He colored almost painfully, but showed his own courage. "I only admire the wisdom of the Vehmgerichte. They knew you were dangerous, and I know it. I have no hope, should I become too much oppressed by lack of sleep, except to follow instructions, and cast you overboard somewhere below Kentucky!"
"You ask me not to attempt any escape?"
"Yes."
"Why, I would agree to as much as that. It is, as you say, a matter of indifference to me whether I leave the boat at Cairo or at some point farther westward. Of course I would return to Washington as soon as I escaped from bondage."
"Excellent, Madam! Now, please add that you will not attempt to communicate with any person on the boat or on shore."
"No; that I will not agree to as a condition."
"Then still you leave it very hard for me."
She only smiled at him again, her slow, deliberate smile; yet there was in it no trace of hardness or sarcasm. Keen as her mind assuredly was, as she smiled she seemed even younger, perhaps four or five and twenty at most. With those little dimples now rippling frankly into view at the corners of her mouth, she was almost girlish in her expression, although the dark eyes above, long-lashed, eloquent, able to speak a thousand tongues into shame, showed better than the small curving lips the well-poised woman of the world.
Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her, steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard. For almost the first time since they had met they were upon the point of awkwardness. Light speech failed them for the moment, the gravity of the situation began to come home to both of them. Indeed, who were they? What were they to the public under whose notice they might fall—indeed, must fall? There was no concealing face and figure of a woman such as this; no, not in any corner of the world, though she were shrouded in oriental veil. Nay, were she indeed tied in a sack and flung into the sea, yet would she arise to make trouble for mankind until her allotted task should be complete! How could they two answer any question which might arise regarding their errand, or regarding their relations as they stood, here at the gateway of the remoter country into which they were departing? How far must their journey together continue? What would be said regarding them?
Carlisle found it impossible to answer such questions. She herself only made the situation the more difficult with her high-headed defiance of him.