I took the weapon from his hand. It was one of those new knives called a bowie, and the first in my fingers. There was a buckhorn haft, and the 9-inch blade showed thick at the back with plenty of steel. This gave it weight, and it balanced in one's hand like a hatchet, and all sanguine and hopeful to the feel.
“It is a Maryland conception,” said Noah, “and therefore a most fitting rebuke to what thugs shall come out of that commonwealth on a mission for one's disaster.” Then, reclaiming the bowie: “The courage of a race appears in the length of its weapons. The shorter the weapon the hardier the strain Now, whoever devised that knife had a Norse heart in him; his instinct was to go close in to his enemy, and comeback covered with blood.”
“And do you believe,” said I, “those fellows of whom Rivera tells were brought here by that Catron to work a revenge for him?”
“They are here by favor of his money, truly,” responded Noah, “as Rivera overheard them say. And for that revenge you speak of, it will be long ere Catron works one for himself in person, since his arm has turned dead in deference to my rapier. He could not so much as point a pistol with it.”
These words of Catron and his ruffians did not dwell with me seriously; they were the sooner thrust out of mind because the General, not a moment behind Noah's going, came into my room. On hearing of the latter's visit, he was active at first to call him back. But on another thought, he gave that up; full of a new notion of concern to Peg, he would have my view of it.
“Now I have a decided humor,” observed the General, throwing himself into Peg's chair—which was consistent enough since he came upon Peg's good—“I have grown to a decided humor that Peg shall rout these carpet Red-sticks who would conspire for her defeat. The more, perhaps, since the chief—if that be fit title for a lady—is wife of our Vice-President, and moving, as she sees it, for his interest of politics against me. Peg must and shall triumph; to lose—aside from what we might personally feel—would spell nothing short of her destruction. And a war, mark you, which combed a country of its last of life, would mean no more for any individual.”
“Why then,” I said, “you can not be more deeply set on Peg's success than I.”
“Of a truth, no!” retorted the General, with his shrewd grin; “do not imagine I had a doubt of it. But here is what I have been turning in my head for a question. The White House, socially, they tell me, is of immense consequence. Now, I have decided to endow Peg with this coign of vantage to be an aid for her plans. For myself, I shall follow Peg's flag; I shall implicitly take her commands. She shall hold the White House for her reserve; or have it on either wing; or she may head a charge with it.”
“And do you think to surprise me with this?” I returned. “I knew how you would thus conduct yourself from the beginning.”
“I am glad to have been so flattered in your thoughts,” said the General, dryly. “I may take it you forestalled my action by considering what should be your own. However, now that we are come by these sage decisions to put Peg in control of us, I hold it excellent to have her over and learn her views. Perchance, after all, she may mislike us—these, her volunteers—and give us our dismissals.”