Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  But the Messenger did not hear; there was something far more interesting to occupy her mind — a row of straw-thatched beehives under the fruit trees at the eastern end of the house.

  From moment to moment, homing or outgoing bees sped like bullets across her line of vision; the hives were busy now that a gleam of pale sunshine lay across the grass. One bee, leaving the hive, came humming around the Cherokee roses. The Messenger saw the little insect alight and begin to scramble about, plundering the pollen-powdered blossom. The bee was a yellow one.

  Suddenly the Messenger gathered bridle and touched her hat; and away she spurred, putting her horse to a dead run.

  Passing the inner lines, she halted to give and receive the password, then tossed a bunch of letters to the corporal, and spurred forward. Halted by the outer pickets, she exchanged amenities again, rid herself of the remainder of the mail, and rode forward, loosening the revolver in her holster. Then she ate her first peach.

  It was delicious — a delicate, dripping, snow-white pulp, stained with pink where the pit rested. There was nothing suspicious about that pit, or any of the others when she broke the fragrant fruit in halves and carefully investigated. Then she tore off the seal and opened the bag and examined each of the twenty dry pits within. Not one had been tampered with.

  Her horse had been walking along the moist, fragrant road; a few moments later she passed the last cavalry picket, and at the same moment she caught sight of John Deal’s farm.

  The house was neat and white and small; orchards stretched in every direction; a few beehives stood under the fruit trees near a well.

  A big, good-humored looking man came out into the path as the Messenger drew bridle, greeted the horse with a caress and its rider with a pleasant salute.

  “I’m very much obliged to you,” he said, taking the sack of pits. “I reckon we’re bound to have more fine weather. What’s this — some peach pits from Miss Carryl?”

  “Nine,” nodded the Messenger.

  “Nine! I’ll have nine fine young trees this time three years, I reckon. Thank you, suh. How’s things over to the Co’t House?”

  “Troops arriving all the while,” said the Messenger carelessly.

  “Comin’ in?”

  “Lots.”

  “Sho! I heard they was sendin’ ’em East.”

  “Oh, some. We’ve got to have elbow-room. Can’t pack two army corps into Osage Court House.”

  “Two a’my co’ps, suh?”

  “More or less.”

  John Deal balanced the sack in the palm of one work-worn hand and looked hard at the Messenger. He could see only her eyes.

  “Reckon you ain’t the same trooper as come yesterday.”

  “No.”

  “What might be yoh regiment?”

  The Messenger was looking hard at the beehives. The door of one of the hives, a new one, was shut.

  “What regiment did you say, suh?” repeated Deal, showing his teeth in a friendly grin; and suddenly froze rigid as he found himself inspecting the round, smoky muzzle of a six-shooter.

  “Turn around,” said the Special Messenger. Her voice was even and passionless.

  John Deal turned.

  “Cross your hands behind your back. Quickly, please! Now back up to this horse. Closer!”

  There was a glimmer, a click; and the man stood handcuffed.

  “Sit down on the grass with your back against that tree. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Deal squatted awkwardly, settled, and turned a pallid face to the Messenger.

  “What’n hell’s this mean?” he demanded.

  “Don’t move and don’t shout,” said the Messenger. “If you do I’ll have to gag you. I’m only going over there to take a look at your bees.”

  The pallor on the man’s face was dreadful, but he continued to stare at the Messenger coolly enough.

  “It’s a damned outrage!” he began thickly. “I had a pass from your Colonel — —”

  “If you don’t keep quiet I’ll have to tie up your face,” observed the Messenger, dismounting and flinging aside her cloak.

  Then, as she walked toward the little row of beehives, carrying only her riding whip, the farmer’s eyes grew round and a dull flush empurpled his face and neck.

  “By God!” he gasped; “it’s her!” and said not another word.

  She advanced cautiously toward the hives; very carefully, with the butt of her whip, she closed the sliding door over every exit, then seated herself in the grass within arm’s length of the hives and, crossing her spurred boots, leaned forward, expectant, motionless.

  A bee arrived, plunder-laden, dropped on the sill and began to walk toward the closed entrance of his hive. Finding it blocked, the insect buzzed angrily. Another bee whizzed by her and lit on the sill of another hive; another came, another, and another.

  Very gingerly, as each insect alighted, she raised the sliding door and let it enter. Deal watched her, fascinated.

  An hour passed; she had admitted hundreds of bees, always closing the door behind each new arrival. Then something darted through the range of her vision and alighted, buzzing awkwardly on the sill of a hive — an ordinary, yellow-brown honey bee, yet differing from the others in that its thighs seemed to be snow-white.

  Quick as a flash the Messenger leaned forward and caught the insect in her gloved fingers, holding it by the wings flat over the back.

  Its abdomen dilated and twisted, and the tiny sting was thrust out, vainly searching the enemy; but the Messenger, drawing a pin from her jacket, deftly released the two white encumbrances from the insect’s thighs — two thin cylinders of finest tissue paper, and flung the angry insect high into the air. It circled, returned to the hive, and she let it in.

  There was a groan from the manacled man under the trees; she gave him a rapid glance, shook her head in warning, and, leaning forward, deftly lifted a second white-thighed bee from the hive over which it was scrambling in a bewildered sort of way.

  A third, fourth, and fifth bee arrived in quick succession; she robbed them all of their tissue-paper cylinders. Then for a while no more arrived, and she wondered whether her guess had been correct, that the nine peaches and wet pits meant to John Deal that nine bees were to be expected — eager home-comers, which he had sent to his mistress and which, as she required their services, she released, certain that they would find their old hives on John Deal’s farm and carry to him the messages she sent.

  And they came at last — the sixth, seventh — then after a long interval the eighth — and, finally, the ninth bee whizzed up to the hive and fell, scrambling, its movements embarrassed by the tiny, tissue cylinders.

  The Messenger waited another hour; there were no more messengers among the bees that arrived.

  Then she opened every hive door, rose, walked over to the closed hive that stood apart and opened the door of that.

  A black honeybee crawled out, rose into the air, and started due south; another followed, then three, then a dozen; and then the hive vomited a swarm of black bees which sped southward.

  Sandy River lay due south; also, the home-hive from which they had been taken and confined as prisoners; also, a certain famous officer lingered at Sandy River — one, General J. E. B. Stuart, very much interested in the beehives belonging to a friend of his, a Mr. Enderly.

  When she had relieved each messenger-bee of its tissue-paper dispatch, she had taken the precaution to number each tiny cylinder, in order of its arrival, from one to nine. Now she counted them, looked over each message, laid them carefully away between the leaves of a pocket notebook, slipped it into the breast of her jacket, and, rising, walked over to John Deal.

  “Here is the key to those handcuffs,” she said, hanging it around his neck by the bit of cord on which it was dangling. “Somebody at Sandy River will unlock them for you. But it would be better, Mr. Deal, if you remained outside our lines until this war is ended. I don’t blame you — I’m sorry for you — and for your mistress.”
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  She set toe to stirrup, mounted easily, fastened her cloak around her.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I hope nobody will injure your pretty farm. Good-by.”

  Miss Carryl was standing at the end of the beautiful, oak-shaded avenue when the Messenger, arriving at full speed, drew bridle and whirled her horse.

  Looking straight into the pretty Southern woman’s eyes, she said gravely:

  “Miss Carryl, your bees have double stings. I am very sorry for you — very, very sorry. I hope your property will he respected while you are at Sandy River.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Miss Carryl. Over her pale features a painful tremor played.

  “You know what I mean. And I am afraid you had better go at once. John Deal is already on his way.”

  There was a long silence. Miss Carryl found her voice at length.

  “Thank you,” she said without a tremor. “Will I have any trouble in passing the Yankee lines?”

  “Here is your passport. I had prepared it.”

  As the Messenger bent over from the saddle to deliver the pass, somehow her hat, with its crossed gilt sabres, fell off. She caught it in one hand; a bright blush mantled throat and face.

  The Southern woman looked up at the girl in the saddle, so dramatically revealed for what she was under the superb accusation of her hair.

  “You?”

  “Yes — God help us both!”

  The silence was terrible.

  “It scarcely surprises me,” murmured Miss Carryl with a steady smile. “I saw only your eyes before, but they seemed too beautiful for a boy’s.”

  Then she bent her delicately-molded head and studied the passport. The Messenger, still blushing, drew her hat firmly over her forehead and fastened a loosened braid. Presently she took up her bridle.

  “I will ask Colonel Gay’s protection for Waycross House,” she said in a low voice. “I am so dreadfully sorry that this has happened.”

  “You need not be; I have only tried to do for my people what you are doing for yours — but I should be glad of a guard for Waycross. His grave is in the orchard there.” And with a quiet inclination of the head she turned away into the oak-bordered avenue, walking slowly toward the house which, in a few moments, she must leave forever.

  In the late sunshine her bees flashed by, seeking the fragrant home-hives; long, ruddy bars of sunlight lay across grass and tree trunk; on the lawn the old servant still chopped at the unkempt grass, and the music of his sickle sounded pleasantly under the trees.

  On these things the fair-haired Southern woman looked, and if her eye dimmed and her pale lip quivered there was nobody to see. And after a little while she went into the house, slowly, head held high, black skirt lifted, just clearing the threshold of her ancestors.

  Then the Special Messenger, head hanging, wheeled her horse and rode slowly back to Osage Court House.

  She passed the Colonel, who was dismounting just outside his tent, and saluted him without enthusiasm:

  “The leak is stopped, sir. Miss Carryl is going to Sandy River; John Deal is on his way. They won’t come back — and, Colonel, won’t you give special orders that her house is not to be disturbed? She is an old school friend.”

  The Colonel stared at her incredulously.

  “I’m afraid you still have your doubts about that leak, sir.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  She dismounted wearily; an orderly took her horse, and without a word she and the Colonel entered the tent.

  “They used bees for messengers,” she said; “that was the leak.”

  “Bees?”

  “Honey bees, Colonel.”

  For a whole minute he was silent, then burst out:

  “Good God! Bees! And if such a — an extraordinary performance were possible how did you guess it?”

  “Oh,” she said patiently, “I used them that way when I was a little girl. Bees, like pigeons, go back to their homes. Look, sir! Here, in order, are the dispatches, each traced in cipher on a tiny roll of tissue. They were tied to the bees’ thighs.”

  And she spread them out in order under his amazed eyes; and this is what he saw when she pieced them together for him:

  E I O2 W2 x I8 W3 [triangle] N I7 W3 x

  O I I6 I5 W3 x E N I7 I7 I4 I8 I5 O2

  N x I7 I E x I4 O2 I2 x

  N x H I5 x I O2E x

  N x O x E x W N W3 x

  W x I8 E3 X H N [crescent] x

  L x I3 [triangle] O2 X W3 I5 W3 N W2 x

  I4 I2 x I8 W3 I7 I4 L I x N W3 x

  I5 O2 H I x O2 I4 E I3 W3 x

  H N I7 I7 [circle+] W2

  “That’s all very well,” he said, “but how about this hieroglyphic? Do you think anybody on earth is capable of reading such a thing?”

  “Why not?”

  “Can you?”

  “All such ciphers are solved by the same method.... Yes, Colonel, I can read it very easily.”

  “Well, would you mind doing so?”

  “Not in the slightest, sir. The key is extremely simple. I will show you.” And she picked up pencil and paper and wrote:

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  “Now,” she said, “taking the second letter in each word, we can parallel that column thus:

  N equals the letter A

  W equals the letter B

  H equals the letter C

  O equals the letter D

  I equals the letter E

  “Then, in the word six we have the letter I again as the second letter, so we call it I{2}. And, continuing, we have:

  I2 equals the letter F

  E equals the letter G

  I3 equals the letter H

  I4 equals the letter I

  E2 equals the letter J

  L equals the letter K

  W2 equals the letter L

  H2 equals the letter M

  O2 equals the letter N

  I5 equals the letter O

  I6 equals the letter P

  E3 equals the letter Q

  I7 equals the letter R

  I8 equals the letter S

  W3 equals the letter T

  “Now, using these letters for the symbols in the cipher:

  E I O2 W2 x I8 W3 [triangle] N I7 W3 x

  O I I6 I5 W3 x E N I7 I7 I4 I8 I5 O2

  N x I7 I E x I4 O2 I2 x

  N x H I5 x I O2E x

  N x O x E x W N W3 x

  W x I8 E3 X H N [crescent] x

  L x I3 [triangle] O2 X W3 I5 W3 N W2 x

  I4 I2 x I8 W3 I7 I4 L I x N W3 x

  I5 O2 H I x O2 I4 E I3 W3 x

  H N I7 I7 [circle+] W2

  “We translate it freely thus, and I’ll underline only the words in the cipher:189

  Gen’l Stuart (Sandy River?)

  (The present) Depot Garrison (of Osage Court House is)

  One Reg(iment) (of) Inf(antry)

  One Co(mpany of) Eng(ineers)

  One Four G(un) Bat(tery)

  Two Sq(uadrons) (of) Cav(alry)

  Eleven Hun(dred men) Total

  If (you) strike (strike) at once (and at) night!

  (Signed) Carryl.

  “Do you see, Colonel, how very simple it is, after all?”

  The Colonel, red and astounded, hung over the paper, laboriously verifying the cipher and checking off each symbol with its alphabetical equivalent.

  “What’s that mark?” he demanded; “
this symbol — —”

  “It stands for the letter U, sir.”

  “How do you know?”

  The Messenger, seated sideways on the camp table, one small foot swinging, looked down and bit her lip.

  “Must I tell you?”

  “As you please. And I’ll say now that your solving this intricate and devilish cipher is, to me, a more utterly amazing performance than the rebel use of bees as messengers.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “It need not amaze you.... I was born in Sandy River.... And in happier times — when my parents were living — I spent the school vacations there.... We had always kept bees.... There was — in those days — a boy. We were very young and — romantic. We exchanged vows — and bees — and messages in cipher.... I knew this cipher as soon as I saw it. I invented it — long ago — for him and me.”

  “W-well,” stammered the bewildered Colonel, “I don’t see how — —”

  “I do, sir. Our girl and boy romance was a summer dream. One day he dreamed truer. So did the beautiful Miss Carryl.... And the pretty game I invented for him he taught in turn to his fiancée.... Well, he died in The Valley.... And I have just given his fiancée her passport. It would be very kind of you to station a guard at the Carryl place for its protection. Would you mind giving the order, sir?... He is buried there.”

  The Colonel, hands clasped behind him, walked to the tent door.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’ll give the order.”

  A few moments later the drums of the Bucktails began beating the assembly.

  CHAPTER VII. THE PASS

  Her map, which at headquarters was supposed to be reliable, had grossly misled her; the road bore east instead of north, dwindling, as she advanced, to a rocky path among the foothills. She had taken the wrong turn at the forks; there was nothing to direct her any farther — no landmarks except the general trend of the watercourse, and the dull cinders of sunset fading to ashes in the west.

  It was impossible now to turn back; Carrick’s flying column must be very close on her heels by this time — somewhere yonder in the dusk, paralleling her own course, with only a dark curtain of forest intervening.

  So all that evening, and far into the starlit night, she struggled doggedly forward, leading her lamed horse over the mountain, dragging him through laurel thickets, tangles of azalea and rhododendron, thrashing across the swift mountain streams that tumbled out of starry, pine-clad heights, foaming athwart her trail with the rushing sound of forest winds.