By the side of Johnston sat a small but muscular man, swarthy, and in early middle years. His face and gestures when he talked showed clearly that he was of Latin blood. It was Beauregard, the victor of Bull Run, now second in command here, and he made a striking contrast to the stern and motionless Kentuckian who sat beside him and who was his chief. There was no uneasy play of Johnston's hands, no shrugging of the shoulders, no jerking of the head. He sat silent, his features a mask, while he listened to his generals.
On the other side was Braxton Bragg, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, who could never forget Bragg's kinship, and the service that he had done fifteen years before at Buena Vista, when he had broken with his guns the last of Santa Anna's squares, deciding the victory. By the side of him was Hardee, the famous tactician, taught in the best schools of both America and Europe. Then there was Polk, who, when a youth, had left the army to enter the church and become a bishop, and who was now a soldier again and a general. Next to the bishop-general sat the man who had been Vice-President of the United States and who, if the Democracy had held together would now have been in the chair of Lincoln, John C. Breckinridge, called by his people the Magnificent, commonly accounted the most splendid looking man in America.
“Bring the prisoner forward, Colonel Kenton,” said General Johnston, a general upon whom the South, with justice, rested great hopes.
Dick stepped forward at once and he held himself firmly, as he felt the eyes of the six generals bent upon him. He was conscious even at the moment that chance had given him a great opportunity. He was there to see, while the military genius of the South planned in the shadow of a dark ravine a blow which the six intended to be crushing.
“Where was the prisoner taken?” said Johnston to Colonel Kenton.
“Sergeant Robertson and three other men of my command seized him as he was about to enter the Northern lines. He was coming from the direction of Buell, where it is likely that he had gone to take a dispatch.”
“Did you find any answer upon him.”
“My men searched him carefully, sir, but found nothing.”
“He is in the uniform of a staff officer. Have you found to what regiment in the Union army he belongs?”
“He is on the staff of Colonel Arthur Winchester, who commands one of the Kentucky regiments. I have also to tell you, sir, that his name is Richard Mason, and that he is my nephew.”