With his back turned on Cary and Virgie the Corporal unfolded the pass and studied it carefully, while the troopers gathered behind him and tried to read its contents over his shoulder.
"Pwhat does it say?" asked the young Irishman, Harry O'Connell, who had covered Cary with his carbine. "'Tis a precious bit of paper, bedad—if it passes him through me."
"It says: 'Pass Virginia Cary and escort through all Federal lines, and assist them as far as possible in reaching Richmond,'" read the Corporal.
Deep in thought he turned the paper over and studied the name on the back. At the sight of the signature there his mouth fell open and he uttered a shout of surprise. His eyes brightened and he stepped back from the group and threw up his head with a look of triumph on his dark face. He struck the paper a slap with the back of his hand.
"Morrison on one side—and 'Old Bob' on the other" he exclaimed. "What luck! What a find."
"How so—a find?"
The man who had had to put his own brother under arrest a few short weeks before and then had seen him shot through the heart by this same officer whose name was on the pass looked at the questioner with an ugly glitter in his eyes. He was beginning to taste already the sweets of revenge. For blood ties bind, no matter how badly they are stretched, and long ago Corporal Dudley had sworn to wipe out his grudge.
"Why, man, can't you see?" he whispered excitedly. "This Johnnie Reb is the man that was hiding in the cabin loft this morning. Morrison lied when he said he wasn't there—you remember, he was the only one who looked—he lied and as soon as he got us out of the way he let him come down and he gave him this. Could any man ask for better proof that we had the spy right in our hands and then our commanding officer deliberately let him go?"
At the sound of the man's excited whispering Cary's fears as to the value of Virgie's pass grew too strong to warrant this agony of watching and waiting, and he stepped forward with a sharp question:
"Well, Corporal, isn't the pass satisfactory?"