“Wait a moment!” exclaimed Mr. Raynes, grasping him by the arm; for the old farmer seemed to think his presence was necessary to the perfect unraveling of the mystery. “It seems to me you ought to know this young man, if none of us do.”
“I do not, Mr. Raynes; never saw him before in my life,” protested Somers, feeling very much like a condemned criminal.
“My name is Allan Garland,” quietly continued the dignified young rebel. “I am, undoubtedly, the person to whom you allude.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mr. Raynes, still holding Somers’s arm with the grasp of a vise.
“Impossible!” almost shouted the fair Sue, more excited than she would have been, if, through patient reading, she had arrived at the last chapter of a sensational novel, where the pin is pulled out and all the villains tumble down to perdition and all the angels stumble upon their apotheosis.
“Impossible!” chimed in Mrs. Raynes, who had preserved a most remarkable silence, for a woman, during the exciting incidents we have transcribed.
“May I be allowed to inquire why you think it is impossible?” calmly demanded the gentle rebel, who, in his turn, was amazed at the singular course of events.
Sue did not know what else to do; so she sat down in a chair, and laughed with hysterical vehemence at the strange aspect of the affair. The old man opened his eyes, and opened his mouth; but he did not forget to hold on with all his might to the arm of the unfortunate lieutenant, who was just then picturing to himself the interior of a rebel dungeon; which view suddenly dissolved into an indistinct representation of a tree, from a stout limb of which was suspended a rope, hanging down over a cart—these latter appurtenances being symbolical of the usual rebel method of hanging a spy.
The affair, which had been growing desperate for some time, had now actually become so to poor Somers. He placed his hand upon his revolver, in the breast-pocket of his coat; but some prudential considerations interposed to prevent him from using it. The house was on a line of rebel sentinels. Whole divisions of Confederate infantry, artillery and cavalry, were encamped around him, and any violent movement on his part would have been sure to result in an ignominious disaster. The doughty old farmer, who was not less than six feet three in his stockinged feet, held on to him as a drowning man clings to a floating spar. It was not possible to get away without resorting to violence; and if he offered any resistance to what, just then, looked like manifest destiny, the rebel soldier would become an ally of the farmer, and the women could call in the sentinels, if nothing more.
“Really, Mr. Raynes, you are very unkind to detain me, when I tell you that my leave has nearly expired,” said Somers, when he had fully measured the situation; which, however, was done in a tithe of the time which we have taken to transcribe it.