"What more? Ah, you are thinking of your friends—I should say, of your friend! It is natural. I have no ill will against him. Whatever you ask for him shall be granted. At a word from me, the fighting up there ceases; and he and the rest shall be permitted to go wherever they choose, unharmed."
"Well, and if I reject your generous offer?"
Augustus smiled as he answered, with a hard, inexorable purpose in his tones,—
"Then, much as I love you, I can do nothing!"
"Nothing for my father?"
"Nothing!"
"Nor for me?"
"Not even for you!"
"Why, then, God pity us all!" said Virginia, calmly.
"Truly you may say, God pity you! For do you know what will happen? Your father will die in prison: you will never see him again. Your friends will be massacred to a man. I will be frank with you: to a man they will be given to the sword. They are but a dozen; we are fifty—a hundred—a thousand, if necessary. The sink has already been taken, and a force is on its way to occupy this end of the cave. If your friends hold out, they will be starved. If they fight, they will be bayoneted and shot. If they surrender, every living man of them shall be hung. There is no help for them. Lincoln's army, that has been coming so long, is a chimera; it will never come. The power is all in our hands; and not even God can help them. That sounds blasphemous, I know; but it is true. They are doomed. But I can save them—and you can save them."