“Yes, everything but the picture.”
“Don’t be so fast,” Bill rejoined. “I’ll get to that bimeby. Watch, spetacles, glass bead ring, tobarker-box, and this other thingumbob, but not the picter, if I’ll let you go? And you’ll go with me to Washington, and be showed up like a caravan if I’ll give up the picter? Them’s the terms as I understand.”
“Yes,” the stranger gasped, a shadow of hope stealing into his heart.
Alas, how soon it was erased by Bill’s continuing:
“Yankees ain’t generally very green. We can make you Southern bloods buy wooden cowcumber-seeds any time of day, and do you s’pose I’m goin’ to let you off at any price? No SIR! If you go to war, you must take the chances of war. I ain’t a-goin’ to hurt you, and I’ll ease up them strings if you say so, but, corporal, you’re my prisoner; and these traps,” laying his hand upon the various articles upon the grass, “these traps, picter and all, I con-fis-cate as con-tra-band! How do you feel now?” and Bill coolly pocketed his contrabands, all save the watch, which he adjusted about his neck.
There was a fierce storm of tears, and sobs, and wild entreaties, and then the poor discouraged soldier was still, his white face wearing again its look of cold, haughty reserve, and his whole manner indicative of the aversion he felt for the vulgar Bill, upon whom the feeling was entirely lost, for though Bill knew the proud Southerner felt above him, he could not appreciate the feelings which made the young man shrink from him as from a loathsome reptile. Bill had no intention of treating him cruelly, and as by this time the night shadows were creeping into the woods, he sought out a dryer and more sheltered spot, and bade his prisoner sleep while he sat by and watched. It seemed preposterous that the stranger should sleep under so great excitement, but human nature could endure no longer without rest, and when at last the stars came out, they shone down upon that tired soldier, sleeping upon the grass, with Bill sitting near, and watching as he slept. There were visions of home, and of the battle, too, it would seem, mingled in the young man’s dreams, for he talked sometimes with his mother, asking her to forgive her boy, and take him back again to her love; then he was pleading for another, a captive it would seem, asking that nought but the best of care should come to the wounded officer; and then the picture flitted across his mind, for he held converse with the original, and Bill, listening to him, muttered:
“’Twas his gal, or sister, sure; I’m sorry for him, I vum, but hanged if I’ll give it up. It’s contraband according to war. He needn’t of jined the army.”
And so the weary night wore on, the deep stillness of the Virginia woods broken occasionally by the shouts of riders as they passed by, in search of whatever there was to find. Once, as the shouts came near, the soldier started up, but ere the scream for help had passed his lips, Bill’s hand was laid firmly upon them, and Bill himself whispered fiercely.
“One yelp, and I gag you with the handkerchief the old woman took from her pocket and gin me the mornin’ I come from home. She takes snuff, too, the old woman does!”
There was a gesture of disgust, and then the stranger became quiet again, while the shouts died away in the distance and were not heard again that night. The morning broke at last, and just as it was growing light, Bill, aroused by the falling rain from the slumber into which he had inadvertently fallen, awoke his prisoner, and led him safely through the pickets of the enemy without encountering a human being. They were a strange looking couple, and when, on the following day, they reached Washington, they attracted far more attention than the prisoner desired, for he shrunk nervously from the curious gaze fixed upon him, refusing to answer all questions as to his name or birthplace, and appearing glad when at last he was relieved from Bill’s surveillance and led to his prison home.