The woman was too much frightened to reply, so the party went on into the other rooms, up the ladder into the attic, into all the corners and closets, everywhere. When the search was completed, the sergeant came back to the head of the stairs and addressed Mrs. Bannister.
“You are Rhett Bannister’s wife?”
“Yes,” tremblingly, “yes, I am his wife.”
“I am sorry, but your husband is now classed as a deserter. If he is arrested he becomes subject to the death penalty. I believe that only a prompt surrender on his part will lead to a suspension or abatement of his sentence. If you know where he is I would advise you, for your own sake, to urge him to give himself up at once.”
She turned to Bob, appealingly.
“Do I have to tell, Robbie? Do I? Do I have to? Would it be better?”
“No, mother, you don’t have to, and it wouldn’t be better. Father has made up his mind what he wants to do, and we have no right to interfere with his plans.”
The frightened woman was clinging to Bob’s arm and looking up tearfully into his face.
“I am sorry to be obliged to add,” said the sergeant, “that all persons who aid and abet a deserter in his efforts to escape arrest, are classed as co-conspirators with him, and as traitors to their country, and are subject to punishment accordingly. So, if either of you have any knowledge as to Rhett Bannister’s whereabouts, I—”
But at this point the terrified woman gave way completely; the sympathizing sergeant turned away from her, and Bob led her, sobbing convulsively, back to her own room. When he was again able to leave her and go downstairs, he found that the soldiers had made a thorough search of the out-of-door premises, and were just returning from the shop, the lock on the door of which they had forced, and the interior of which they had explored. Strangely enough, it had not occurred to them to examine the tower of the windmill. There was nothing about it, either in the shop or on the outside, which would indicate to the casual observer that it might become a hiding-place for a fugitive. If it had occurred to them, and they had proceeded with such a search, the tragedy which Bob feared would surely have come. For Rhett Bannister, standing in his cramped quarters within the tower, watching, through his port-hole, the movements of the soldiers about his house and yard, and their approach to the shop, listening to the breaking of the lock on the shop-door, and to the exploration going on beneath him, was ready, on the instant of discovery, from his point of advantage, to shoot to kill any person who attempted to force him from his place of concealment. Yet, for that morning at least, a merciful Providence so blinded the eyes and dulled the wits of those soldiers as to save Rhett Bannister from the disgrace and horror of shedding another’s blood.