The boy choked, then:
“I came here under orders to take a woman spy whose password was the key to a Latin phrase. But until you stood straight in your rags and smiled at me, I did not know it was you—I did not know I was to take the Special Messenger! Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
The boy colored painfully. Then a queer, pallid change came over his face; he rose, bent over her where she rested heavily on the table:
“Little Messenger,” he said, “I am in your debt for two blows and a kiss.”
She lifted a dazed face to meet his gaze; he trembled, leaned down, and kissed her on the mouth.
Then in one bound he was at the door, signaling his troopers with drawn sabre—as once, long ago, she had seen him signal them in the Northern woods.
And, through the window, she saw the scattered cavalry forming column at a gallop, obeying every sabre signal, trotting forward, wheeling fours right—and then—and then! the gray column swung into the western forest at a canter, and was gone!
The boy leaning in the doorway looked back at her over his shoulder and sheathed his sabre. There was not a vestige of color left in his face.
“Go!” he said hoarsely.