Davis, with a graciousness all his own, took off his gloves. "I trust you, Major Randolph," he said.
"And I am a Lee," added Eggleston quickly.
Davis with a courtly bow unbuttoned his jacket. "It is enough," he said. "I trust you. You shall carry the despatches. You are to carry them on your person and, as of course you understand, you are to keep on losing them. You are to drop them into rivers, hide them in old trees, bury them under moss, talk about them in your sleep. In fact, sir," said Davis, with a slight gesture of impatience—it was his one fault—"you must act towards them as any bearer of Confederate despatches is expected to act. The point is, can you do it, or can't you?"
"Sir," said Randolph, saluting again with simple dignity, "I come from Virginia."
"Pardon me," said the President, saluting with both hands, "I had forgotten it."
CHAPTER III
Randolph set out that night, mounted upon the fastest horse, in fact the fleetest, that the Confederate Army could supply. He was attended only by a dozen faithful negroes, all devoted to his person.
Riding over the Tennessee mountains by paths known absolutely to no one and never advertised, he crossed the Tombigbee, the Tahoochie and the Tallahassee, all frightfully swollen, and arrived at the headquarters of General Braxton Bragg.
At this moment Bragg was extended over some seven miles of bush and dense swamp. His front rested on the marshes of the Tahoochie River, while his rear was doubled sharply back and rested on a dense growth of cactus plants. Our readers can thus form a fairly accurate idea of Bragg's position. Over against him, not more than fifty miles to the north, his indomitable opponent, Grant, lay in a frog-swamp. The space between them was filled with Union and Confederate pickets, fraternizing, joking, roasting corn, and firing an occasional shot at one another.
One glance at Randolph's despatches was enough.