The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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"Run and get some. I will see that the prisoner does not get out. Run!"
The aide had gallantly gone forward in the passage to reassure the
ladies, and Jack, seizing the chance, for which the prisoner seemed to
be prepared, whispered:
"Here is an auger, a chisel, and a knife. Secrete them. Work straight
out under your window. We shall be ready for you by Wednesday night.
Don't fail to give a signal if anything happens that prevents your
cutting through. There is only an old stone wall between you and the
river. You must take precautions against the water, if it is high enough
to reach your cut."
Jones played his part admirably. He remained limp and stolid in the
supporting arms of Jack, while Dick, hovering in the doorway, kept the
prying remnant of the visitors, eager to witness the scene, at a safe
distance. When the water came Jack yielded his place to the guard and
the party moved on.
"Here we have a real Yankee, a regular nutmeg," the young aide cried, as
the party came to a room not far from Jones's. "This youngster was one
of the chief devils in the attack on Rosedale. The judge-advocate has
tried every means to coax a confession from him, but without result. He
is as gay as a bridegroom, and answers all threats with a joke."
"Ah! the old Barney under all," Jack said, half sadly.
"Do you know him, Mr. Sprague?"
"Like a brother. He is from my town."
"Ah, perhaps you can convince him that his best course is open
confession?"
"No, I fear not. He is very headstrong, and would rather have his joke
on the gibbet than own himself in the wrong."
"But, Mr. Jack, if you should talk to him, show him the wickedness of
conspiring against a peaceful family, inciting a servile race to murder,
I'm sure you could move him, and it would be such a comfort to have the
criminals themselves expose the atrocious plot."
This was said by Miss Delmayne, a niece of Mrs. Gannat. Jack caught her
eye as she spoke, and instantly realized the covert meaning. How stupid
he had been! Of course, Barney must be apprised of the rescue, and what
time more propitious than the present? But, unfortunately, he had not
provided himself with the tools for the emergency. What could be done?
He suddenly remembered a bayonet he had seen near the guard-room. It was
lying unnoticed on the bench.
"I must have a drink before I answer a plea so urgent. Amuse the
prisoner while I slake my thirst."
Barney was lying at the far end of the narrow, boarded cage. He raised
his head as the group halted before his door, but gave no sign of
interest as this dialogue was carried on:
"Prisoner," said the aide, magisterially, "come to the door."
"Jailer, what shall I come to the door for?" Barney mimicked indolently.
"Because I hid you, sir."
"Not a reason in law, sir."
"I'll have the guard haul you here."
"Then he'll have a mighty poor haul, as King James said when he caught
the Orange troopers in the Boyne."
"I'll teach you, sir, to defy a commissioned officer!"
"I've learned that already; but if you're a school-teacher I'll decline
the verb 'will' for you."
"Guard, hustle that beast forward."
"Guard, don't give yourself the trouble." And Barney arose nimbly and
came to the grating. "O captain, dear, why didn't ye tell me there were
ladies here? You could have spared your eloquence and your authority if
you had told me that the star of beauty, the smile of angels, the--"
"Never mind, sir; be respectful, and wait till you're spoken to."
"Then, captain, dear, do you profit by your own advice; let the ladies
talk. I'm all ears, as the rabbit said to the weasel."
But at this interesting point of the combat Jack returned, and,
pushing-to the door, cried, as if in surprise, "Hello, Barney, boy, what
are you doing here?"
"Diverting the ladies, Jack, dear, and giving the captain a chance to
practice command, for fear he'll not get a show in battle." The roar
that saluted this retort subdued the bumptious cavalier, and he affected
deep interest in the whispered questions of one of the young women in
the rear of the group.
"You're the same old Barney. Marc Anthony gave up the world for a kiss,
you'd capitulate a kingdom for a joke," Jack said, striving to catch
Barney's eye and warn him to be prudent.
"Well, Jack, dear, between the joke and the kiss, I think I'd go out of
the world better satisfied with the kiss; at all events, it wouldn't be
dacent to say less with so many red lips forninst me," and Barney winked
untold admiration at the laughing group before him, all plainly
delighted with his conquest of the captain.
"But, Barney, you should be thinking of more serious things."
"Sure I've thought of nothing else for three months. The trees can't go
naked all the year; the brook can't keep ice on it in summer; the swan
sings before it dies; the grasshopper whirrs loudest when its grave is
ready. Why shouldn't I have me joke when I've had nothing but hard
knocks, loneliness, and the company of the prison for half the year?"
"Poor fellow!" Rosa murmured in Dick's ear, who had not trusted himself
in sight of his old comrade. "I don't believe he's a bad man; I don't
believe he came to our house. Oh! pray, Mr. Jack, do talk with him.
Encourage him to be frank, and we will get Mr. Davis to pardon him."
"Pardon, is it, me dear? Sure there's no pardon could be as sweet as
your honest e'en--God be good to ye!--an' if I were Peter after the
third denial of me Maker, your sweet lips would drag the truth from me!
What is it you would have me tell?"
"The captain, here, desires me to talk with you. He thinks that perhaps
I can convince you of the wiser course to follow," Jack said, with a
meaning light in his eye.
"Oh, if that's what's wanted, I will listen to you 'till yer arms give
out, as Judy McMoyne said, when Teddy tould his love, I promise, in
advance, to do what you advise."
"I knew you would," Jack said, approvingly.--"Now, captain, if you can
give me five minutes--"
The captain beckoned the guard, whispered a moment, and then said,
exultingly:
"The guard will stand in the passage until you have finished with the
prisoner. We shall await you in the porch."
"Now, Barney, I must be brief, and you must not lose a syllable I say.
Here, sit on the cot, so that I may slip this bayonet under the blanket.
You can work through this wall with that. You must do it to-night and
to-morrow. Be ready Thursday at daylight. You will be met on the outside
either by Dick or myself. We have the route all arranged, and friends in
many places to lull suspicion."
"But I won't stir a foot without Jones. Do you know who he is?" Barney
whispered, eying Jack curiously.
"No other than that he seems a very desperate devil-may-care fellow. Who
is he?"
"An agent and crony of Boone's."
"Good God!"
"It's a long story I can't tell it now, but if your plan takes him in,
I'm ready, and will be on hand."
"I have seen him, and have given him better tools than I have brought
you for the work."
"That's all right. I ask nothing better than the bayonet. The other
fellows that got out of Libby didn't have nearly so good."
"You know how I am fixed here. I have grown tired of this sort of
hostage life, and I am going North with you. So, Barney, I beg of you to
be careful, for other lives than your own are at stake. I should be
specially hateful to the authorities if I were retaken--for the whole
Southern people clamor to have an example made of the assassins of the
President, as they call you."
"Don't fear, Jack; I'll be quiet as a sucking pig in star light. I'll be
yer shadow and never open me mouth, even if a jug, big as Teddy Fin's
praty-patch, stud furninst me!"
"It isn't your tongue I'm so much afraid of as your propensity to
combat. You must resist that delight of yours--whacking stray heads and
flourishing your big fists."
"My fists, is it? Then I'll engage to keep them still as O'Connell's
legs in Phoenix Square."
"Now, I shall report that you are considering my advice. You must be
very gentle and placating to the guard, and let on that you have
something on your mind."
"Indeed, I needn't let on at all. I have as much on me mind as Biddy
McGinniss had on her back when she carried Mick home from the gallows."
"O Barney, Barney, you would joke if the halter were about your neck!"
"An' why wouldn't I, me bye? What chance would I have if I didn't? I
couldn't joke when I was dead, could I?"
"Well, well, think over what I've said, and remember that penitence half
absolves guilt."
This was said for the benefit of the guard, who had approached as Jack
arose to take his leave.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR.
Opportunity is an instinct to the man who dares. To him the law of the
impossible has no meaning. To him there is no such thing as the
unexpected. What he wants comes to pass, because he can not see danger,
difficulty, nor any of the obstacles that daunt the prudent and the
temporizing. It is, therefore, the impossible that is fulfilled in many
of the crises of life. By the same token it is the foolhardy and
preposterous thing that is most readily done in determinate
conjunctures. We guard against the possible, but we take little note of
the enterprises that involve foolhardiness or desperation. Daring has
safeguards of its own that are understood only when mad ventures have
come to successful issue. Helpless and hopeless as Jack's situation
seemed, the very poverty of his resources, helped the daring scheme of
escape that filled his mind night and day during these apparently
indolent weeks of pleasuring in the ranks of his enemies. Then, too, the
arrogant self-confidence of his captors was an inestimable aid. Military
discipline and provost vigilance were at their slackest stage in the
rebel lines at this triumphant epoch in the fortunes of the Confederacy.
The easily won combat at Bull Run had filled the authorities--as well as
the rank and file--with overweening contempt for the resources of the
North, or the enterprise of its soldiers. It was not until long after
the time I am now writing about, that the prisoners were closely guarded
and access refused to the idle and curious. But, as a matter of fact,
nothing in the fortunes of our friends equals the truth of the thrilling
and desperate chances taken by Northern captives to escape the lingering
death of prison in the South. Since the war, volumes have been written
of personal experience, amply attested, that would in romance receive
the derisive mark of the critics. Danger daily met becomes a commonplace
to men of resolution. Things which appall us when we read them become a
simple part of our purpose when we live in an atmosphere of peril and
put our hope only in ending the ordeal.
The incident I am narrating were the work of many hands. Mrs. Gannat had
from the first given her heart to the Union cause. A woman of high
standing in society, well known throughout the State for her mind, her
manners, and her benevolence, it was not difficult for her, by adroit
management, to aid such prisoners as fell into rebel hands during the
early years of the war. Before Richmond became a mart in the modern
sense, the Gannat mansion, set far back among the trees of a noble
grove, was a shrine to the tradition loving citizens, for, beyond any
Southern city, save perhaps New Orleans, Richmond folk cherished the
memory of aristocratic and semi-regal ancestors. There were those still
living when the war began, who had heard their fathers and mothers talk
of the last royal Governor and the splendid state of the great noblemen
who had flocked to the city of Powhatan when Virginia was the gem of
England's colonial coronet. The patrician caste of the city still held
its own, aided by the helot hand of slavery. Among the most reverently
considered in this sanctified group, Mrs. Gannat was, if not first, the
conceded equal. She was the dowager of the ancient noblesse. The young
Virginian received in her drawing-rooms carried away a distinction which
was recognized throughout the State. The dame admitted to Mrs. Gannat's
semi-literary _levees_ was accepted as all that society demanded of
its votaries.
In other years this great lady had been the admired center of the court
circle in Washington. There she had known very intimately Senator--then
Congressman--Sprague. Jack remembered vaguely the gossip of an
engagement between his father and a famous Southern beauty; and when the
lady in the course of the conspiring said, as they talked, "My son, I
might have been your mother," he knew that this gentle-voiced,
kindly-eyed matron was the woman his father had loved and lost. I don't
propose to rehearse the ingenuities of the complicated plans whereby the
group we are interested in were to be delivered. Mrs. Gannat's perfect
knowledge of the city, her intimacy with the President, Cabinet, and
leading men, her vogue with the officials, all tended to make very
simple and easy that which would seem in the telling hare-brained and
impossible. Jack's unique position, and Dick's attitude of the
half-acknowledged _fiance_ of an Atterbury, broke down bars that even
Mrs. Gannat's far-reaching sagacity might not have been able to cope
with in certainty. The night chosen for the escape was fatefully
propitious. The President was entertaining the newly arrived French
delegate and the ministers Mason and Slidell, just appointed to the
courts of St. James and the Tuileries. Everybody that was anybody was of
the splendid company.
Jack, however, was tortured by a doubt of Dick's constancy when it came
to an abrupt quitting of his sweetheart. Poor lad, he fought the battle
bravely, making no sign; and when Rosa, the picture of demure
loveliness, in her girlish finery, asked him maliciously as the carriage
drove toward the Executive Mansion--
"Don't you feel like a traitor, you sly Yankee?" Dick gave a great groan
and said:
"O Rosa, Rosa, I can't go! I do feel like a traitor. I am a traitor."
Jack, luckily, was sitting beside him, and brought his heel down on the
lad's toes with such emphasis that he uttered a cry of pain. Rosa was
all solicitude at this.
"What is it, Richard; have I wounded you? Don't mind my chatter; I only
do it to tease you. He shall be a Yankee; he shall make nutmegs; he
shall abuse the chivalrous South; he shall be what he likes; he sha'n't
be teased--" and she wound her bare arms about his neck, quite
indifferent to the reproving nudges of mamma and the sad mirthfulness
of Jack.
Dick found means in the noise of the chariot, and the crush they
presently came into, for saying something that seemed to lessen the
self-reproachful tone of the penitent, and, when they entered the modest
portals of the presidency, Rosa was radiant and Dick equable, but not in
his usual chattering volubility.
"You are sure you do not repent? You can stay if you choose," Jack said,
as they entered the dressing-room.
"Where you go, I go; what you say is right I know is right, and I will
do it." Dick looked away confusedly as he said this. They were
surrounded by young officers, all of whom the two young men knew.
"Ah, ha, Mr. Perley! I have stolen a march on you; I have secured the
first waltz from Miss Rosa," a young man at the mirror cried, as Dick
adjusted his gloves.
"Then, Captain Warrick, I'm likely to be a wall-flower, for the second,
third, and fourth were promised yesterday."
"Fortunes of war, my dear fellow--fortunes of war. You must lay siege to
another fortress."
"Dick," Jack whispered, "it's an omen. It will give us time to slip out
and change our garments without the danger of excuses, for, though
nothing is suspected, any incautious phrase may destroy us."
"Don't fear for me. I shall be prudent as a confessor. We can't go,
however, just yet. I must have a little talk with Rosa. I may never see
her again. If you were in love and going from the light of her eye,
perhaps never to see her again, you wouldn't be so cool. We must,
anyway, take the ladies to the host and hostess for presentation; then a
few words and I am ready." Dick was trembling visibly and blushing like
a school-girl at first facing a class-day crowd. Jack's heart went out
to the lad, and he thought the chances about even that when the moment
of trial came the boy's resolution would give way. The ladies were
waiting for them when they emerged into the corridors--Rosa began,
prettily, to rally Dick on his tardiness. It took time to thread the
constantly increasing crowd in the hallways, the corridors, and on the
stairs, but they finally reached the group in which Mrs. Davis was
receiving the confused salutations of the throng at the drawing-room
door. As soon as this formality was ended, Rosa whisked Dick in one
direction while Mrs. Atterbury asked Jack to take her to the library.
Here, by a happy chance, she came upon a group of dowagers--friends of
her youth from other towns--brought to the capital by the event, or
their husbands' official duties in the new government. Jack bowed low as
he relinquished the good lady's arm, feeling as if he were embarking on
some odious treason, in view of her persistent and generous treatment of
him and his.
"Now that you are among the friends of your youth, I will leave you; who
knows whether I shall see you again?" he faltered, as she turned an
affectionate glance upon him.
"Oh, you needn't think that you can take _conge_ for good, Jack. I may
want to dance during the night. If I do I shall certainly lay my
commands upon you. You may devote yourself to the young people now, but
I warn you I am not to be thrown over so easily. Besides, I want to
present you to a dozen friends that you have not yet met at my house."
"You will always know where to find me; but I am not so sure that I
shall be as able, as I am willing, to come to you," Jack said, trembling
at the double meaning of his words.
"Oh, I know you're dying to get to the dancers."
"I can go to no one that it will give me more happiness to please than
you. Indeed, I'm going into danger when I quit you. Give me your
blessing, as if it were Vincent going to the wars."
She had turned from the throng of ladies, who were discussing a
political secret, and her eyes melted tenderly as Vincent's name passed
Jack's lips. She touched his bowed head gently, saying:
"Why, how serious you are! One would think beauty a battery, and you on
the way to charge."
"You are right. It is a murderous ambush."
"Well, if you regard it so seriously--God bless you in it."
Her gentle eyes rested tenderly on him; he seized the kind hand, and,
raising it to his lips in the gallant Southern fashion, turned and
hurried away among the guests.
"Ah, Mrs. Atterbury, conquests at your age, from hand to lip, there's
but short interval," and the President held up a warning finger as he
came closer to the lady.
"Oh, no, age makes a long route between hand and lip--thirty years ago
you kissed my hand, and you never reached the lip."
"It wasn't my fault that I didn't."
"Nor your misfortune either," and Mrs. Atterbury glanced archly at her
rival, Mrs. Davis, the mature beauty of the scene.
Dick, meanwhile, not so dexterous in expedients or ready in speech as
his mentor, became wedged in an eddy, just outside the main stream,
pouring drawing-room ward, so that, returning to the spot where they had
separated, Jack did not, for the moment, discover him.
Rosa's gayety and delight deepened the depression that made Dick so
unlike himself. At first, in the exuberance of the scene, the girl did
not heed this. She knew everybody, and, though in daily contact with
most of them, there were no end of whispered confidences to exchange and
tender reassurances in ratification of some new compact. Then there were
solemn notes of comparison as to the fit and form of gowns, or the fit
of a furbelow, exhaustively discussed, perhaps that very afternoon. Keen
eyes, merry and tantalizing, were lifted to Dick's sulky face during
this pretty by-play, but all the gayety of the comedy was lost to him.
When he could contain himself no longer, with another bevy of cronies in
sight coming down the stairs, he cried out, desperately:
"For Heaven's sake, Rosa, don't wait here like the statue in St.
Peter's, to be kissed by everybody on the way to the pope; it's simply
sickening to stand here like a shrine to be slopped by girls that you
see every day. Come away; I want to say something to you."
Rosa turned her astonished eyes upon the railer, and, with a comic
movement of immense dignity, drew her arm from his sheltering elbow,
and, in tones of freezing _hauteur_ retorted:
"And since when, sir, are you master of my conduct? I am my own
mistress, I believe. I shall kiss whom I please."
"O Rosa, Rosa, I didn't mean that; I don't know what I meant. I--O Rosa,
don't be fretful with me now! I can't bear it. I am ill--I mean I am
tired. Come and sit with me."
Several on the outer edge of the flowing current turned curiously as
this sharp cry of boyish pleading rose above the noisy clamor. It was
impossible, however, to push backward, but in an instant the lovers were
sheltered in an alcove near the doorway. Rosa had taken his rejected arm
again in a panic of guilty repentance, and, looking at his half-suffused
eyes, cried, piteously:
"Oh, forgive me, Richard, forgive me--I did not mean it! I forgot you
were ill. Ah, please, please forgive me! You know--I--I--"
But Dick, now conscious that inquiring eyes were fastened upon them,
curious ears listening, seized her arm, and, by main force, reached the
hall doorway, now nearly deserted.
"Rosa, I am not well--that is, I have a headache, or heartache--it's the
same thing. I didn't mean to tell you, for I didn't want to destroy your
pleasure, and you have looked forward so long to this; but I--I--can not
dance. Jack and I are going to walk a little while, and then we--we
shall be more ourselves."
Poor Dick had only the slightest idea what he was saying, and Rosa
listened with wide-open eyes and little appealing caresses, not quite
certain what the distracted lover did mean.
"All your dances are taken up. Young Warrick just told me he had the
first. You gave Gayo Brotherton two yesterday, so you will have no need
of me for hours yet."
"But I will cut them if you say so. Only you know that it is our way
here to give the first who ask."
"Yes, yes; that's right. I--I couldn't dance now. I shall be all right,
presently if--if I see you happy. Ah, Rosa, if--if I should die--if I
should be carried away, would you always love me, would you always
believe in me?"
"Why, Dick, you are really ill; let me feel your wrist." Rosa seized
Dick's hand and began a convulsive squeezing. "Yes, you certainly have a
fever. You must go home. I shall go with you. It is your wound. It has
broken out again--I know it has. You shall go home this instant. I will
send for the carriage. Come straight up-stairs, you wicked boy! To let
me come here when you are so ill! I shall never forgive myself--never!"
"A large vow for a small maid."
"Mr. Jack!"--for the voice was Jack's--"Dick is very ill, and he must go
home at once. Will you not get the carriage and take us?"
"I will not take you. I am very experienced in Dick's ailments, and I
have already summoned a physician, who is waiting for us. But he can not
attend his patient if you are present."
"Yes, Rosa, Jack is right. I will leave you now, and when you see me
again you will see that I am not ill--that I--I--"
"I will stop for you at the door, Dick. You know the physician can not
be kept waiting, so make your parting brief. Short shrift is the easiest
in love and war."
"A doctor is as dreadful to me as a battle, Rosa. Kiss me as if I were
going to the field," Dick whispered as Jack's back was turned. A minute
later he had joined his mentor, and the two hurried through the square
and down toward the river.
"I can't do it, Jack," Dick suddenly broke out, as they hurried through
the dark street. "I must leave Rosa a line telling her my motive. What
will she think of me sneaking away like this without a word? Now, you go
on to Blake's cabin and change your clothes. I will get an old suit of
Vint's. It will really make no difference in the time, and it will be
safer for us to reach the prison separately than together."
"No, Dick, be a man. Every line you write will add to our peril. She
will, of course, show it to her mother. Our night will be known in the
morning. Mrs. Atterbury is too loyal to the Confederacy to conceal
anything. You will thus give the authorities the very clew they need.
No, Dick, you must be guided by me in this; besides, you can send Rosa
letters through Vincent at headquarters as soon as we reach Washington."
"I can't help it. I know you are right, but I must do it. I will be with
you in less than an hour. I'm off."
"Listen!--Good God, he's gone!" Jack ejaculated as Dick, taking
advantage of a cross-street, shot off into the darkness. Jack halted. To
call would be dangerous; to run after him excite comment, perhaps
pursuit and discovery. There was nothing to be done but wait at the
rendezvous. He would come back--Jack tried to make himself believe that
he could depend on that. When, after a circuitous walk of half an hour,
he reached the cabin of Blake, the colored agent of Mrs. Gannat, he
found a note from his patroness warning him that the prison authorities
had become alert. A rumor of a plot to escape had penetrated the War
Department, and orders had been given to increase the precaution of the
guards. The reception at the President's was a stroke of good fortune
for the prisoners, as all the higher officials would be detained there
until morning. Perhaps, in view of the chance, it would be better to
anticipate the hour of flight, as, unfortunately, the horses that had
been got together for the fugitives were in use for the Davis guests,
and on such short notice others could not be provided without exciting
suspicion or pointing to the agency by which the liberation had been
brought about.