Lightfoot laughed, in a superior sort of way. “Go, if you want,” he said curtly; “but I don’t think you’ll go very far.” His eyes glistened, as if he thought the whole scene rather a good joke. “Half a mile back of this mansion there’s a squadron of Confederate cavalry picketed. If I give them the alarm they’ll scour the whole countryside for you, and you’ll all be in their hands within an hour.”
Watson turned pale. It was the paleness of vexation rather than of fear. “Why were we fools enough to come to this house,” he thought. He knew how quickly they could be caught by cavalrymen.
The Major smiled in a tantalizing manner. “I think you will take my advice and surrender,” he said, sitting down carelessly in a chair and swinging one of his long legs over the other. “If, on investigation, it proves that you are not spies, you will be allowed to go on your way. If there’s any doubt about it, however, you will be sent to Richmond.”
Macgreggor, with a bound, leaped in front of the Confederate, and, pulling out a revolver, pointed it at Lightfoot’s head. “Unless you promise not to have us followed, you shan’t leave this room alive!” he cried with the tone of a man daring everything for liberty. George fully expected to see the officer falter, for he had seen that the Major was unarmed.
But Lightfoot did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he gave one of his provoking laughs. “Don’t go into heroics,” he said, pushing Macgreggor away as though he were “shoohing” off a cat. “You know I would promise anything, and the second your backs were turned I’d give the alarm. You don’t think I would be fool enough to see you fellows walking away without making a trial to get you back?”
Macgreggor hesitated, as he looked at George and Watson. Then he answered fiercely, handling his pistol ominously the meanwhile: “We’ve but one chance—and we’ll take it! We will never let you leave this room alive, promise or no promise. You are unarmed, and there are three of us, armed.”
The Major did not seem to be at all startled. He merely changed the position of his legs, as he answered: “Killing me wouldn’t do you any good, my boy! If you do shoot me before I can escape from the room the shooting would only alarm the house—the cavalry would be summoned by Mrs. Page, and you would find yourself worse off even than you are now.”
Watson touched Macgreggor on the shoulder. “The Major’s right,” he said; “we would only be shooting down a man in cold blood, and gaining nothing by it. He has trapped us—and, so long as those plagued cavalrymen are so near, we had better submit. I think I’ve got as much courage as the next man, but I don’t believe in butting one’s head against a stone wall.”
Macgreggor sullenly replaced his pistol. He could not but see the force of Watson’s reasoning. The Major rose to his feet. He was smiling away again, as if he were enjoying himself.
“We surrender!” announced Watson with a woebegone expression on his strong face.