"Thank you, General," I replied. "My husband has gone to farming and I am on my way to visit his aunt, whom I have never seen. He is to come to us after a little while; could not leave conveniently just now. He is very well, I thank you."
"I am so glad to have met you," he returned. "Will see you later on," and was hobbling away on his crutches. He saw by my manner that he had said something to embarrass me and left with a pained look. He was still dressed in his old Confederate gray, from which the brass buttons had all been cut, in obedience to the order from the custom-house office, and replaced by plain steel. For several moments not a word was spoken. Then I looked up and said:
"My tickets and stateroom, please."
"I thought you said your name was Corbell," he of the hooked nose rejoined as he held my money shaking in his hand. "I thought you said your husband's rank was not sufficient to have made an impression; that in all probability I had never heard of him."
Oh, that smacking sound of jaw and tongue, and that beak of a nose, and those little black eyes which grew into Siamese twins as they glared at me like the eyes of a snake!
"Did I say that?" I asked and, with a face all honesty and truth, I looked straight into those eyes and told, without blushing, without a tremor in my voice, the first deliberate falsehood I had ever told:
"Did I say so? Well, my friends think that my mind has been unbalanced by the way the war has ended and they are sending me from home to new scenes and associations to divert me, with the hope of making me well and strong again. Corbell was my maiden name, but I do not know how I happened to say that my husband's rank was low, for I was so proud of it; I could not have been thinking. Will you please be so good as to get my ticket? I am so tired I don't know what I am saying."
He went away, and the stateroom keys were brought to me by a waitress who unlocked the door for me, and I went in, too frightened now to think of supper, too frightened to sleep, and wondering if, in my imprudence, I had hurt my husband and what would happen if I had.
All night long the noise of the wheel was to me the sound of the executioner's axe. All night long it rose and fell through seas of blood—the heart's blood of valiant men, of devoted women, of innocent little children. Near morning I fell asleep and dreamed that it was I who had destroyed all the world of people whose life-blood surged around me with a maddening roar, and that I was destined to an eternity of remorse.
When I awoke the boat had landed. Dressing hurriedly I went to the door and found that it was locked on the outside. As the chambermaid did not answer my repeated call, I beckoned to a sailor passing my window and asked him to tell her that I was locked in and wished that she would come and let me out. When she came she told me that she was not permitted to open the door. I asked if we were not at Baltimore and an officer who was with the maid answered that we were, but that I was to be detained until the authorities should come and either release or imprison me, as I was supposed to be a suspicious character.