XI. — I OVERHEAR A SINGULAR CONVERSATION.
I recognized the new-comers at a glance. They were Darke, and the gray woman.
There was no mistaking that powerful figure, of low stature, but herculean proportions; that gloomy and phlegmatic face, half-covered with the black beard; and the eye glancing warily, but with a reckless fire in them, from beneath the heavy eye-brows.
The woman wore an elegant gray riding habit—gray seemed a favorite with her. Her cheeks were as white as ever, and her lips as red. Her bearing was perfectly composed, and she advanced, with the long riding skirt thrown over her arm, walking with exquisite grace.
All this I could easily see. The glass door of the conservatory had been left ajar in the hurry of our retreat, and from behind the lemon-trees and flower-bushes, we could see into the apartment without difficulty.
There was evidently little danger of our discovery. The new-comers had plainly entered the house with no design to search it. Darke advanced into the apartment; made the ladies a bow, which more than ever convinced me that he had been familiar with good society; and requested food for the lady. She had tasted none for many hours, and was faint. He would not ask it for himself, inasmuch as he was an enemy.
He bowed again as he spoke, and was silent.
The young ladies had listened coldly. As he finished, they pointed to the waiter, and without speaking, they left the apartment.
Darke was left alone with the woman in gray. She seemed to have regarded ceremony as unnecessary. Going to the table, she had already helped herself, and for some moments devoured, rather than ate, the food before her.
Then she rose, and went and took her seat in a rocking-chair near the fire. Darke remained erect, gazing at her, in silence.
The lady rocked to and fro, pushed back her dark hair with the snowy hand, and looking at her companion, began to laugh.
“You are not hungry?” she said.
“No,” was his reply.
“And to think that a romantic young creature like myself should be!”
“It was natural. I hoped that you would have given up this fancy of accompanying me. You can not stand the fatigue.”
“I can stand it easily,” she said. “When we have a cherished object, weariness does not count.”
“A cherished object! What is yours?”
“Sit down, and I will tell you. I am tired. You can rejoin the column in ten minutes.”
“So be it,” said Darke, gloomily.
And he sat down near her.
“You wish to be informed of my object in going with you everywhere,” she said. And her voice which had at first been gay and careless, assumed a mocking accent, making the nerves tingle. “I can explain in a very few words my romantic desire. I wish to see him fall.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Darke, coldly; “you mean—”
“That man—yes. You promised to kill him, when you next met. Did you not promise me that?”
Darke looked at the speaker with grim admiration.
“You are a singular woman,” he said; “you never forget a wrong. And yet the wrong, people might say, was committed by you—not him.”
“Do you say that?” exclaimed the woman with sudden venom in her voice.
“I say nothing, madam,” was the gloomy reply. “I only declare that you hate much more strongly than I do. I hate him—and hate him honestly. But I would not take him at disadvantage. You would strike him, wherever you met him—in the dark—in the back—I think you would dance the war-dance around him, when he was dying!”
And Darke uttered a short jarring laugh.
“You are right,” said the woman, coolly. “I wish to see that man die—I expected you to kill him on that night in Pennsylvania. You promised to do it;—redeem your promise!”
“I will try to do so, madam,” said Darke, coolly.
“And I wish to be present on the occasion.”
Darke laughed as before.
“That doubtless has prevented you from having our good friend Mohun—well—assassinated!”
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she said:—-
“No, I have tried that.”
“Ah!—recently?”
“Yes.”
“By what means—who was your agent?”
“Swartz.”
Darke waited, listening.
“He has three times waylaid him behind the rebel lines, and fired on him as he was riding at night through the woods,” added the woman.
“Bah!” said Darke; “Swartz told you that?”
“He has done so.”
“Hatred blinds you; I do not believe that story. But I design nothing of that description against Colonel Mohun. I will fight him wherever I meet him in battle—kill him, if I can—but no assassination.”
A mocking smile came to the woman’s lips.
“You seem to dislike the idea of—assassination,” she said.
Darke uttered a sound resembling the growl of a wild animal, and a moment after, seizing the decanter, he dashed some of its contents into a glass, and raised it to his lips.
“Cursed stuff!” he suddenly exclaimed, setting the glass down violently. “I want drink—real drink—to-day!”
The woman looked at him curiously, and said quietly:—
“What is the matter?”
Her companion’s brows were knit until the shaggy masses united over the gloomy eyes. Beneath burned a lurid fire.
“I have seen him again—General Davenant,” he said, in a low voice; “it is the second time.”
As he uttered these words, Darke seemed the prey of some singular emotion.
“It was at Gettysburg first,” he continued. “He was leading the charge, on the third day, against Cemetery Heights. I was there by accident. They were repulsed. When he rode back, he was carrying a bleeding boy in his arms through the smoke. I recognized his tall form and gray hair; and heard his voice in the midst of the cannon, as he cheered on his men.”
The speaker’s face had flushed. His breast rose and fell.
“That was the first time,” he said. “The second was the other day when he was riding among the enemy’s guns near Bristoe—I made him out with my glasses.”
Darke bent down, and gazed at the floor in silence. The fire in the dark eyes had deepened. His heavy under lip was caught in the large, sharp teeth.
All at once a ringing laugh disturbed the silence. There was a mocking intonation in it which was unmistakable.
“General Davenant!” exclaimed the woman. “Well, who is General Davenant?”
Darke looked at the mocking speaker sidewise.
“Who is General Davenant?” he said. “Is it necessary that I enlighten you, madam? He is my bugbear—my death’s head! The sight of him poisons my life, and something gnaws at me, driving me nearly mad! To see that man chills me, like the hand of death!”
The woman looked at him and then began to laugh.
“You do unbend your noble strength, my lord!” she said, “to think so brainsickly of things!” throwing into the word, “brainsickly,” exaggerated stage-rant.
“One would say,” she continued, “that the brave Colonel Darke had the blues to-day! Take care how you meet Colonel Mohun in this mood! The result might be unfortunate.”
Darke made no reply for some moments. He was gazing with knit brows upon the floor. Then he raised his head.
“You return to the subject of your friend,” he said, coldly.
“Yes. The subject is agreeable.”
“Well, I can give you intelligence of him—unless Swartz has anticipated me.”
“What intelligence?”
“Your friend Mohun is in love—again!”
The woman’s face flushed suddenly.
“With whom?” she said.
“Ah! there is the curious part of the affair, madam!” returned Darke.
And in a low tone he added:—
“The name of the young lady is—Georgia Conway.”
The woman half rose from her chair, with flashing eyes, and said:—
“Who told you that?”
Darke smiled. There was something lugubrious in that chilly mirth.
“An emissary on whom I can rely, brought me the intelligence,” he said, “Colonel Mohun was wounded in the battle of Fleetwood, and entering a house where she was nursing the wounded, fainted, and was caught in her arms. From that moment the affair began. She nursed him, and he was soon healed. I had myself inflicted the wound with a pistol ball—but the hurt was trifling. He got well in a few days—and was ready to meet me again at Upperville—but in those few days the young lady and himself became enamored of each other. She is proud, they say, and had always laughed at love—he too is a woman-hater—no doubt from some old affair, madam!—but both the young people suddenly changed their views. Colonel Mohun became devoted; the young woman forgot her sarcasm. My emissary saw them riding out more than once near Culpeper Court-House; and since the return of the army, they have been billing and cooing like two doves, quite love sick! That’s agreeable, is it not, madam?”
And Darke uttered a singular laugh. As for the woman she had grown so pale, I thought she would faint.
“Do you understand, madam?” continued Darke. “Colonel Mohun is in love again; and the name of his friend is—Georgia Conway!”
The woman was silent; but I saw that she was gnawing her nails.
“My budget is not exhausted, madam,” continued Darke. “The young lady has a sister; her name is Virginia. She too has a love affair with a young officer of the artillery. His name is William Davenant!”
And the speaker clutched the arm of a chair so violently that the wood cracked in his powerful grasp.
“That is all!” he added. “The Mohuns, Davenants and Conways, are about to intermarry, you see! Their blood is going to mingle, their hands to clasp, in spite of the gulf of fire that divides their people! All is forgotten, or they care nothing. They are yonder, billing, and cooing, and kissing! the tender hearts are throbbing—all the world is bright to them—while I am here, and you, tearing our hearts out in despair!”
Darke stopped, uttering a sound between a curse and a groan. The woman had listened with a bitter smile. As he finished, she rose and approached him. Her eyes burned in the pale face like coals of fire.
“There is a better thing than despair!” she said.
“What?”
“Vengeance!”
And grasping his arm almost violently:—
“That man is yonder!” she said, pointing with the other hand toward Warrenton, “Go and meet him, and kill him, and end all this at once! Remember the banks of the Nottaway!—That sword thrust—that grave! Remember, he hates you with a deadly hatred—has wounded you, laughed at you,—driven you back, when you met him, like a hound under the lash! Remember me!—your oath! Break that oath and I will go and kill him myself!”
As she uttered these words a cannon shot thundered across the woods.
“Listen!” the woman exclaimed.
Darke rose suddenly to his feet.
“You are right!” he said, gloomily. “You keep me to the work. I do not hate him as you do—but he is an enemy, and I will kill him. Why do I yield to you, and obey you thus? What makes me love you, I wonder!”
Suddenly a second gun roared from beyond Buckland.
“We will talk of that afterward,” said the woman, with flushed cheeks; “think of one thing only now—that he is yonder.”
“Good!” said Darke, “and I hope that in an hour one of us will be dead, I care not which—come, madam—but you must not expose yourself!”
“What am I!”
“All I have left!” he said.
And with a gloomy look he rushed from the house, followed by the gray woman.