By way of avoiding suspicion—for the family with whom she was staying were known to be strongly Southern in their sympathies, and the Federal officers had begun to understand the devoted loyalty of the negroes to the families that owned them—Agatha established Martha in a cabin of her own a mile or more from the house. There Martha posed as a free negro woman, who was disposed to make a living for herself by selling fried chickens, biscuits, and pies to the Federal soldiers on the interior picket-lines, and a little later to those posted farther in advance.
Martha was a sagacious as well as a discreet person. At first she showed a timid reluctance to go farther toward the front than the inner lines from Falls Church to Vienna. While peddling her wares there, she took pains to learn all the foot-paths, and the location of all the picket-posts in that region. Then little by little she allowed herself to be persuaded to go farther toward the outer lines, for the soldiers found her fried chicken and her biscuits and her pies particularly alluring.
It was only after she had mastered both the topography of the country between, and the exact methods of its military occupation, that she so far overcame her assumed timidity as to push on with her basket to the picket-posts immediately in front of Fairfax Court-house itself. She raised her prices as she went, lest by selling out her stock in trade she should leave herself no excuse for going to the extreme front at all. For the same reason she came at last to pass by many posts where she had formerly had good customers, retaining her wares professedly for the sake of the higher prices that the men at the front gladly paid for something better to eat than the contents of their haversacks.
Within a week or two Martha had learned and reported to her mistress quite all that any officer on either side knew of the country, its roads, its foot-paths, its difficulties, and the opportunities it afforded. In the middle of every night, Martha made her way to her mistress, or her mistress made her way to Martha, until at last, Agatha, who had directed her inquiries, was equipped with all necessary information, and ready for her supreme endeavour. It involved much of danger and incredible difficulty. But the courageous young woman was prepared to meet both danger and difficulty with an equable mind. She knew now whither she was going and how, but the journey through a difficult country must be made wholly on foot and wholly by night.
Agatha was ready for the ordeal. As for Martha, the earth to the very ends of it held no terrors that could cause even hesitation on her part in the service of her mistress.
XVI
Canister
It was a little after midnight when Agatha and her maid, stripped of all belongings that could impede them on their way, set out on foot upon their perilous journey. Agatha was deliberately exposing herself to far worse dangers than any that the soldier is called upon to brave in the work of war. She could carry little in the way of food, and of course could not replenish her supplies until she should succeed in entering the Confederate lines, if indeed that purpose were not hopeless of accomplishment at all. But the danger of starvation which these conditions involved, was the very least of the perils she must encounter. At any moment of her stealthy progress she might be shot by a sentinel. Far worse than that, she might be seized with her tell-tale medicines upon her person, while hiding within the forbidden lines of the enemy. In that case, there would be no question whatever as to her status in military law, or as to her fate. If she should fall into the enemy's hands under such circumstances, by forcible capture or even by voluntary surrender, she must certainly be hanged as a spy. She was armed against that danger only by the possession of the means of instant self-destruction,—her little six-shooter.
It was comparatively easy for her to find her way during the first night, through the slender interior picket-line, and into the forbidden region that lay between that and the outposts in front. Every roadway leading toward the Confederate positions was, of course, securely guarded, and all of them were thus completely closed to Agatha's use. She must steal through the thickets of underbrush that lay between the roads, making such progress as she could without at any time placing herself within sight or hearing of a sentinel. Sometimes this involved prolonged waiting in constrained positions, and several times she narrowly missed discovery.