The captain opened his eyes, smiled incredulously, and once or twice acted as if he were on the point of speaking; but he thought better of it, and just then the corporal returned to report that the men had been called in and the wagon was waiting at the door. Captain Fletcher went into the hall while Marcy took leave of his mother, and this gave the latter opportunity to whisper in his ear, as her head rested on his shoulder:
“Be careful of that valise, and the first chance you get take the money out of it. You will find one vest in there, and the gold is in the right-hand pocket. O Marcy, this blow will kill me.”
“You mustn’t let it. I shall surely return, and when I do I want you and Jack here to welcome me.”
The leave-taking was not prolonged,—it would have been torture to both of them,—and when Captain Fletcher reached the carriage porch, where the corporal stood holding three horses by the bridle, Marcy was at his side.
“Mount that horse and come on,” said the captain. “When we overtake the wagon you can put your valise in it.”
But that valise was much too valuable to be placed in the wagon, or anywhere else that a thieving Confederate could get his hands on it, so Marcy replied that if it was all the same to the captain he would tie it to the horn of his saddle, where he could keep an eye on it. He mounted the horse that was pointed out to him, kissed his hand to his mother, said a cheery good-by to the weeping blacks, who had at last found courage to come into the house, and rode on after the wagon, which had by this time passed through the front gate into the road. Marcy was the only prisoner the Confederates captured that night, and he had cost them the lives of four men. The soldier who had once owned the horse he was riding was one of the unfortunates. Marcy would have given much, to know whether Ben Hawkins and his comrades escaped unscathed, but that was something he never expected to hear, for he was by no means as sure that he would come back to his home as he pretended to be. Others had been killed, and what right had he to assume that he would escape?
“This scout hasn’t amounted to a row of pins,” observed Captain Fletcher, when he and Marcy came up with the wagon and rode behind it. “I expected to find the country alive with Yankee cavalry and to fight my way against a small army of refugees, who would ambush me from the time I left Williamston till I got back. That is the reason I brought so large a squad with me. I have been out four days, and what have I to show for my trouble? Four dead men and three prisoners. I don’t like such work, and shall get back to Virginia as soon as I can.”
The captain relapsed into silence, and during the rest of the journey Marcy was at liberty to commune undisturbed with his own gloomy thoughts.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN WILLIAMSTON JAIL.
“Fresh fish! where did you come from? Are you a deserter or a conscript?”