Secret Service

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE TUMULT IN HUMAN HEARTS

  Of the many frightful nights in Richmond during the siege, that nightwas one of the worst. The comparative calmness of the earlier hours ofrepose of the quiet April evening gave way to pandemonium. The works atPetersburg, desperately held by the Confederates, were miles away fromthe city to the southward, but such was the tremendous nature of thecannonading that the shocking sounds seemed to be close at hand.Children cowered, women shuddered, and old men prayed as they thought ofthe furious onslaughts in the battle raging.

  The Richmond streets were filled with people, mostly invalids,non-combatants, women, and children. A tremendous attack was beinglaunched by the besiegers somewhere, it was evident. Urgent messengersfrom General Lee called every reserve out of the garrison at Richmond,and the quiet streets and country highways awoke instantly to life. Suchtroops as could be spared moved to the front at the double-quick. Everycar of the dilapidated railroad was pressed into service. Those whocould not be transported by train went on horseback or afoot. Theyoungest boy and the oldest man alike shouldered their muskets, and withmotley clothes, but with hearts aflame, marched to the sound of thecannon. The women, the sick, the wounded and invalid men and thechildren waited.

  Morning would tell the tale. Into the city from which they marched, menand boys would come back; an army nearly as great as had gone forth, butan army halting, maimed, helpless, wounded, suffering, shot to pieces.They had seen it too often not to be able to forecast the sceneabsolutely. They knew with what heroic determination their veterans,under the great Lee, were fighting back the terrific attacks of theirbrothers in blue, under the grimly determined Grant. They could hear hisgreat war-hammer ringing on their anvil; a hammer of men, an anvil ofmen. Plan or no plan, success or no success of some Secret Serviceoperations, some vital point was being wrestled for in a death-grapplebetween two armies; and all the offensive capacities of the one and allthe defensive resources of the other were meeting, as they had beenmeeting during the long years.

  In a time like that, of public peril and public need, private andpersonal affairs ought to be forgotten, but it was not so. Love andhate, confidence and jealousy, faithfulness and disloyalty,self-sacrifice and revenge, were still in human hearts. And thesefeelings would put to shame even the passions engendered in the bloodybattles of the fearful warfare.

  Edith Varney, for instance, had gone out of the telegraph office assuredthat the sacrifice she had made for her lover had resulted in thebetrayal of her country; that Thorne had had not even the commongratitude to accede to her request, although she had saved his life,and, for the time being, his honour. Every cannon-shot, every crashingvolley of musketry that came faintly or loudly across the hills seemedpointed straight at her heart. For all she knew, the despatch had beensent, the cunningly devised scheme had been carried out, and into someundefended gap in the lines the Federal troops were pouring. The defencewould crumble and the Army would be cut in two; the city of Richmondwould be taken, and the Confederacy would be lost.

  And she had done it! Would she have done it if she had known? She hadcertainly expected to establish such a claim upon Thorne by herinterposition that he could not disregard it. But if she had knownpositively that he would have done what she thought he did, would shehave sent him to his death? She put the question to herself in agony.And she realised with flushes of shame and waves of contrition that shewould not, could not have done this thing. She must have acted as shehad, whatever was to come of it. Whatever he was, whatever he did, sheloved that man. She need not tell him, she need tell no one, there couldbe no fruition to that love. She must hide it, bury it in her bosom ifshe could, but for weal or woe she loved him above everything else, andfor all eternity.

  Where was he now? Her interposition had been but for a few moments. Thetruth was certain to be discovered. There would be no ultimate escapepossible for him. She heard shots on occasion nearer than Petersburg, inthe city streets. What could they mean? Short, short would be his shriftif they caught him. Had they caught him? Certainly they must, if theyhad not. She realised with a thrill that she had given him anopportunity to escape and that he had refused it. The sending of thatdespatch had been more to him than life. Traitor, spy, Secret ServiceAgent--was there anything that could be said for him? At least he wasfaithful to his own idea of duty.

  She had met Caroline Mitford waiting in the lower hall of the telegraphoffice, and the two, convoyed by old Martha, had come home together.Many curious glances had been thrown at them, but in these greatmovements that were toward, no one molested them. The younger girl hadseen the agony in her friend's face. She had timidly sought to questionher, but she had received no answer or no satisfaction to her queries.Refusing Caroline's proffered services when she reached home, Edith hadgone straight to her own room and locked the door.

  The affair had been irritating beyond expression to Mr. Arrelsford. Ithad taken him some time to establish his innocence and to get hisrelease from General Randolph's custody. Meanwhile, everything that hehad hoped to prevent had happened. To do him justice, he really lovedEdith Varney, and the thought that her actions and her words had causedhis own undoing and the failure of his carefully laid plans, filled himwith bitterness, which he vented in increased animosity toward Thorne.

  These were bitter moments to Mrs. Varney. She had become somewhat usedto her husband being in the thick of things, but it was her boy now thatwas in the ranks. The noise of the cannon and the passing troops threwHoward into a fever of anxiety which was very bad for him.

  And those were dreadful moments to Thorne. What had he done? He hadrisked everything, was ready to pay everything, would, indeed, be forcedto do so in the end, and yet he had not done that which he had intended.Had he been false to his duty and to his country when he refused to sendthat telegram, being given the opportunity? He could not tell. Theethics of the question were beyond his present solution. The opportunityhad come to him through a piece of sublime self-sacrifice on the part ofthe woman, who, knowing him thoroughly and understanding his plan andpurpose, had yet perjured herself to save his life.

  That life was hers, was it not? He had become her prisoner as much as ifshe had placed him under lock and key and held him without thepossibility of communication with any one. Her honour was involved. No,under the circumstances, he could not send the despatch. TheConfederates would certainly kill him if they caught him, and if theydid not, and by any providential chance he escaped, his honour wouldcompel him to report the circumstances, the cause of his failure, to hisown superiors. Would they court-martial him for not sending thedespatch? Would they enter into his feelings, would they understand?Would the woman and her actions be considered by them as determiningfactors? Would his course be looked upon as justifiable? He could notflatter himself that any one of these things would be so considered byany military court. There would be only two things which would influencehis superiors in their judgment of him. Did he get a chance, and havingit, did he use it?

  The popular idea of a Secret Service Agent, a spy, was that he wouldstick at nothing. As such men were outside the pale of militarybrotherhood, so were they supposed to have a code of their own. Well,his code did not permit him to send the despatch when his power to sendit had been procured in such a way. It was not so much love for thewoman as it was honour--her honour, suddenly put into his keeping--thatturned him from the key. When both honour and love were thrown into thescale, there was no possibility of any other action. He could not seeany call of duty paramount to them.

  He stood looking at Foray for a while, and then, without a furthercommand to that intensely surprised young man, or even a word ofexplanation, he seized his hat and coat and left the room. Foray was akeen-witted officer, he reviewed the situation briefly, and presently agreat light dawned upon him. A certain admiration for Thorne developedin his breast, and as Allison opportunely came back at this juncture, heturned over the telegraph office to his su
bordinate, and in his turnwent out on what he believed to be an exceedingly important errand.

  Thorne found the streets full of people. He had not marked the beginningof the cannonading in the tumult of the office, but the lights, thebells pealing alarms from every church-steeple, the trampling of horsesand men, and the roll of the gun-carriages apprised him of what wastoward. Trusting that Thorne had been able to carry out his part, Grantwas attacking the place indicated by "Plan 3" in heavy force.

  What was Thorne to do? Obviously attempt to escape from Richmond,although it would be a matter of extreme difficulty on account of thealarm which now aroused every section. He could not go, either, until hehad seen his brother. He surmised that he was dead, but he could notknow that; and he determined not to attempt to leave without makingassurance double sure. It was a duty he owed to his brother, to hisfather in the Union Army, and to his superiors in the Federal SecretService. If that brother were alive, he must be at the Varney house. Hefancied that he would run as little chance of being observed in theexcitement going in that direction as in any other, and he started tomake his way there.

  The fact that Edith was there influenced him also. Was the call of loveand the living as great, or greater than the call of duty and the dyingor the dead? Who shall say?

  And the remote chance that he might be observed on the way was taken byhis ever-vigilant enemy; for Arrelsford, upon obtaining his freedom, hadsent the troops at the disposal of the Secret Service to hunt him down,and one of them caught sight of him. The shout of the observer apprisedhim of his discovery. He threw one glance behind him and then ran forhis life. He had no especial hope of escaping, but he might get to theVarney house ahead of the soldiers, and he might see his brother, and hemight see the woman he loved for a moment before he was taken andkilled.

  If it had not been for the two he would have stopped and given himselfup. Somehow he did not care for life. His life was forfeit to theFederals and the Confederates alike. When she thought to save it, EdithVarney had doomed him. Also he felt that she had damned him. But he ranon and on, doubling and turning on his tracks; white-faced, desperate,his breath coming fainter, his heart beating faster, as he ran.