To his great surprise and his mother's, Lieutenant Lambert stepped forward, assumed the position of a soldier as near as he could get it, touched his battered hat respectfully, and said:
"We'll do it, cap'n, and there's my hand on to it, if Miss Randolph will take it. From this time on you're boss and don't nary one of you forget it."
Lambert's object was to restore himself to the favor of Tom's mother; and so he went on to declare, with some emphatic language to make it more binding, that he spoke for the company and would take it upon himself to see that the promise was kept. He was sure he had succeeded in his object when Mrs. Randolph smiled and shook hands with him over the railing, but all the same Lambert meant something very different from what he said. Captain Tom made a life-long enemy when he drew his sword on his second officer, and all the latter wanted was an opportunity to show it. Tom then dismissed his men with the assurance that he would do the best he could for them, and went into the house congratulating himself on having won a complete victory.
"I have had the narrowest escape of my life this morning," were the first words he said to his mother. "The next time I come so near to going into the army I shall go; and that will be the last you will ever see of Tom Randolph. Didn't I bring Lambert to time when I drew my sword on him? He's had an idea that he could run things to suit himself, but I think I showed him his mistake. Of course it will not be safe for me to go near Baton Rouge, for I believe the citizens would mob me; but I can't be sent to a conscript camp so long as I have men to command, and that is what I am figuring on now."
Half an hour later, and before Captain Tom had finished telling his mother and himself that he was well out of the scrape into which his officious lieutenant had brought him, one of the Home Guards rode into the yard with a note from Captain Roach, in which the latter requested Tom to come to his office at once on business of the last importance. The young man was frightened again; but the idea of talking over matters with Captain Roach while his mother was not by to support him was not to be entertained for a moment. He passed the note over to her after he had read it, and said almost fiercely to the bearer:
"Tell Captain Roach that he has forgotten himself—that I am his senior; and if he is so anxious to see me he must come where I am. At the present time I am not dancing attendance upon him or anybody else."
"One moment, my dear," Mrs. Randolph interposed. "A written invitation demands the courtesy of a written reply. Permit me to answer the captain. I will show you the note before sending it away."
His mother went into the house and Captain Tom said to the Home Guard, who sat on his horse at the foot of the steps:
"Have you any idea what Roach wants of me?"