I believe that during these hours Paton kept guard outside, and warned off the curious. For no one came near us, and all the sounds of the camp seemed dull and distant and we two alone in the world, until a little before three o’clock. Then Tom returned. I had made a note that he must be kept at hand, since she would need him to go with her in my place when she knew all—as she must know all after she had seen her father.
I cautioned him as to this, but the man demurred. “Marse, I’m feared ter do it,” he said, showing the whites of his eyes in his earnestness. “Madam ’Stantia, she ordered me ter stay yer. En I’m tired, Marse. I’m en ole nigger en dis jurney’s shuk me. Fer sho’ it has.”
“But you rogue, your mistress!”
“I ’bliged ter stay, Marse,” he repeated doggedly. “Dis nigger’s mighty tired.”
I should have insisted, but the girl had heard his voice and summoned him. She opened her door and he went into the inner room. They talked there for some minutes, while I fretted over this new difficulty. Presently the black came out but she still remained within, and did not follow him for five long minutes. When she came I saw a change in her. Her eyes were bright, and each white cheek had its scarlet patch. She looked like a person in a fever, or on the edge of delirium. What the wine had not done, something else had effected.
“Tom had better be ready to ride with us,” I said.
“No,” she answered. “It will not be necessary. I wish him to stay here.”
She spoke with so much decision that I could not contest the point, and we set off towards Wilmer’s prison. All that I remember of our progress is that once we had to stand aside while a wing of the 23rd marched by; and that once we ran into a knot of blacks in front of the store. They were drunk and to my amazement refused to make way for us. My one arm did not avail much, but a couple of sergeants who were passing on the other side of the way crossed over and laying their canes about the rogues’ shoulders, sent them flying down the road. I thanked the two, they saluted the lady, and we went on.
That is all that I remember of our seven or eight minutes walk. My mind was bent on the old question—what she would do when she learned my part in the matter. Would she take Tom—doubtless with a little delay we could find him? Or would she travel alone, riding the thirty-five miles, many of them after night-fall, unaccompanied? Or—or what would she do? Then, and all the long minutes during which she was with her father in the house opposite the tavern—where a sentry at the front and back declared the importance of the prisoner—I turned this question over and over and inside and out. Webster’s quarters were at the tavern, a long low straggling building, set on a corner, with two fronts; and I might have entered and waited there. But nothing was farther from my mind. The thought of company, of the camp chatter, was abominable to me; and I paced up and down in a solitude which a glance at my face was enough to preserve.
She came out at last when my back was turned, and she reached my elbow unseen. “I am late,” she said. “We should be on horseback by this time, Major Craven. Let us lose no time, if you please.”