LXIV
"NOW, MR. BRICK-MASON,--"
Amid the much coming and going that troubled Israel--tramp of spurredboots, clank of sabres, seeking, meeting and parting of couriers andaides--Madame Valcour, outwardly placid, inwardly terrified, foundopportunity to warn her granddaughter, softly, that unless she, thegranddaughter, could get that look of done-for agony out of her eyes,the sooner and farther they fled this whole issue, this fearfulentanglement, the better for them.
But brave Flora, knowing the look was no longer in the eyes alone buthad for days eaten into her visage as age had for decades into thegrandam's, made no vain effort to paint it out with smiles but acceptedand wore it in show of a desperate solicitude for Anna. Yet this, too,was futile, and before Doctor Sevier had exchanged five words with hershe saw that to him the make-up was palpable and would be so toGreenleaf. Poor Flora! She had wrestled her victims to the edge of aprecipice, yet it was she who at this moment, this dazzling Septembermorning, seemed doomed to go first over the brink. Had not both Hilaryand Anna met again this Greenleaf and through him found answer for alltheir burning questions? She could not doubt her web of deceptions hadbeen torn to shreds, cast to the winds. Not one of the three could shenow hope to confront successfully, much less any two of them together.To name no earlier reason--having reached town just as Kincaid was beingsent out of it, she had got him detained on a charge so frivolous thathow to sustain it now before Greenleaf and his generals she was torturedto contrive.
Yet something must be done. The fugitive must be retaken and retained,the rival deported, and, oh, Hilary Kincaid! as she recalled her lastmoment with you on that firing-line behind Vicksburg, shame and rageoutgrew despair, and her heart beat hot in a passion of chagrin and thenhotter, heart and brain, in a frenzy of ownership, as if by spendingherself she had bought you, soul and body, and if only forself-vindication would have you from all the universe.
"The last wager and the last card," she smilingly remarked to herkinswoman, "they sometimes win out," and as the smile passed added, "Iwish I had that bread-knife."
To Doctor Sevier her cry was, "Oh, yes, yes! Dear Anna! Poor Anna! Yes,before I have to see any one else, even Colonel Greenleave! Ah, please,Doctor, beg him he'll do me that prizelezz favor, and that for the goodGod's sake he'll keep uz, poor Anna and me, not long waiting!"
Yet long were the Valcours kept. It was the common fate those days. ButFlora felt no title to the common fate, and while the bustle of theplace went on about them she hiddenly suffered and, mainly for thetorment it would give her avaricious companion, told a new reason forthe look in her eyes. Only a few nights before she had started wildlyout of sleep to find that she had _dreamed_ the cause of Anna'sirreconcilable distress for the loss of the old dagger. The dream wastrue on its face, a belated perception awakened by bitterness of soul,and Madame, as she sat dumbly marvelling at its tardiness, chafed themore against each minute's present delay, seeing that now to know ifKincaid, or if Anna, held the treasure was her liveliest hankering.
Meantime the captive Anna was less debarred than they. As Greenleaf andthe Doctor, withdrawing, shut her door, and until their steps died away,she had stood by her table, her wide thought burning to know thewhereabouts, doings, and plight of him, once more missing, with whom ascant year-and-a-half earlier--if any war-time can be called scant--shehad stood on that very spot and sworn the vows of marriage: to know hishazards now, right now! with man; police, informer, patrol, picket,scout; and with nature; the deadly reptiles, insects, and maladies ofthicketed swamp and sun-beaten, tide-swept marsh; and how far he had goton the splendid mission which her note, with its words of love and faithand of patriotic abnegation, had laid upon him.
Now eagerly she took her first quick survey of the room she knew sowell. Her preoccupied maid was childishly questioning the busy Israel ashe and the man out on the basement ladder removed bricks from the edgesof the ragged opening between them.
"Can't build solid ef you don't staht solid," she heard the oldcoachman say. She glided to the chimney-breast, searching it swiftlywith her eyes and now with her hands. Soilure and scars had kept thesecret of the hidden niche all these months, and neither stain, scar,nor any sign left by Hilary or Flora betrayed it now. Surely _this_ wasthe very panel Flora had named. Yet dumbly, rigidly it denied the truth,for Hilary, having reaped its spoil, had, to baffle his jailors,cunningly made it fast. And time was flying! Tremblingly the searcherglanced again to the door, to the screen, to the veranda windows--thoughthese Israel had rudely curtained--and then tried another square, keenlyharkening the while to all sounds and especially to the old negro'sincessant speech:
"Now, Mr. Brick-mason, ef you'll climb in hyuh I'll step out whah you isand fetch a bucket o' warteh. Gal, move one side a step, will you?"
While several feet stirred lightly Anna persisted in her tremblingquest--not to find the treasure, dear Heaven, but only to find it gone.Would that little be denied? So ardent was the mute question that sheseemed to have spoken it aloud, and in alarm looked once more at thewindows, the door, the screen--the screen! A silence had settled thereand as her eye fell on it the stooping mason came from behind it,glancing as furtively as she at windows and door and then exaltedly toher. She stiffened for outcry and flight, but in the same instant hestraightened up and she knew him; knew him as right here she had knownhim once before in that same disguise, which the sad fortunes of theircause had prevented his further use of till now. He started forward,but with beseeching signs and whispers, blind to everything between thembut love and faith, she ran to him. He caught her to his heart and drewher behind the screen under the enraptured eyes of her paralyzed maid.For one long breath of ecstasy the rest of the universe was nothing. Butthen--
"The treasure?" she gasped. "The dagger?"
He showed the weapon in its precious scabbard and sought to lay it inher hands, but--"Oh, why! why!" she demanded, though with a gaze thatravished his,--. "Why are you not on your way--?"
"Am!" he softly laughed. "Here, leave me the dirk, but take the sheath.Everything's there that we put there long ago, beloved, and also acypher report of what I heard last night in the garden--never mindwhat!--_take it_, you will save Mobile! Now both of you slip throughthis hole and down the ladder and quietly skedaddle--quick--come!"
"But the guards?"
"Just brass it out and walk by them. Victorine's waiting out behind withall her aunt's things at a house that old Israel will tell youof--listen!" From just outside the basement, near the cisterns, a singleline of song rose drowsily and ceased:
"Heap mo' dan worteh-million juice--"
"That's he. It means come on. Go!" He gathered a brick and trowel andrang them together as if at work. The song answered:
"Aw 'possum pie aw roasted goose--"
The trowel rang on. Without command from her mistress the maid wascrouching into the hole. In the noise Anna was trying to press ananxious query upon Hilary, but he dropped brick and tool and snatchedher again into his embrace.
"Aw soppin's o' de gravy pan--"
called the song. The maid was through!
"But you, Hilary, my life?" gasped Anna as he forced her to the opening.
"The swamp for me!" he said, again sounding the trowel. "I takethis"--the trowel--"and walk out through the hall. Go, my soul'streasure, go!"
Anna, with that art of the day which remains a wonder yet, gathered hercrinoline about her feet and twisted through and out upon the ladder.Hilary seized a vanishing hand, kissed it madly, and would have loosedit, but it clung till his limy knuckles went out and down and her lipssealed on them the distant song's fourth line as just then it came:
"De ladies loves de ladies' man!"
As mistress and maid passed in sight of the dark singer he hurried tothem, wearing the bucket of water on his turban as lightly as a hat. "Isyou got to go so soon?" he asked, and walked beside them. Swiftly, underhis voice, he directed them to Victorine and then spoke out again inhearing of two or three blue troopers. "Yo
u mus' come ag'in, whensomevehyou like."
They drew near a guard: "Dese is ole folks o' mine, Mr. Gyuard, ef youplease, suh, dess a-lookin' at de ole home, suh."
"We were admitted by Colonel Greenleaf," said Anna, with a softbrightness that meant more than the soldier guessed, and he let themout, feeling as sweet, himself, as he tried to look sour.
"Well, good-by, Miss Nannie," said the old man, "I mus' recapitulateback to de house; dey needs me pow'ful all de time. Good luck to you!Gawd bless you!... Dass ow ba-aby, Mr. Gyuard--Oh, Lawd, Lawd, de daysI's held dat chile out on one o' dese ole han's!" He had Flora's feelingfor stage effects.
Toiling or resting, the Southern slaves were singers. With the pail onhis head and with every wearer of shoulder-straps busy giving or obeyingsome order, it was as normal as cock-crowing that he should raise yetanother line of his song and that from the house the diligent bricklayershould reply.
Sang the water-carrier:
"I's natch-i-ully gallant wid de ladies,--"
and along with the trowel's tinkle came softly back,
"I uz bawn wid a talent fo' de ladies."
For a signal the indoor singer need not have gone beyond that line, butthe spirit that always grew merry as the peril grew, the spirit whichhad made Kincaid's Battery the fearfulest its enemies ever faced,insisted:
"You fine it on de map o' de contrac' plan, I's boun' to be a ladies' man!"
Kincaid's Battery Page 64