestler's trick taught me years before by an old negro on my father's plantation. Instantly I appeared to yield to the force against which I contended with simulated weakness, sinking lower and lower, until, I doubt not, Brennan felt convinced I must go over backward. But as I thus sank, my left foot found steady support farther back, while my free hand sank slowly down his straining body until my groping fingers grasped firmly the broad belt about his waist. I yielded yet another inch, until he leaned so far over me as to be out of all balance, and then, with sudden straightening of my left leg, at the same time forcing my head beneath his chest in leverage, with one tremendous effort I flung him, head under, crashing down upon the hard road.
Trembling like a reed from the exertion, I stood there looking down upon the dark form lying huddled at my feet. He rested motionless, and I bent over, placing my hand upon his heart, horrified at the mere thought that he might be dead. But the heart beat, and with a prayer of thankfulness I looked up. She stood beside me.
"Tell me, Captain Wayne," she exclaimed anxiously, "he is not--not seriously hurt?"
The words thoroughly aroused me, and I recalled instantly her probable relationship to this man, her delicate position now.
"I believe not," I answered soberly. "He is a heavy man, and fell hard, yet his heart beats strong. He must have cut his head upon a stone, however, for he is bleeding."
She knelt beside him, and I caught the whiteness of a handkerchief within her hand.
"Believe me, Mrs. Brennan," I faltered lamely, "I regret this far more than I can tell. Nothing has ever occurred to me to give greater pain than the thought that I have brought you so much of sorrow and trouble."
She held up her hand to me, and I took it humbly.
"It was in no way your fault; pray do not consider that I can ever blame you for the outcome."
Her eyes were upon me; I could view her face in the starlight, and for the moment I utterly forgot the man who rested there between us.
"If you could only know," I exclaimed eagerly, "how sincerely I long to serve you,--to atone in some small way for all the difficulty I have brought into your life; how my heart throbs to your presence as to that of no other living woman--"
She hushed my impetuous words with the gesture of a queen, and rose to her feet facing me. Under the stars our eyes looked into each other, and her face was very white.
"You must not," she said firmly, and I thought she glanced down upon the motionless figure at her feet. "I have trusted you; do not cause me to regret it now."
I bowed, humiliated to the very depths of my soul.
"Your rebuke is perfectly just," I answered slowly. "God knows I shall never be guilty again. You will have faith in me?"
"Always, everywhere--whether it ever be our fate to meet again or not. But now you must go."
"Go? And leave you here alone? Are you not afraid?"
"Afraid?" she looked about her into the darkness. "Of what? Surely you do not mean of Frank--of Major Brennan? And as to my being alone, our quarters are within a scant hundred yards from here, and a single cry will bring me aid in plenty. Hush! what was that?"
It was the shuffling tread of many feet, the sturdy tramp of a body of infantry on the march.
"Go!" she cried hurriedly. "If you would truly serve me, if you care at all for me, do not longer delay and be discovered here. It is the grand rounds. I beg of you, go!"
I grasped her outstretched hand, pressed my lips hotly upon it, and sped with noiseless footsteps down the black, deserted road.