The Tree of Appomattox. Altsheler Joseph Alexander
I hope that all of you will be shot by our brave troops before night!"
The wish was uttered with the most extraordinary energy and fierceness. For the first time she had raised her level tone, and the lifted eyes that looked into Dick's were blazing with hate. He uttered an exclamation and stepped back. Then he recovered himself and said politely:
"Madame, I do not wish any such ill to you or yours."
But she had resumed her knitting, and Dick, without another word, walked out of the house, followed by the sergeant and his men.
"I did not know a woman could be so vindictive," he said.
"Our army has killed two of her sons," said the sergeant. "To her we, like all the rest of our troops, are the men who killed them."
"Perhaps that is so," said Dick thoughtfully, as he remounted.
They rode beside the walk and out at the open gate. Dick carried a silver whistle, upon which he blew a signal for the rest of his men to join them, and then he and the sergeant went slowly up the road. He was deeply chagrined at the escape of the rifleman, and the curse of the woman lay heavily upon him.
"I don't see how it was done," he said.
"Nor I," said the sergeant, shaking his head.
There was a sharp report, the undoubted whip-like crack of a rifle, and a man just behind, uttering a cry, held up a bleeding arm. Dick had a lightning conviction that the bullet was intended for himself. It was certain also that the shot had come from the house.
"Back with me, sergeant!" he exclaimed. "We'll get that fellow yet!"
They galloped back, sprang from their horses, and rushed in, followed by the original little troop that had entered, Dick shouting a direction to the others to remain outside. The fierce little old woman was sitting as before by the table, knitting, and she had never appeared more the great lady.
"Once was enough," she said, shooting him a glance of bitter contempt.
"But twice may succeed," Dick said. "Sergeant, take the men and go through all the house again. Our friend with the rifle may not have had time to get back into his hidden lair. I will remain here."
The sergeant and his men went out and he heard their boots on the stairway and in the other rooms. The window near him was still open and the perfume of the roses came in again, strangely thrilling, overpowering. But something had awakened in Dick. The sixth, and even the germ of a seventh sense, which may have been instinct, were up and alive. He did not look again at the rose garden, nor did he listen any longer to the footsteps of his men.
He had concentrated all his faculties, the known, and the unknown, which may have been lying dormant in him, upon a single object. He heard only the click of the knitting needles, and he saw only the small, strong hands moving swiftly back and forth. They were very white, and they were firm like those of a young woman. There were none of the heavy blue veins across the back that betoken age.
The hands fascinated him. He stared at them, fairly pouring his gaze upon them. They were beautiful, as the hands of a great lady should be kept, and it was all the more wonderful then that the right should have across the back of it a faint gray smudge, so tiny that only an eye like his, and a concentrated gaze like his, could have seen it.
He took four swift steps forward, seized the white hand in his and held it up.
"Madame," he said, and now his tone was as fierce as hers had ever been, "where is the rifle?"
She made no attempt to release her hand, nor did she move at all, save to lift her head. Then her eyes, hard, defiant and ruthless, looked into his. But his look did not flinch from hers. He knew, and, knowing, he meant to act.
"Madame," he repeated, "where is the rifle? It is useless for you to deny."
"Have I denied?"
"No, but where is the rifle?"
He was wholly unconscious of it, but his surprise and excitement were so great that his hand closed upon hers in a strong muscular contraction. Thrills of pain shot through her body, but she did not move.
"The rifle! The rifle!" repeated Dick.
"Loose my hand, and I will give it to you."
His hand fell away and she walked to the end of the room where a rug, too long, lay in a fold against the wall. She turned back the fold and took from its hiding place a slender-barreled cap-and-ball rifle. Without a word she handed it to Dick and he passed his hand over the muzzle, which was still warm.
He looked at her, but she gave back his gaze unflinching.
"I could not believe it, were it not so," he said.
"But it is so. The bullets were not aimed well enough." Dick felt an emotion that he did not wholly understand.
"Madame," he said, "I shall take the rifle, and again say good-by. As before, I wish you well."
She resumed her seat in the chair and took up the knitting. But she did not repeat her wish that Dick and all his men be shot before night. He went out in silence, and gently closed the door behind him. In the hall he met Sergeant Whitley and said:
"We needn't look any farther. I know now that the man has gone and we shall not be fired upon again from this house."
The sergeant glanced at the rifle Dick carried and made no comment. But when they were riding away, he said:
"And so that was it?"
"Yes, that was it."
CHAPTER III
OVER THE HILLS
Dick and his little troop rode on through the silent country, and they were so watchful and thorough that they protected fully the right flank of the marching column. One or two shots were fired, but the reports came from such distant points that he knew the bullets had fallen short.
But while he beat up the forests and fields for sharpshooters he was very thoughtful. He had a mind that looked far ahead, even in youth, and the incident at the house weighed upon him. He foresaw the coming triumph of the North and of the Union, a triumph won after many great disasters, but he remembered what an old man at a blacksmith shop in Tennessee had told him and his comrades before the Battle of Stone River. Whatever happened, however badly the South might be defeated, the Southern soil would still be held by Southern people, and their bitterness would be intense for many a year to come. The victor forgives easily, the vanquished cannot forget. His imagination was active and vivid, often attaining truths that logic and reason do not reach, and he could understand what had happened at the house, where the ordinary mind would have been left wondering.
It is likely also that the sergeant had a perception of it, though not as sharp and clear as Dick's.
"When the war is over and the soldiers all go back, that is them that's livin'," he said, "it won't be them that fought that'll keep the grudge. It's the women who've lost their own that'll hate longest."
"I think what you say is true, Whitley," said Dick, "but let's not talk about it any more. It hurts."
"Me too," said the sergeant. "But don't you like this country that we're ridin' through, Mr. Mason?"
"Yes, it's fine, but most of it has been cropped too hard. I remember reading somewhere that George Washington himself said, away back in the last century, that slave labor, so careless and reckless, was ruining the soil of Virginia."
"Likely that's true, sir, but it won't have much chance to keep on ruinin' it. Wouldn't you say, sir, that was a Johnny on his horse up there?"
"I can soon tell you," said Dick, unslinging his glasses.
On their right was a hill towering above the rest. The slopes were wooded densely, but the crest was quite bare. Upon it sat a solitary figure on horseback, evidently watching the marching column.
Dick put his glasses to his eyes. The hill and the lone sentinel enlarged suddenly and came nearer. The pulses in his temples beat hard. Although he could not see the watcher's face clearly, because he too was using glasses, he knew him instantly. He would have known that heroic figure