XLIV CHARLOTTE IN THE TENTS OF THE FOE

From certain rank signs of bad management in the Federal camp one could easily guess that our circuit was designed to bring us around to its rear. That a colonel's tent--the one where the singers were--was not where the colonel's tent belonged was a trifle, but the slovenliness with which the forest borders of the camp were guarded was a graver matter. Evidently those troops were at least momentarily in unworthy hands, and I was so remarking to Kendall when a murmured command came back from Ferry, to tell Dick Smith to stop that whispering. I was sorry, for I wanted to add that I knew we were not going to attack the camp itself. That was on Wednesday night. Charlotte and Gholson had made their ride of fifty miles on Monday. The friends with whom she stopped at nightfall contrived to cram him into their crowded soldiers' room, and he had given the whole company of his room-mates, as they sat up in their beds, a full account of the fight at Sessions's, Charlotte's care of the sick and dying, and the singing, by her and the blue-coats, of their battle-song. Next morning Charlotte, without Gholson--who turned off to camp--rode on to Goldschmidt's store, just beyond which there was then still a Confederate picket. Here she hired Mrs. Goldschmidt's pony, rode to the picket, and presented the Coralie Rothvelt pass.

"Miss Coralie Rothvelt; yes, all right," said the officer, "the men that rode with you this morning told me all about you." He went with her as far as his videttes, and thence she rode alone to a picket of the Federal army and by her request was conducted under guard to the headquarters of a corps commander. To him and his chief-of-staff she told the fate of Jewett's scouts and delivered the messages of their dying leader; and then she tendered the hero's sword.

The staff-officer cut away its cornhusk wrapping and read aloud the owner's name on the hilt. The General laid the mighty weapon across his palm and sternly shut his lips. "How did you get through the enemy's pickets with this?"

"I had a Confederate general's pass."

"Ah! Is the Confederate general as nameless as yourself?"

"I am not nameless; I only ask leave to withhold my name until I have told one or two other things."

"But you don't mind confessing you're an out-and-out rebel sympathizer?"

Under the broad-brimmed hat her smile grew to a sparkle. "No, I enjoy it."

The chief-of-staff smiled, but the General darkened and pressed his questions. At length he summed up. "So, then, you wish me to believe that you did all you did, and now have come into our lines at a most extraordinary and exhausting speed and running the ugliest kinds of risks, in mere human sympathy for a dying stranger, he being a union officer and you a secessionist of"--a courtly bow--"the very elect; that's your meaning, is it not?"

"No, General; in the first place, I am not one of any elect."

A flattering glimmer of amusement came into the two men's faces, but some change in Charlotte's manner arrested it and brought an enhanced deference.

"In the second place, I am not here merely on this errand."

"Oh!"

"No, General. And in the last place, my motive in this errand is no mere sympathy for any one person; I am here from a sense of public duty--" The speaker seemed suddenly overtaken by emotions, dropped her words with pained evenness, and fingered the lace handkerchief in her lap.

"Pardon," interrupted the General, "the sunlight annoys you. Major, will you drop that curtain?" "Thank you. One thing I am here for, General, is to tell you something, and I have to begin by asking that neither of you will ever say how you learned it."

The two men bowed.

"Thank you. Please understand, also, I have never uttered this but to one friend, a lady. There was no need; I have not wanted aid or counsel, even from friends. But I feel duty bound to tell it to you, now, because, for one thing, the brave soldier who wore that sword--" Her eyes rose to the weapon and fell again; she bit her lip.

"Yes--well--what of him?"

"He was lured to disaster and death by a man whose supreme purpose was, and is to-day, revenge upon me. That man drew him to his ruin purely in search of my life." Charlotte sat with her strange in-looking, out-looking gaze holding the gaze of her questioner until for relief he spoke.

"Why, young lady, it's hard to doubt anything you say, but really that sounds rather fanciful. Why should you think it?"

"I do not think it, I know it. He sends me his own assurance of it by his own father, so that his revenge may be fuller by my knowing daily and hourly that he is on my trail."

"And you appeal to me for protection?"

She smiled. "No. I am not seeking to divert his fury from myself, but to confine it to myself. Fancy yourself a human-hearted woman, General, and murder being done day by day because you are alive." "Oh, this is incredible! What is its occasion, its origin? How are you in any way responsible?"

"Why, largely I am not. Yet in degree I am, General, because of shortcomings of mine--faults--errors--that--oh--that have their bearing in the case, don't you see?"

"No, I don't; pray don't ask me to draw inferences; I might infer too much."

"Yes, you might, easily," said Charlotte; "for I only mean shortcomings of the kind we readily excuse in others though we never can or should pardon them in ourselves."

The General turned an arch smile of perplexity upon his chief-of-staff. "I don't think we're quite up to that line of perpetual snow, Walter, are we?"

The chief-of-staff "guessed they were not."

Charlotte resumed. "I have come to you in the common interest, to warn you against that man. I believe he is on his way here to offer his services as a guide. He is fearless, untiring, and knows all this region by heart."

"union man, I take it, is he not?"

"No, he's Federal, Confederate or guerilla as it may suit his bloody ends."

"And you want me not to make use of him."

"Oh, more than that; I want him stopped!--stopped from killing and burning on his and my private account. But I want much more than that, too. I know how you commonly stop such men."

"We hang them to the first tree."

"Yes, our side does the same. If I wanted such a fate to overtake him I should only have to let him alone. At risks too hideous to name I have saved him from it twice. I am here to-day chiefly to circumvent his purposes; but if I may do so in the way I wish to propose to you, I shall also save him once more. I am willing to save him--in that way--although by so doing I shall lose--fearfully." She dropped her glance and turned aside.

"How do you propose to circumvent and yet save him?"

"By getting you to send him so far to your own army's rear that he cannot get back; to compel him to leave the country; to go into your country, where law and order reign as they cannot here between the lines."

"And you consider that a reasonable request?"

"Oh, sir, I must make it! I can ask no less!"

"But you say if this scheme works you lose by it. What will you lose?"

"I may lose track of him! If I lose track of him I may have to go through a long life not knowing whether he is dead or alive."

"And suppose--why,--young lady, I thought you were unmarried. I--oh, what do you mean; is he--?"

Charlotte's head drooped and her hands trembled. "Yes, by law and church decree he is my husband."

"Good Heaven!" murmured the General, drew a breath, and folded his arms. "But, madam! if a man abandons his wife--"

"I abandoned him."

"Good for you!" "It was vital for me. But I did it on evidence which our laws ignore, the testimony of slaves. Oh, General, don't try to untangle me; only stop him!"

"Ah! madam, I'll do the little I can. How am I to know him?"

"By a pistol-wound in his right hand, got last week. He would have got it in his brain but for my pleading. His name is Oliver."

"Oliver; hmm! any relation to Charlotte Oliver, your so called newspaper correspondent? I'd like to stop her.--How?--I don't quite hear you."

"I am Charlotte Oliver."

The two officers glanced sharply at each other. When the General turned again he flushed resentfully. "Have you never resumed your maiden name?"

"Never."

"Then, madam, tell me this! With a whole world of other people's names to choose from, why have you borrowed Charlotte Oliver's? Have you come here determined to be sent to prison, Miss Coralie Rothvelt?"