“It’ll be mighty pressing this time to-morrow,” he grinned. “You’ve twenty-four hours, and may make the most of it! Then, if things don’t go our way!”
“I understand,” I said. “But in the meantime, my man, I am more interested in my supper. The lady, too, has been riding for six hours—”
“Oh, the lady?” he sneered. “You bear no malice it seems?”
“At any rate I will keep it until I am free,” I answered, carefully averting my eyes from her.
“If that time comes?” he retorted.
“Just so,” I said.
I think it was his purpose to make me angry; but at this point one of the others, the ruffian who had kept watch in the outer room on the night of the outrage at the Bluff, struck in. “Make an end!” he growled with an oath. “Isn’t it enough,” addressing me, “that you’ve the use of your throat to-night that you must argy, argy, argy! Keep your breath to cool your victuals, stranger—while you have it! And, curse me, you’re as bad, Levi! Let’s have an end! And do you,” to the men at the fire, “get on with that pork and hominy!”
The girl did not say a word. She sat somewhat apart wrapped in a cloak and leaning forward. Her elbow rested on her knee, her chin on her hand, her eyes were fixed on the fire. The pose was one of utter weariness and dejection, but it was so natural, so unforced that she might have been sitting in the room alone. She seemed to be unconscious not only of my presence but of the presence of the men. And they, rough and desperate as they were, stood evidently in awe of her. As they moved to and fro about their cooking they passed close to her, and at times they swore. But I could see that their ease was assumed. Her personality, her tragic position, the respect in which women are held in the southern colonies, were as a wall about her—for the present.
And what was she thinking, I wondered, as she sat, apparently as heedless of me, as of the men who rubbed elbows with her? Was she thinking only of her father and his peril, and of the chance which her passing weakness had come so near to forfeiting? Was she weighing that chance between hope and fear, and with no thought except of him who lay in the prison house opposite the tavern at Winnsboro’? Or was she dreaming of me as well as of her father? Thinking of me with pity, with gratitude, with—love? Had I built the bridge? Had I crossed the gulf?
I could not say, seeing her so still, so remote, so passionless. At any rate I could not be sure. The whole width of the hearth divided us, and she sat with her face turned from me. Not a glance of her veiled eyes sped my way, and apparently she was not conscious of my presence. So that by and by that of which I had been confident a little earlier began to seem doubtful, a dream, a mere delusion on my part.