“Halt, you hound!” the cry rang out; and as Mary glanced back three or four men were just leaping into the road. But she saw, also, her companion, his face suffused with an earnestness that was almost an agony, rise in his stirrups, with the stoop of his shoulders all gone, and wildly cry:—
“Go!”
She smote the horse and flew. Alice awoke and screamed.
“Hush, my darling!” said the mother, laying on the withe; “mamma’s here. Hush, darling!—mamma’s here. Don’t be frightened, darling baby! O God, spare my child!” and away she sped.
The report of a carbine rang out and went rolling away in a thousand echoes through the wood. Two others followed in sharp succession, and there went close by Mary’s ear the waspish whine of a minie-ball. At the same moment she recognized, once,—twice,—thrice,—just at her back where the hoofs of her companion’s horse were clattering,—the tart rejoinders of his navy-six.
“Go!” he cried again. “Lay low! lay low! cover the child!” But his words were needless. With head bowed forward and form crouched over the crying, clinging child, with slackened rein and fluttering dress, and sun-bonnet and loosened hair blown back upon her shoulders, with lips compressed and silent prayers, Mary was riding for life and liberty and her husband’s bedside.
“O mamma! mamma!” wailed the terrified little one.
“Go on! Go on!” cried the voice behind; “they’re saddling—up! Go! go! We’re goin’ to make it. We’re goin’ to make it! Go-o-o!”
Half an hour later they were again riding abreast, at a moderate gallop. Alice’s cries had been quieted, but she still clung to her mother in a great tremor. Mary and her companion conversed earnestly in the subdued tone that had become their habit.
“No, I don’t think they followed us fur,” said the spy. “Seem like they’s jess some scouts, most likely a-comin’ in to report, feelin’ pooty safe and sort o’ takin’ it easy and careless; ‘dreamin’ the happy hours away,’ as the felleh says. I reckon they sort o’ believed my story, too, the little gal yelled so sort o’ skilful. We kin slack up some more now; we want to get our critters lookin’ cool and quiet ag’in as quick as we kin, befo’ we meet up with somebody.” They reined into a gentle trot. He drew his revolver, whose emptied chambers he had already refilled. “D’d you hear this little felleh sing, ‘Listen to the mockin’-bird’?”