Would she guide him to some spot where it was possible to see the whole length of the pass?
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and turned, he at her side, into the woods.
If her map was not betraying her once more the path must follow the edges of the pass, high up among those rocks and trees somewhere. There was only one way of finding it—to climb upward to the overhanging ledges.
Raising her eyes toward the leafy heights, it seemed to her incredible that any path could lead along that wall of rock, which leaned outward over the ravine.
But somehow she must mount there; somehow she must manage to remain there unmolested, ready, the moment a single Union vdette cantered into the pass, to hurl her explosive messenger into the depths below—a startling but unmistakable signal to the blue column advancing so unsuspiciously into that defile of hell.
As they climbed upward together through the holly-scrub she remembered that she must not slip, for the iron weight in her bosom would endure no rough caress from rock or earth.
How heavy it was—how hot and rough, chafing her body—this little iron sphere, with a dozen deaths sealed up inside!
Toiling upward, planting her roughly shod feet with fearful precision, she tried to imagine what it would be like if the tiny bomb in her bosom exploded—tried to picture her terrified soul tearing skyward out of bodily annihilation.
“It is curious,” she thought with a slight shudder, “how afraid I always am—how deeply, deeply afraid of death. God knows why I go on.”
The boy beside her found the ascent difficult; spur and sabre impeded him; once he lurched heavily against her, and his quick, stammered apology was cut short by the dreadful pallor of her face, for she was deadly afraid of the bomb.