Special Messenger

by Robert W. Chambers

  IV

  ROMANCE

  The Volunteer Nurse sighed and spread out her slender, iodine-stainedfingers on both knees, looking down at them reflectively.

  "It is different now," she said; "sentiment dies under the scalpel. Inthe filth and squalor of reality neither the belief in romance nor thecapacity for desiring it endure long.... Even pity becomes atrophied--orat least a reflex habit; sympathy, sorrow, remain as mechanicalreactions, not spontaneous emotions.... You can understand that, dear?"

  "Partly," said the Special Messenger, raising her dark eyes to her oldschoolmate.

  "In the beginning," said the Nurse, dreamily, "the men in theiruniforms, the drums and horses and glitter, and the flags passing, andyouth--_youth_--not that you and I are yet old in years; do you knowwhat I mean?"

  "I know," said the Special Messenger, smoothing out her riding gloves."Do you remember the cadets at Oxley? You loved one of them."

  "Yes; you know how it was in the cities; and even afterward inWashington--I mean the hospitals after Bull Run. Young bravery--theZouaves--the multicolored guard regiments--and a romance in everydeath!" She laid one stained hand over the other, fingers still wide."But here in this blackened horror they call the 'seat of war'--thisfestering bullpen, choked with dreary regiments, all alike, all infilthy blue--here individuals vanish, men vanish. The schoolgirl dreamof man dies here forever. Only unwashed, naked duty remains; and itsinspiration, man--bloody, dirty, vermin-covered, terrible--sometimes;and sometimes whimpering, terrified, flinching, base, bereft of all hissex's glamour, all his mystery, shorn of authority, devoid of pride,pitiable, screaming under the knife.--It is different now," said thepretty Volunteer Nurse.--"The war kills more than human life."

  The Special Messenger drew her buckskin gloves carefully through herbelt and buttoned the holster of her revolver.

  "I have seen war, too," she said; "and the men who dealt death and themen who received it. Their mystery remains--the glamour of a man remainsfor me--because he is a man."

  "I have heard them crying like children in the stretchers."

  "So have I. That solves nothing."

  But the Nurse went on:

  "And in the wards they are sometimes something betwixt devils andchildren. All the weakness and failings they attribute to women come outin them--fear, timidity, inconsequence, greed, malice, gossip! And, asfor courage--I tell you, women bear pain better."

  "Yes, I have learned that.... It is not difficult to beguile themeither; to lead them, to read them. That is part of my work. I do it. Iknow they _are_ afraid in battle--the intelligent ones. Yet they fight.I know they are really children--impulsive, passionate, selfish, oftencruel--but, after all, they are here fighting this war--here encampedall around us throughout these hills and forests.... They have lost noneof their glamour for me. Their mystery remains."

  The Volunteer Nurse looked up with a tired smile:

  "You always were emotional, dear."

  "I am still."

  "You don't have to drain wounds and dry out sores and do the thousandunspeakable offices that we do."

  "Why do you do them?"

  "I have to."

  "You didn't have to enlist. Why did you?"

  "Why do the men enlist?" asked the Nurse. "That's why you and Idid--whatever the motive may have been, God knows.... And it's killedpart of me.... _You_ don't cleanse ulcers."

  "No; I am not fitted. I tried; and lost none of the romance in me. Onlyit happens that I can do--what I am doing--better."

  The Nurse looked at her a trifle awed.

  "To think, dear, that you should turn out to be the celebrated SpecialMessenger. You were timid in school."

  "I am now.... You don't know how afraid a woman can be. Suppose inschool--suppose that for one moment we could have foreseen ourdestiny--here together, you and I, as we are now."

  The Nurse looked into the stained hollow of her right hand.

  "I had the lines read once," she said drearily, "but nobody ever saidI'd be here, or that there'd be any war." And she continued to examineher palm with a hurt expression in her blue eyes.

  The Special Messenger laughed, and her lovely, pale face lighted up withcolor.

  "Don't you really think you are ever going to be capable of caring for aman again?"

  "No, I don't. I know now how they're fashioned, how they think--how--howrevolting they can be.... No, no! It's all gone--all the ideals, all thedreams.... Good Heavens, how romantic--how senseless we were in school!"

  "I am still," said the Special Messenger thoughtfully. "I like men....A man--the right one--could easily make me love him. And I am afraidthere are more than one 'right one.' I have often been on thesentimental border.... But they died, or went away--or I did.... Thetrouble with me is, as you say, that I am emotional, and very, verytender-hearted.... It is sometimes difficult to be loyal--to care forduty--to care for the Union more than for a man. Not that there is anydanger of my proving untrue----"

  "No," murmured the Nurse, "loyalty is your inheritance."

  "Yes, we--" she named her family under her breath--"are traditionallytrustworthy. It is part of us--our race was always, will alwaysbe.... But--to see a man near death--and to care for him a little--evena rebel--and to know that one word might save him--only one littledisloyal word!"

  "No man would save _you_ at that expense," said the Nurse disdainfully."I know men."

  "Do you? I don't--in that way. There was once an officer--anoncombatant. I could have loved him.... Once there was a Confederatecavalryman. I struck him senseless with my revolver-butt--and I mighthave--cared for him. He was very young.... I never can forget him. It ishard, dear, the business I am engaged in.... But it has never spoiled myinterest in men--or my capacity for loving one of them. I am afraid I ameasily moved."

  She rose and stood erect, to adjust her soft riding hat, her youthfullyslender figure in charming relief against the window.

  "Won't you let me brew a little tea for you?" asked the Nurse. "Don'tleave me so soon."

  "When do you go on duty?"

  "In about ten minutes. It will be easier to-morrow, when we send oursick North. Will you come in to-morrow?"

  The Special Messenger shook her head dreamily.

  "I don't know--I don't know.... Good-by."

  "Are _you_ going on duty?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "Now."

  The Nurse rose and put both arms around her.

  "I am so afraid for you," she said; "and it has been so good to seeyou.... I don't know whether we'll ever meet again----"

  Her voice was obliterated in the noisy outburst of bugles sounding thenoon sick-call.

  They went out together, where the Messenger's horse was tied under thetrees. Beyond, through the pines, glimmered the tents of an emergencyhospital. And now, in the open air not very far away, they could hearpicket firing.

  "Do be careful," said the blue-eyed Nurse. "They say you do suchaudacious things; and every day somebody says you have been taken, orhanged, or shot. Dear, you are so young and so pretty----"

  "So are you. Don't catch fever or smallpox or die from a scratch from apoisoned knife.... Good-by once more."

  They kissed each other. A hospital orderly, passing hurriedly, stoppedto hold her stirrup; she mounted, thanked the orderly, waved a smilingadieu to her old schoolmate, and, swinging her powerful horse westward,trotted off through the woods, passing the camp sentinels with a nod anda low-spoken word.

  Farther out in the woods she encountered the first line of pickets;showed her credentials, then urged her horse forward at a gallop.

  "Not that way!" shouted an officer, starting to run after her; "theJohnnies are out there!"

  She turned in her saddle and nodded reassuringly, then spurred on again,expecting to jump the Union advance-guard every moment.

  There seemed to be no firing anywhere in the vicinity; nothing to beseen but dusky pine woods; and after she had advanced almost to the edgeof a little clearing, and no
t encountering the outer line of Unionpickets, she drew bridle and sat stock still in her saddle, searching inevery direction with alert eyes.

  Nothing moved; the heated scent of the Southern pines hung heavy in theforest; in the long, dry swale-grass of the clearing, yellow butterflieswere flying lazily; on a dead branch above her a huge woodpecker, withpointed, silky cap, uttered a querulous cry from moment to moment.

  She strained her dainty, close-set ears; no sound of man stirred in thiswilderness--only the lonely bird-cry from above; only the ceaselessmonotone of the pine crests stirred by some high breeze unfelt below.

  A forest path, apparently leading west, attracted her attention; intothis she steered her horse and continued, even after her compass hadwarned her that the path was now running directly south.

  The tree-growth was younger here; thickets of laurel and holly grew inthe undergrowth, and, attempting a short cut out, she became entangled.For a few minutes her horse, stung by the holly, thrashed and flounderedabout in the maze of tough stems; and when at last she got him free, shewas on the edge of another clearing--a burned one, lying like a path ofblack velvet in the sun. A cabin stood at the farther edge.

  Three forest bridle paths ran west, east, and south from this blackenedclearing. She unbuttoned her waist, drew out a map, and, flattening iton her pommel, bent above it in eager silence. And, as she sat studyingher map, she became aware of a tremor in the solid earth under her horse'sfeet. It grew to a dull jarring vibration--nearer--nearer--nearer--andshe hastily backed her horse into the depths of the laurel, sprang tothe ground, and placed both gauntleted hands over her horse's nostrils.

  A moment later the Confederate cavalry swept through the clearing at atrot--a jaunty, gray column, riding two abreast, then falling intosingle file as they entered the bridle path at a canter.

  She watched them as they flashed by among the pines, sitting theirhorses beautifully, the wind lifting the broad brims of their soft hats,the sun a bar of gold across each sunburned face.

  There were only a hundred of them--probably some of Ashby's old riders,for they seemed strangely familiar--but it was not long before they hadpassed on their gay course, and the last tremor in the forest soil--thelast distant rattle of sabre and carbine--died away in the forestsilence.

  What were they doing here? She did not know. There seemed no logicalreason for the presence of Stuart's troopers.

  For a while, awaiting their possible collision with the Union outposts,she listened, expecting the far rattle of rifles. No sound came. Theymust have sheered off east. So, very calmly she addressed herself to thetask in hand.

  This must be the burned clearing; her map and the cabin corroboratedher belief. Then it was here that she was to meet this unknown man inConfederate uniform and Union pay--a spy like herself--and give himcertain information and receive certain information in return.

  Her instructions had been unusually rigid; she was to take everyprecaution; use native disguise whether or not it might appearnecessary, carry no papers, and let any man she might encounter make theadvances until she was absolutely certain of him. For there was an uglyrumor afloat that the man she expected had been caught and hanged, andthat a Confederate might attempt to impersonate him. So she looked verycarefully at her map, then out of the thicket at the burned clearing.There was the wretched cabin named as rendezvous, the little gardenpatch with standing corn and beans, and here and there a yellowingsquash.

  _Why had the passing rebel cavalry left all that good food undisturbed?_

  Fear, which within her was always latent, always too ready to influenceher by masquerading as caution, stirred now. For almost an hour shestood, balancing her field glasses across her saddle, eyes focused onthe open cabin door. Nothing stirred there.

  At last, with a slight shiver, she opened her saddle bags and drew outthe dress she meant to wear--a dingy, earth-colored thing of gingham.

  Deep in the thicket she undressed, folded her fine linen and silkenstockings, laid them away in the saddle bags together with waist andskirt, field glasses, gauntlets, and whip, and the map and papers, whichlatter, while affording no information to the enemy, would certainlyserve to convict her.

  Dressed now in the scanty, colorless clothing of a "poor white" of thepine woods, limbs and body tanned with walnut, her slender feet rubbedin dust and then thrust stockingless into shapeless shoes, she let downthe dark, lustrous mass of her hair, braided it, tied it with fadedribbon, rubbed her hands in wood mold and crushed green leaves over themtill they seemed all stained and marred with toil. Then she gathered anarmful of splinter wood.

  Now ready, she tethered her horse, leaving him bitted and saddled;spread out his sack of feed, turned and looked once more at the cabin,then walked noiselessly to the clearing's edge, carrying her aromaticsplinters.

  Underfoot, as she crossed it, the charred grass crumbled to powder;three wild doves flickered up into flight, making a soft clatter anddisplaying the four white feathers. A quail called from the bean patch.

  The heat was intense in the sun; perspiration streaked her features; hertender feet burned; the cabin seemed a long way off, a wavering blotthrough the dancing heat devils playing above the fire-scorched open.

  Head bent, she moved on in the shiftless, hopeless fashion of the sortof humanity she was representing, furtively taking her bearings andmaking such sidelong observations as she dared. To know the shortest wayback to her horse might mean life to her. She understood that. Also shefully realized that she might at that very instant be under hostileobservation. In her easily excited imagination, all around her theforest seemed to conceal a hundred malevolent eyes. She shiveredslightly, wiped the perspiration from her brow with one small bare fist,and plodded on, clutching her lightwood to her rounded breast.

  And now at last she was nearing the open cabin door; and she must nothesitate, must show no suspicion. So she went in, dragging herclumsily-shod feet.

  A very young man in the uniform of a Confederate cavalry officer wasseated inside before the empty fireplace of baked clay. He had a badscar on his temple. She looked at him, simulating dull surprise; he roseand greeted her gracefully.

  "Howdy," she murmured in response, still staring.

  "Is this your house?" he asked.

  "Suh?" blankly.

  "Is this your house?"

  "I reckon," she nodded. "How come you-all in my house?"

  He replied with another question:

  "What were you doing in the woods?"

  "Lightwood," she answered briefly, stacking the fragrant splinters onthe table.

  "Do you live here all alone?"

  "Reckon I'm alone when I live heah," sullenly.

  "What is your name?" He had a trick of coloring easily.

  "What may be _yoh_ name, suh?" she retorted with a little flash ofSouthern spirit, never entirely quenched even in such as she seemed tobe.

  Genuine surprise brought the red back into his face and made it, worn asit was, seem almost handsome. The curious idea came to her that she hadseen him before somewhere. At the same moment speech seemed to trembleon his lips; he hesitated, looked at her with a new and sudden keenness,and stood looking.

  "I expected to meet somebody here," he said at length.

  She did not seem to comprehend.

  "I expected to meet a woman here."

  "Who? Me?" incredulously.

  He looked her over carefully; looked at her dusty bare ankles, at herwalnut-smeared face and throat. She seemed so small, soround-shouldered--so different from what he had expected. They had saidthat the woman he must find was pretty.

  "Was yuh-all fixin' to meet up with _me_?" she repeated with a boldlaugh.

  "I--don't know," he said. "By the Eternal, I don't know, ma'am. But I'mgoing to find out in right smart time. Did you ever hear anybody speakLatin?"

  "Suh?" blankly; and the audacity faded.

  "Latin," he repeated, a trifle discomfited. "For instance, '_sic itur_.'Do you know what '_sic itur_' means?"

&
nbsp; "Sick--what, suh?"

  "'_Sic itur!_' Oh, Lord, she _is_ what she looks like!" he exclaimed infrank despair. He walked to the door, wheeled suddenly, came back andconfronted her.

  "Either, ma'am, you are the most consummate actress in this war drama,or you don't know what I'm saying, and you think me crazy.... And nowI'll ask you once for all: _Is this the road_?"

  The Special Messenger looked him full in the eyes; then, as by magic,the loveliest of smiles transfigured the dull, blank features; her roundshoulders, pendulous arms, slouching pose, melted into superb symmetry,quickening with grace and youth as she straightened up and faced him,erect, supple, laughing, adorable.

  "_Sic itur--ad Astra_," she said demurely, and offered him her hand."Continue," she added.

  He neither stirred nor spoke; a deep flush mounted to the roots of hisshort, curly hair. She smiled encouragement, thinking him young andembarrassed, and a trifle chagrined.

  "Continue the Latin formula," she nodded, laughing; "what follows, ifyou please----"

  "Good God!" he broke out hoarsely.

  And suddenly she knew there was nothing to follow except death--his orhers--realized she made an awful mistake--divined in one dreadfulinstant the unsuspected counter-mine beneath her very feet--cried out asshe struck him full in the face with clenched fist, sprang back,whipping the revolver from her ragged bodice, dark eyes ablaze.

  "Now," she panted, "hands high--and turn your back! Quickly!"

  He stood still, very pale, one sunburned hand covering the cheek whichshe had struck. There was blood on it. He heard her breathless voice,warning him to obey, but he only took his hand from his face, looked atthe blood on palm and finger, then turned his hopeless eyes on her.

  "Too late," he said heavily. "But--I'd rather be you than I.... Look outof that window, Messenger!"

  "Put up your hands!"

  "No."

  "Will you hold up your hands!"

  "No, Messenger.... And I--didn't--know it was _you_ when I came here.It's--it's a dirty business--for an officer." He sank down on the woodenchair, resting his head between both hands. A single drop of blood fellbrightly from his cut cheek.

  The Special Messenger stole a swift, sidelong glance toward the window,hesitated, and, always watching him, slid along the wall toward thedoor, menacing him at every step with leveled revolver. Then, at thedoor, she cast one rapid glance at the open field behind her and around.A thrill of horror stiffened her. The entire circle of the burnedclearing was ringed with the gray pickets of rebel cavalry.

  The distant men sat motionless on their horses, carbine on thigh. Hereand there a distant horse tossed his beautiful head, or perhaps somehat-brim fluttered. There was no other movement, not one sound.

  Crouching to pass the windows beneath the sills she crept, heedless ofher prisoner, to the rear door. That avenue to the near clustering woodswas closed, too; she saw the glitter of carbines above the laurel.

  "Special Messenger?" She turned toward him, pale as a ghost. "I reckonwe've got you."

  "Yes," she said.

  There was another chair by the table--the only other one. She seatedherself, shaking all over, laid her revolver on the table, stared at theweapon, pushed it from her with a nervous shudder, and, ashy of lip andcheek, looked at the man she had struck.

  "Will they--hang me?"

  "I reckon, ma'am. They hung the other one--the man you took me for."

  "Will there be a--trial?"

  "Drumhead.... They've been after you a long, long while."

  "Then--what are you waiting for?"

  He was silent.

  She found it hard to control the nervous tremor of her limbs and lips.The dryness in her throat made speech difficult.

  "Then--if there is no chance----"

  He bent forward swiftly and snatched her revolver from the table as hersmall hand fell heavily upon the spot where the weapon had rested.

  "Would you do _that_?" he said in a low voice.

  The desperate young eyes answered him. And, after a throbbing silence:"Won't you let me?" she asked. "It is indecent to h-hanga--woman--before--men----"

  He did not answer.

  "Please--please--" she whispered, "give it back to me--if you area--soldier.... You can go to the door and call them.... Nobody willknow.... You can turn your back.... It will only take a second!"

  A big blue-bottle fly came blundering into the room and filled thesilence with its noise. Years ago the big blue flies sometimes came intothe quiet schoolroom; and how everybody giggled when the taller MissPoucher, bristling from her prunella shoes to her stiff side-curls,charged indignantly upon the buzzing intruder.

  Dry--eyed, dry--lipped, the Messenger straightened up, quivering, anddrew a quick, sharp breath; then her head fell forward, and, restinginert upon the table, she buried her face in her arms. The mostdangerous spy in the Union service--the secret agent who had worked moreevil to the Confederacy than any single Union army corps--the coolest,most resourceful, most trusted messenger on either side as long as thestruggle lasted--caught at last.

  The man, young, Southern, and a gentleman's son, sat staring at her. Hehad driven his finger-nails deep into his palms, bitten his underliptill it was raw.

  "Messenger!"

  She made no response.

  "Are you afraid?"

  Her head, prone in her arms, motioned dull negation. It was a lie and heknew it. He looked at the slender column of the neck--stained to adelicate amber--at the nape; and he thought of the rope and the knotunder the left ear.

  "Messenger," he said once more. "I did not know it was _you_ I was tomeet. Look at me, in God's name!"

  She opened her eyes on him, then raised her head.

  "Do you know me now?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Look!"

  He touched the scar on his forehead; but there was no recognition in hereyes.

  "Look, I tell you!" he repeated, almost fiercely.

  She said wearily: "I have seen so many men--so many men.... I can'tremember you."

  "And I have seen many women, Messenger; but I have never forgottenyou--or what you did--or what you did----"

  "I?"

  "You.... And from that night I have lived only to find you again.And--oh, God! To find you here! My Messenger! My little Messenger!"

  "Who are you?" she whispered, leaning forward on the table, dark eyesdilating with hope.

  He sat heavily for a while, head bowed as though stunned to silence;then slowly the white misery returned to his face and he looked up.

  "So--after all--_you_ have forgotten. And my romance is dead."

  She did not answer, intent now on every word, every shade of hisexpression. And, as she looked, through the numbness of her desperation,hope stirred again, stealthily.

  "Are you a friend?" Her voice scarcely sounded at all.

  "Friends die for each other," he said. "Do you expect that of me?"

  The silence between them became terrible; and at last he broke it with abitter laugh:

  "You once turned a boy's life to romance--riding through it--out ofit--leaving scars on his brow and heart--and on his lips the touch ofyour own. And on his face your tears. Look at me once more!"

  Her breath came quicker; far within her somewhere memory awoke, gropingblindly for light.

  "Three days we followed you," he said. "On the Pennsylvania line wecornered you; but you changed garb and shape and speech, almost underour eyes--as a chameleon changes color, matching the leaf it hideson.... I halted at that squatter's house--sure of you at last--and thepretty squatter's daughter cooked for us while we hunted you in thehills--and when I returned she gave me her bed to sleep on----"

  Her hand caught at her throat and she half rose, staring at him.

  "Her own bed to sleep on," he repeated. "And I had been three daysin the saddle; and I ate what she set before me, and slept on herbed--fell asleep--only a tired boy, not a soldier any longer....And awoke to meet your startled eyes--to meet the blow from yourrevolve
r butt that made this scar--to fall back bewildered for amoment--half-stunned--Messenger! Do you know me now?"

  "Yes," she said.

  They looked breathlessly at one another; suddenly a hot blush coveredher neck and face; and his eyes flashed triumph.

  "You have _not_ forgotten!" he cried.

  And there, on the very edge of death itself, the bright shame glowed andglowed in her cheeks, and her distressed eyes fell before his.

  "You kissed me," he said, looking at her.

  "I--I thought I had--killed you--" she stammered.

  "And you kissed me on the lips.... In that moment of peril you waited todo that. Your tears fell on my face. I felt them. And I tell you that,even had I been lying there dead instead of partly stunned, I would haveknown what you did to me after you struck me down."

  Her head sank lower; the color ran riot from throat to brow.

  He spoke again, quietly, yet a strange undertone of exaltation thrilledhis voice and transfigured the thin, war-worn features she hadforgotten, so that, as she lifted her eyes to him again, the same boylooked back at her from the mist of the long dead years.

  "Messenger," he said, "I have never forgotten. And now it is too late toforget your tears on my face--the touch of your lips on mine. I wouldnot if I could.... It was worth living for--dying for.... Once--Ihoped--some day--after this--all this trouble ended--my romance mightcome--true----"

  The boy choked, then:

  "I came here under orders to take a woman spy whose password was the keyto a Latin phrase. But until you stood straight in your rags and smiledat me, I did not know it was you--I did not know I was to take theSpecial Messenger! Do you believe me?"

  "Yes."

  The boy colored painfully. Then a queer, pallid change came over hisface; 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 akiss."

  She lifted a dazed face to meet his gaze; he trembled, leaned down, andkissed her on the mouth.

  Then in one bound he was at the door, signaling his troopers with drawnsabre--as once, long ago, she had seen him signal them in the Northernwoods.

  And, through the window, she saw the scattered cavalry forming column ata gallop, obeying every sabre signal, trotting forward, wheeling foursright--and then--and then! the gray column swung into the western forestat a canter, and was gone!

  The boy leaning in the doorway looked back at her over his shoulder andsheathed his sabre. There was not a vestige of color left in his face.

  "Go!" he said hoarsely.

  "What?" she faltered.

  "Go--go, in God's name! There's a door there! Can't you see it?"

  * * * * *

  She had been gone for a full hour when at last he turned again. A bit offaded ribbon from her hair lay on the table. It was tied in a truelover's knot.

  He walked over, looked at it, drew it through his buttonhole and wentslowly back to the door again. For a long while he stood there,vague-eyed, silent. It was nearly sunset when once more he drew hissabre, examined it carefully, bent it over one knee, and snapped theblade in two.

  Then, with a last look at the sky, and standing very erect, he closedthe door, set his back firmly against it, drew his revolver, and lookedcuriously into the muzzle.

  A moment later the racket of the shot echoed through the deserted house.