His answer closed the interview.
"Tell the scoundrel who sent you that I am a soldier. I was a soldier in Germany before I cast my fortunes with the South. I bear in my body the wounds of honorable warfare. If I hadn't time to learn the meaning of honor from my friends in the South, my mother taught me in the old world. You ask me to save my life from these assassins by swearing away the life of another. Tell my executioner that I never saw the President of the Confederacy. I never received an order of any kind from him. I did the best I could for the men in my charge at Andersonville and tried honestly to improve their conditions. I am not a perjurer, even to save my own life. A soldier's business is to die. I am ready."
Socola extended his hand through the bars and grasped the prisoner's.
The deeper he dived into the seething mass of corruption and blind passion which had engulfed Washington the more desperate he saw the situation of Davis at Fortress Monroe. After two weeks of careful work he hurried to New York and reported the situation to O'Connor.
"The master mind," he began slowly, "I found at once. His name is Holt—"
"The Judge Advocate General?"
"Yes."
"That accounts for my inability to obtain a copy of the charges against Davis. Holt drew those charges. They are in his hands and he has determined to press his prisoner to trial before his Board of Assassins without allowing me to know the substance of his accusations. It's infamous."
"There are complications which may increase our dangers or suddenly lift them—"