And as the food and hot tea warmed him, his vitality returned in a maddened desire for speech after the weeks of terror and silence.
“I don’t know who you are,” he went on, “but I guess you’re not fixed for shooting at me, as every living thing seems to have done for the last fortnight. Maybe you’re in Yankee pay, maybe in Confederate; I can’t help it. I suppose you’ll tell I’ve been here after I’m gone.... But they’ll never get me now!” he bragged, like a truant schoolboy recounting his misdemeanor to an awed companion.
“Who are you?” she asked very gently.
He looked at her defiantly.
“I’m Roy Allen,” he said, “of Kay’s Cavalry.... If you’re fixing to tell the Union people you might as well tell them who fooled ’em!”
“What have you done?”
She inquired so innocently that a hint of shame for his suspicion and brutality toward her reddened his hollow cheeks.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve taken to the woods, headed for Dixie, with a shirtful of headquarter papers. That’s what I’ve done.... And perhaps you don’t know what that means if they catch me. It means hanging.”
“Hanging!” she faltered.
“Yes—if they get me.” His voice quivered, but he added boastingly: “No fear of that! I’m too many for old Kay!”