"Why not?" asked Morrison.
"Because," said Cary, in sullen anger, "I don't ask quarter, nor aid, from a man who frightens children."
The Northerner's chin went up; and when he replied his voice was trembling; not in passion, but with a deeper, finer something which had gripped his admiration for the courage of a child:
"And I wouldn't hurt a hair of her splendid little head!" He paused, then spoke again, more calmly: "You thought me a beast to frighten her; but don't you know it was the only thing to do? Otherwise my men might have had to shoot you—before her eyes." Cary made no answer, though now he understood; and Morrison went on: "It isn't easy for me to track a fellow creature down; to take him when he's wounded, practically unarmed, and turn him over to a firing squad. But it's war, my friend—one of the merciless realities of war—and you ought to know the meaning of its name."
"Yes, I know," returned the Southerner, with all the pent-up bitterness of a hopeless struggle and defeat; "it has taken three years to teach me—and I know! Look at me!" he cried, as he stood up in his rags and spread his arms. "Look at my country, swept as bare as a stubble field! You've whipped us, maybe, with your millions of money and your endless men, and now you are warring with the women and the children!" He turned his back and spoke in the deep intensity of scorn: "A fine thing, Colonel! And may you get your ... reward!"
The Northerner set his lips in a thin, cold line; but curbed his wrath and answered the accusation quietly:
"There are two sides to the question, Cary; but there must be one flag!"
"Then fly your flag in justice!" the Southerner retorted hotly, wheeling on his enemy, with blazing eyes and with hands that shook in the stress of passion. "A while ago you called me a brave man and a good scout; and, because I'm both, your people have set a price on me. Five hundred dollars—alive or dead!" He laughed; a hoarse, harsh travesty of mirth, and added, with a lip that curled in withering contempt: "Alive or dead! A gentleman and a scout!—for just half the price of one good, sound nigger! By Heaven, it makes me proud!"
Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison looked across the table at his prisoner, and answered gravely, yet with a touch of sternness in his military tone:
"You are more than a scout, Cary. You've carried dispatches, and intercepted ours; for both of which, if taken, you would have been a prisoner of war, no more. But you've entered our lines—not in a uniform of gray, but blue—and you've cost us the loss of two important battles."