“All I can say is that the major wants to see him at once,” was the short answer.
“Do you know what the major wants of him, so that I can explain——”
“Pardon me if I say that no explanations are necessary. It is enough for him to know that Major Morgan wants to see him without a moment’s delay.”
The tone in which the words were spoken satisfied Mrs. Randolph that the impatient trooper could not be put off any longer, so she turned about and went into the house. She knew that Tom had gone straight to her room, and when she tried the door she found that he had locked himself in.
“Who’s there?” demanded a husky voice from the inside.
“It is I, my dear, and I am alone,” was the reply. “Let me in at once. Now, call all your courage to your aid, and show yourself the brave soldier you were on the night you knocked that Yankee sentinel down with the butt of a musket and escaped being sent to a Northern prison-pen,” she continued, as she slipped through the half open door, which was quickly closed and locked behind her. “Major Morgan wants to see you at his office, and, my dear, you had better go at once. The man at the door will not wait much longer.”
“I don’t care if he won’t,” shouted Captain Tom, who was terribly alarmed. “If he gets tired of standing there, let him go back where he came from and tell that major that I—what business has that fellow got out there?”
Tom chanced to look through the window while he was talking, and when he saw one of the troopers ride down the carriage-way as if he were going to the rear of the house, it flashed upon him that the man was going there to watch the back door. At the same moment the jingling of spurs and the rattling of a sabre were heard in the next room, the door knob was tried by a strong hand, and something that might have been the toe of a heavy boot was propelled with considerable force against the door itself.
“Open up here,” commanded a stern voice on the other side. “Do it at once, or I shall be obliged to force an entrance.”
This threat brought Captain Tom to his senses. In a second the door was unlocked and opened, and the soldier stepped into the room.