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Captain Jack Gailliard, of the Confederate Secret Service, was a bad young man, according to Alan Pinkerton, known as Major Allen, Chief of the Federal Secret Service. But he was a good young man to gaze upon, even in his careless attire of a Virginia Valley farmer.

He came along whistling blithely that lovely October morning, sauntering down from Stuart’s cavalry headquarters under the oak trees into the charming old village of Martinsburg.

Guileless gayety made even more innocent his beardless, sun-tanned face. He whistled and sang “Lorena,” soulfully.

But his secret young mind was dark with deathly thoughts, and he meditated stealthy schemes as he strolled along, whistling and singing:

“We loved each other then,

Lorena,

More than we ever dared to tell”—

The while his clever mind was busy with dangerous designs.

For a cipher dispatch from Mr. Gaston, General Lee’s chief cipher operator in Richmond, had just come in, warning the Confederate Secret Service operators at Jeb Stuart’s Headquarters that, somewhere, another Yankee spy had penetrated the Confederate lines on the Potomac.

Which information made it grimly necessary to identify, catch, and hang that spy, lest Jeb Stuart start on his reckless raid into Pennsylvania and ride to utter ruin with two thousand laughing horsemen.

“It matters little now,

Lorena,

The past is the eternal past,

Our heads will soon lie low,

Lorena”—

he warbled in a tender and melting baritone as he came in sight of the Boyd place—a two-storied house guarded by silver maples, and almost smothered in roses and honeysuckle in late bloom.

Just beyond the house ran a broad, clear, rapid stream—the Opequon—where a young colored girl knelt on a sandy crescent, washing clothes.

Then suddenly—and as always heretofore—and always to his surprise and hot chagrin, he experienced that same odd, breathless excitement at sight of the girl—felt the same throbbing trouble in his heart, and a swift heat in his boyish cheeks, at the mere nearness of this lithe, brown-skinned, half-naked young girl.

He had seen her at intervals, now, for about three weeks; and this had happened to him from the very first sight of her, had even increased in violence—this sudden, passionate awareness of her—of her lovely, pale brown features, her velvet-fringed eyes, and the slender grace of her warm, breathing body.

That such a girl could have any emotional effect upon a Gailliard of Bayou Princesse, seemed incredible.

Annoyed, perplexed, ashamed, he would not even admit it to himself, and yet, here it was happening again—the swift flush painfully warm on his face, and the same and sudden trouble with heart and pulses.

“Mawnin’, Captain Gailliard, suh,” she drawled in her sweet, childish treble.

“Good morning, Lucille,” he replied with forced carelessness. “Are Mr. and Mrs. Boyd at home?”

“No, suh; but I reckon Miss Belle is. Look at all these hyar pretty clothes! Miss Belle done buy ’em when she wuz visitin’—in de Washington prison—”

“Who told you that?” he inquired, stopping beside her.

“Miss Belle she done tell me, suh. Axed me wuz I keerful, an’ if I knowed how to wash fine linen.”

He glanced down, unwillingly, into her upturned face. The girl was so delicately brown—scarce darker than a brunette—so daintily made, and so pretty that always when he saw her his first suspicions revived, that here was a girl of his own color in disguise; and he could scarcely force himself to believe that she really was a Negro.

But the pale bluish half-moon at the base of her finger nails had proved her dusky skin to be no disguise. She certainly had African blood in her.

“How are your flaming love affairs coming on, Lucille?” he inquired, with dry humor, yet oddly unquiet.

The girl giggled and turned to her washing, with a provocative twist of her slim hips.

“You better keep away from white soldiers,” he added harshly.

“They’s always pesterin’,” she laughed, soaping a chemise of frail, sheer stuff. “Yuh done kiss me, once, yuhse’f, suh,” she added with shy audacity.

“I did,” he said, reddening, “but I had a reason.”

“What reason, suh?” She kept on busily scrubbing and rinsing.

“Well, I wanted to look at your finger nails—for one thing. And it’s damned lucky for you they passed inspection.”

She laughed: “Yuh ’s’picioned I wuz a white gal come a-spyin’, Captain Gailliard, suh?”

“I wanted to be sure,” he admitted sulkily.

“Tha’s the onliest reason why you kiss me?”

“—And I wanted to take a good look at that little bridge of cartilage which divides your nostrils underneath, Lucille.”

“Wha’s that, suh?” she asked, opening her lovely, dark-fringed eyes.

“Usually a certain test. If it’s wide and thick it’s African. Yours isn’t.... And if it hadn’t been for your nails I’d have arrested you.”

“Lan’s sakes, why?” demanded the girl, laughing and wide eyed.

“Quadroon, or octoroon, or whatever you are, Lucille, there’s enough white in you to give you a white girl’s nose. And, only for the certain sign on your finger nails—”

She lifted her slim, wet fingers and looked at the exquisitely formed nails.

“If I wuz white,” she said, “maybe you’d come a-co’tin’ me, Captain Gailliard, suh?”

“Certainly,” said he dryly. “I always court every pretty girl I see.”

“Sorry I isn’t white,” she said with an enchanting smile over her bare shoulder, “but tha’s how things is in this hyar world o’ sin, Captain Gailliard, suh. Yuh oughta know it, too, kaze I reckon yuh is a sinner.”

“You think I am, Lucille?”

“Yes, suh. Mischief in yuh eyes.”

“In yours, too.”

They instantly opened wide again, like dark fringed orchids, and he felt the blood stir in his face and heart.

Then he set his jaw and scowled at her. “Your former friend, Pauline Cushman, the Yankee spy, got away in the excitement when the Yankee cavalry attacked last week,” he said. “I am wondering where she got a knife to slit the Provost guard-tent.”

“Lan’ sakes,” said the girl, “did she-all do that?”

“That’s what she did,” he nodded grimly; “and now she’s gone to the Yankees with her budget of news.... It’s lucky for you that you told the truth about your relations with her to the gentlemen of the military court.”

He gave her a hard look; and it hurt him, somehow, to do it:

“Until I’d taken a look at your finger nails,” he continued, “I was pretty sure you were one of their actress-women spies. That’s what Mr. Chancellor thought, too.”

“If I wuz a Yankee spy, would you-all hang me, Captain Gailliard, suh?” she giggled.

“I don’t do any hanging. But they meant to hang Pauline Cushman.”

“Hang a white lady!”

“Why not? She attempted to send General Jeb Stuart and two thousand poor boys to their deaths. Do you suppose the Confederate Government can afford to take a chance with such a woman?”

“No, suh.” She sighed. “I reckon,” she added sadly, “that the Gin’ral ain’t a-ridin’ to Pennsylvania no mo’. Oh, lawzee-me! I wuz a-hopin’ an’ a-prayin’ how he fix up to ketch old Lincoln in Washington. An’ tha’s whut I wuz a-wishin’ an’ a-prayin’ along o’ washin’ this hyar chemise fo’ Miss Belle when yuh come a-whistlin’, suh.”

“Don’t worry, Lucille,” he said, smiling at her pious fervor.

“No, suh. But I wuz a-wonderin’ how come Gin’ral Jeb Stuart send me down hyar a-washin’ fo’ li’l Miss Boyd? He say how he like how I wash an’ iron. So I wuz a-puzzlin’ an’ a-wonderin’, an’ I kinda figgered out he done send me away kaze he g’wine ride to Chambersburg—”

“Lucille,” interrupted the young man sharply, “if you don’t learn to mind your business and hold your tongue, your career as a laundress in this army will end!”

“Suh?” she asked blankly.

“I mean it. Stop trying to puzzle out what General Stuart is going to do! I told you a week ago to mind your own business and control your curiosity. If you don’t you’ll be sent out of camp as a common nuisance.”

The girl seemed scared.

“But Yaller Bob done tole me,” she whimpered.

“Told you what?”

“How Gin’ral Jeb Stuart is a-fixin’ to take him an’ Joe Sweeny ’long o’ Major Pelham an’ de hoss-guns, kaze de Gin’ral reckon he can’t git along nohow wifout Yaller Bob—”

“That damned yellow nigger is too uppity!” said Gailliard angrily. “I’m going to tell the General how he brags and gossips. If any Yankee spy gets in here and listens around the cook-tent, he’ll learn enough to destroy this army!”

“But ev’body’s talkin’ ’bout de ridin’ raid to Chambersburg, suh—”

“If that’s so, then there won’t be any! And listen to me, Lucille; if you hear any such gossip, you come to my tent and tell me, and I’ll turn any blabbing Negro or soldier over to the Provost Marshal! And if you hear of, or happen to see, any man or woman you don’t know, prowling around the cook-tent or laundry-tent, come instantly and let me know. Or tell Mr. Chancellor. Do you understand?”

“Yes, suh.”

“Very well, then. Be a good girl; do your washing and mind your own affairs.... And don’t go traipsin’ around with young men, white or black.”

“Lawzee me,” said the girl, “I does love to laugh an’ carry on, suh.”

“I know you do. And you’d better not.... You said, once, that you liked to be kissed, too.”

She laughed.

“Do you?”

“Yes, suh. Don’t yuh?”

“No,” said he, “it’s damn foolishness.”

He walked on abruptly toward the Boyd House. He was no longer whistling, and there had come into his flushed features a strange, strained look.

When he entered the gateway and approached the rose-smothered veranda, through the blossoming sprays he saw a slight figure seated in a rocking chair, dressed in the freshest summer toilette of cool pink muslin.

Close-plaited braids of dark hair shaded clear, pale cheeks and delicate brows, from under which a pair of brilliant eyes were observing him.

La Belle Rebelle! Miss Boyd. Yesterday a school girl, not long out of Mr. Staley’s Washington College—a graduate at sixteen. And, to-day, the most celebrated agent in the Confederate Secret Service.

Now she had returned to her Virginia home from a term in the Old Capitol Prison and a later arrest in Baltimore; and had been sent out of the Union lines with the cold warning that she would certainly hang if she ever came back.

Captain Gailliard swept the grass with his hat in a profound bow; and Belle Boyd rose and swept him with her brilliant eyes, and the veranda floor with a graceful curtsy.

At her invitation he came up and reseated her with a grand air and then took a chair himself.

Was Miss Belle in health? She was. And he? In perfect health—with deep gratitude for her polite inquiry.

A pause; their voices lower after a cautious glance around:

“Any news, Miss Belle?”

“That new laundress of ours is just a giddy little thing with no harm in her, Captain Gailliard. All she thinks of is to flirt with anybody, white or black, and go dancing about town when the moon is up.”

“She gossips.”

“All Negroes do. You know that.”

“But she’s always talking about Pennsylvania,” he said irritably.

“Everybody knows that Jeb Stuart is going,” said the girl quietly. “Every cavalryman, every one of John Pelham’s gunners, every camp-follower, every Negro knows. Joe Sweeny’s made up a tune about it for his banjo. Yellow Bob brags that he’s to be taken to take care ’ob de Gin’ral.’ It’s known in Richmond; it’s known on the Potomac.”

“That’s terrible,” murmured Gailliard, twisting his strong, bronzed fingers.

“It can’t be helped,” said Miss Boyd coolly. “It always is the same. No secret remains a secret very long inside our lines. And yet—here is the saving grace of it all—no really vital secret of ours ever leaks out into the Yankee lines. Do you realize that, Captain Gailliard?”

“Their spies carry out information to McClellan, don’t they?” he demanded.

“They do. Always erroneous information—so far. Don’t you know, Captain, that we never have been surprised in any major engagement? But they have been.”

“That is true, ma’am,” he admitted.

“Let me tell you what I believe is the trouble with the Yankee spy system. They have a good Secret Service organization; their operators get into our lines; their scouts and couriers carry news back to McClellan. And always the news is wrong. And that is because their spies are not trained to estimate numbers. They have not yet learned how to count men, horses, guns at a glance.

“Spies send back grossly exaggerated estimates; their Major Allen reports these figures to McClellan. It petrifies him and he demands more troops.

“And that is why we beat them in battle after battle and continue to block them and scare them and hold our lines with less than one-third the number of troops that they have, and less than a quarter of the numbers which they believe we possess.”

The two young people looked at each other for a moment, then laughed—the clear, gay laughter of the very young.

“My goodness,” she said, “how stupid they are. Some day I’ll tell you about my prison experience. All the time I was in prison I kept on sending information into our lines. Under their blue Yankee noses!—”

They went into fits of laughter again, the girl rocking to and fro in unrestrained mirth; the young man trying to control his and recover his voice.

At last, and with some soberness: “Miss Belle,” he said, “Mr. Gaston telegraphs us that another Yankee spy is inside our lines somewhere.”

“So I hear,” said the girl, becoming serious in her turn.

He said: “Somehow or other Gaston has learned that this spy has been here some time and is known as Number 13 in the Federal Secret Service.”

“Our people caught and hanged a spy whose number was 13,” said the girl.

Gailliard nodded: “A month ago. His name was Madden. Major Allen must have given the same number to the spy we are warned to look for. Do you know, ma’am, whether it’s a man or a woman?”

“I don’t,” said Miss Boyd, “but it may be a woman. You remember that charming widow, Mrs. Greenhow—who was Rose O’Neil—poor Bob Greenhow’s wife? She left the Old Capitol Prison before I arrived. But by ‘prisoners’ telegraph’—you understand—she got word to me that the Yankees are sending a number of clever women into the South; and that we should watch for them. That actress who escaped last week—Pauline Cushman—was one of them, no doubt. I don’t know her number. There’s another—a Mrs. Edmonds. And still another, a Miss Loveless—Lily Loveless, I believe. Of course they have numbers in the Federal Service. So it may well be that there is another woman in our lines, Captain Gailliard.”

He shot a keen, troubled look at her:

“Jeb Stuart can’t go to Pennsylvania if there’s a spy in camp to report his intentions,” he said.

“He told me he was going, anyway,” said the girl, “spy or no spy.”

“I don’t see how he dare ride out, ma’am.”

“Oh, he just laughs and says that a spy will send out wrong information, anyway.... Last night he and Major von Borcke, and John Pelham rode up to the veranda here; and they had Joe Sweeny and his banjo; and they sat their horses and serenaded me—just like a parcel of boys at the V. M. I.

“So my father and mother made them dismount and come in, and they had cake and juleps—all except Jeb Stuart—and Papa said it was highly dangerous for the General to go to Chambersburg, but the General acted like a schoolboy, and made Mamma dance a polka with him to Joe’s banjo—and Von Borcke danced with me—and Papa called in Lucille—she’s a pretty, dainty thing!—and made her dance with him in her white starched skirts and kerchief—oh, don’t laugh, Captain Gailliard, for that colored girl can dance like a dream on those slim little feet of hers—”

“You spoil your personal servants, ma’am—”

“Of course we do! But who doesn’t spoil children?—”

“—Makes them uppity,” muttered the youth.

“So it does, sir; my mammy bullies me; my maid does what she pleases; so does our Jimmy. But I will say that this pretty little laundress General Stuart sent me to keep while he’s away is always obliging and never lazy or impertinent. I’m very fond of Lucille already, and I know I shall hate to part with her when the General returns from Chambersburg.”

“If ever,” said Gailliard gloomily. “Well, ma’am, Chancellor is out prowling after that spy they warn us of, and I’m going to ride over to Wade Hampton’s lines and look about; and I suppose you’ll be here or flirting with Old Grumble Jones—”

The girl clapped her lovely hands and laughed: “I do flirt with him—poor old wounded thing! How did you know?”

“Oh,” said Gailliard, “you’d make saucy eyes at the Pope himself!”

Her laughter rang out uncontrolled: “But you, Captain, seem to be, with your gay and reckless reputation for gallantries—and indiscretions—seem indifferent to my ‘saucy’ eyes.”

“Ma’am, I was at your feet at first glance—”

“No, sir, you were not. A girl knows. And I knew instantly.”

“Pray, ma’am, what did you know?” he asked, smilingly.

“That your heart was as remote as your gaze. That your gallant words and chivalrous manners were mechanical—”

“Oh, ma’am, how can you say—”

“—Because I could see that your heart and mind were already preoccupied and engaged sentimentally elsewhere”—she laughed—“perhaps generally elsewhere; but I believe particularly. Anyway, you don’t care a button for me.”

It was quite useless for him to swear that his heart was hers alone; La Belle Rebelle only jeered and taunted him.

“At Major von Borcke’s dance the other night,” she said, “you gazed more romantically at other girls than you did at me.”

“Because, mademoiselle, you gazed more romantically at Lieutenant Price than you did at me!”

A slight color tinged the ivory white of her cheeks:

“Why not, sir? He, at least, behaved as though he adored me. But you ignored me! You even looked oftener and more interestedly at little Lucille the laundress, who was serving punch, than you did at me!”

To his consternation the blood instantly heated his sun-browned cheeks and settled into a flush.

“You ought to blush,” said the girl, “for your neglect of me. That shows you still have a conscience and are not wholly hardened.” She laughed at him again as her father and mother came up the path—the former who looked worn and ill, wearing the uniform of the 2nd Virginia Infantry.

“Mother,” she cried, “I am the toast of the camp, and even General Stonewall Jackson calls me his ‘dear child’! And yet this bad young man thinks that our little laundress, Lucille, is better worth looking at!”

For the first time in his irresponsible and heart-devastating career, this popular young man found himself confused and embarrassed and utterly unable to carry it with his usual and debonair impertinence, or make his forced laugh sound genuine.

Even La Belle Rebelle was surprised at the effect of her innocent raillery, so hot and flustered had her victim become, and so incapable of retort in kind.

However, he managed to take his congé with graceful propriety; he kissed her mother’s thin, pale hand; kissed hers, which had the smooth beauty of her eighteen years; saluted with engaging formality her pallid father and took himself off, raging inwardly.

What the devil had happened to him, then, that a light, unmeaning jest from a jeering girl should set his face aflame and knock his common sense to bits!

Instead of walking he began to stride, as though to out-distance whatever dogged him. For, in his anger, he seemed to be vaguely aware that something was dogging him—haunting him. Something indefinably alarming.

Furiously, he began to realize what it might be—for his mind’s eye already beheld it, recognized it—the phantom of a slim, brown girl with eyes like dark fringed orchids and lovely little hands and naked feet—

Vespasian Chancellor, returning from the cavalry regiments up the river, riding his bony old sorrel racker, reined up on the Bower road.

He had, he said, discovered no trace of this mysterious Operator 13, of whom Richmond warned them. The Provost guard at Darksville had arrested a dozen people, so far, but all had proper passes, and he had nothing really against any of them. He said he was satisfied that they were merely good, loyal strangers from the surrounding country, bringing in, afoot or in market carts, their spare farm produce to the brigade cavalry camps.

“No, suh,” he repeated to Captain Gailliard, “this hyar Federal Operator 13 is none of these people. Maybe we ought to look for him in our own uniform.”

“I’ve been through the recruits in the 9th and 10th Virginia and 2nd South Carolina Cavalry to-day,” said Gailliard. “That completes my search of the Cavalry Division. I think we should look for this ghostly Number 13 among servants and camp-followers at all regimental and brigade Headquarters.”

Chancellor, lounging on his horse, remarked that he had already done so.

“Somehow or other, Captain,” he drawled, “I can’t seem to get it outen my haid that the quadroon laundress, Lucille Lyndon, is into this business.”

“You heard her testimony at the drumhead court last week?” inquired Gailliard with nervous emphasis which made his smooth voice a trifle harsh.

“I did, suh.”

“The court found nothing against her.”

“No, suh.”

“Well, then, why do you suspect her?”

“I been askin’ myse’f, is she a suah-enough dyed-in-the-wool nigger?” drawled Vespasian Chancellor, cutting himself a quid from a twist of tobacco. Slowly absorbing it he ruminated a while and finally concluded: “Yaas, I reckon she’s black. But they is black snakes, tuh.”

“Some.”

“Not many,” agreed the chief of spies gently. “Whut puzzles me,” he continued, “is my feelin’s. Sometimes my feelin’s work like a houn’-dawg’s nose. I got a instinct.”

“I know you have.”

“Yaas, suh. Allus had a instinct when things are not quite right. Keeps pesterin’ me twill I go and find out one way or another.”

“You had that instinct about Pauline Cushman,” said Gailliard gravely, “and you were right.”

“Yaas, suh, I wuz.”

“Have you that same instinct concerning Lucille Lyndon?”

“Waal, suh, it’s hard to say. Sometimes I have, and then again I h’ain’t. Seems like some days I feel she’s not all what she oughta be. An’ then, again, I reckon she’s only a pore li’l colored gal an’ the onliest thoughts in her pretty haid is to giggle an’ kiss.”

“Is she much—that way?” Gailliard seemed to find some difficulty with his voice.

“You mean carryin’ on, suh?”

“Yes.”

“I reckon she’s a armful.”

“L-loose?”

“What yuh call loose, suh? Yuh know how young colored gals carry on. An’ next thing they has a baby.”

Gailliard reddened and swallowed hard. He said: “I don’t think she’s that sort. She’s been a lady’s maid. That kind of superior colored girl usually is clever enough to take care of herself.”

“Not with a white young marster, suh.”

Gailliard said irritably: “She’s a free Negro. She has no white master, young or old. She’s smart enough to keep herself out of trouble, I believe.”

“Yuh been watchin’ her, suh?”

Again the young man reddened; and Vespasian Chancellor looked away, his deep-set, remote gaze on the Shenandoah Hills.

“Yes,” said Gailliard, “I have kept an eye on her since the General sent her to the Boyds. Because—well, everybody likes Lucille and makes much of her; and there is careless talk at the Boyds’ table—not only among young staff officers, but in high command. You know that, Chancellor.”

“I duh, suh. An’ I deplore it.”

“Any servant can pick up vital information at a dance or dinner table.”

“Yaas, suh. And I don’t deny they duh pick it up an’ somebody sends it on to the Yankees. But what saves us is that the damyanks don’t know what to do with vital information.”

They laughed, and the tension relaxed.

“Look at Little Mac over there,” continued Chancellor. “I make no doubt that one of their courier-scouts carried news of the Pennsylvania raid to Major Allen; and that he took it to McClellan. And what do they-all duh about it? Why, they scatter their cavalry all over the continent, chasin’ shadows that ain’t yet started. And Colonel Imboden already has drawed them off of the Potomac fords.”

“That’s the trouble,” said Gailliard; “General Stuart won’t wait for us to catch this Operator Number 13 or scare him and drive him out of camp. If he’d only postpone”—

“No, he won’t wait,” said Chancellor. “He’s jes’ a-honin’ to go, and by golly he’s a-goin’, tuh.”

“You are sure?”

“I am. All the cavalry are ordered to Darksville to-night. I got that a hour sence from Rooney Lee.”

“Then they’ll go northward to-morrow?”

“I reckon.”

They gazed hard at each other.

“I haven’t any faintest idea where to look for this damn Yankee spy,” said the younger man. “We have our agents in every marching regiment; and not one of them has discovered the slightest clew.... Of course there could be a Yank with a telescope, hiding out somewhere hereabouts. God knows there are enough woods and thickets and mountains.”

“Yaas, suh, we’ve had a-plenty of that breed. But they don’t know how to count troops or hosses or guns. What we should fear, suh, is a Yank in our camp, sneakin’ around and listenin’. An’ last night orders from Richmond were read aloud to every regiment of hoss in this hyar division—not only by the brigadiers an’ colonels, but by the Gin’ral himself. An’ I ask you, Captain Gailliard, is that fair to us in the Secret Service? No, ’tain’t.”

“It really isn’t.”

“No, ’tain’t. We can’t be responsible.... Waal, I’m ridin’ out, suh. Old Stonewall wants I should get through and look over things. I take a expert wire-tapper—Billings.”

“You’d better be careful. We’ve stirred up every Yank north of the river, you know.”

“Yaas, suh,” drawled Chancellor. “And I aim to watch our line of couriers between Richmond and Baltimore. That’s the road any Yank would follow outen the Valley. And if they’s any gallopin’ North to-night, takin’ news outen this hyar camp to Little Mac, I aim to stop it if God favors me.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No, suh.”

“Why not?”

“I reckon I’ll ask you politely, suh, to see that nobody leaves camp twill the cavalry ride out of Darksville.”

“Why, the Provost Guard—”

“I know, suh. I mean—nobody, yuh know.”

There was a strained pause.

“H’it’s my instinct workin’, suh,” drawled Chancellor.

“I see.... You mean that I should continue to keep an eye on Lucille?”

“I duh, suh.”

Another silence. In the young man’s head and body heavy pulses were throbbing, and he felt the cold of apprehension. “Have you discovered anything at all, Chancellor?”

“No, suh. Not a damn thing. It’s only my feelin’s that won’t quit pesterin’ me.”

Warmth stole into the young man’s chilled veins again.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “And do be careful out there—”

He concluded with a slight gesture northward; then stood looking after the Chief of Spies who had put his racker to a gangling canter.

About sunset, without bugle or trumpet, the gray-jacketed cavalry began to pass toward the rendezvous at Darksville, squadron trampling after squadron. John Pelham’s guns were on the way, too, thumping and clanking down through the sunset light, followed by a section from Hart’s horse-battery—all moving along the bush-bordered, tree-shaded roads and across a rickety railway line, thence down toward McCoy’s Ford, and Destiny.

That fine mansion on the hill, known as Bower House, or The Bower, was all ablaze with candles.

They were dancing there as usual; colonels, majors, staff-officers, even General J. E. B. Stuart himself, gayly, delightfully, with Belle Boyd who wore a lovely gown bought in Baltimore by God’s grace and the solemn acquiescence of General Dix.

Jack Gailliard prowled the veranda, peering in on all the brilliancy and listening to the voices and laughter and to a stringed orchestra led by Joseph Sweeny on the banjo.

But Lucille Lyndon was not among the black servants in their turbans and kerchiefs and clean, starched dresses. And whether she was strolling down by the river with a dark-skinned beau or—alas!—with some unprincipled white soldier—preoccupied Jack Gailliard; and he meant to find out.

He had a horse at Headquarters—a fine one, nine-tenths thoroughbred, and taken by him from a Yankee cavalryman when the 6th Pennsylvania Lancers charged the bridge at Antietam.

An orderly—a lank mountaineer spy—saddled and bridled the nag; Captain Gailliard mounted and rode slowly down to the Opequon through the clustered starlight set with a new moon.

A white-clad figure stood on the Boyd’s lawn. To his rage his heart suddenly became irregular, beating thickly; and he felt the blood stinging the tanned skin of his cheeks.

“Damnation,” he muttered to himself, “am I crazy, or a filthy, lecherous beast!”

He bungled his stirrup as he dismounted, nearly fell; and tethered his horse to the gatepost with shaky fingers.

She was all in white. A white rose was pinned to her snowy kerchief. She was the most delicately lovely thing he ever had looked upon.

“Good God,” he said to himself. But, to the little laundress: “Evening, Lucille. What are you doing down here all alone, with so many dusky beaux waiting for you down by the river?”

“Evenin’, Captain Gailliard,” she replied in her soft voice. “I ain’t bother my haid along of any camp nigger.”

“You demand quality in a beau, don’t you?” he asked, walking toward her.

“Yes, suh, quality.” She added impertinently: “Colored or white, suh, but it boun’ to be quality.”

“Didn’t I warn you against unprincipled white men?” he demanded sharply.

“Yes, suh, but I ain’t scared of nobody, suh.”

“You think you know how to look after yourself, do you?”

“Yes, suh, I think I does.” She fingered the white Cherokee rose pinned to her kerchief.

She was very near him; her starched skirts touched his leg. His heart began to pound. There was the same swift heat in his cheeks, and dryness in his throat; a sort of soundless crash of his senses. Inwardly raging, he waited to control his voice and clear his mind. And the little laundress looked at him, faintly smiling.

Suddenly something blazed darkly in his brain. And then she was in his arms, warm, yielding, her pliant body molded to his own.

A moment—not brief—before mental chaos became sense again. He released her. Neither spoke under the breathless luster of the stars.

Then her voice, soft, unsteady: “Is that why you came, suh? To kiss me?”

It was a moment more before he could force a laugh.

“No,” he said, “that’s not the reason. I want to talk to you.”

She giggled: “Pretty way you have of talking, suh.”

“I thought I’d better begin that way,” he said, “because the rest isn’t pleasant.”

“No, suh?”

“Not very, Lucille. In fact, it’s disagreeable. Because I want to ask you, bluntly, whether you ever repeat to strangers anything you hear in the Boyds’ house. Do you?”

“Strangers?” repeated the girl, innocently. “I don’t know any.”

“You don’t know everybody in camp, do you?”

“Most ev’body,” she said with a shy laugh.

“I know you’re very popular,” he said. “Everybody spoils you—the General, the Boyds. All officers have a pleasant word for you. And, I’m sorry to say, most of the soldiers make eyes at you. But that’s not what I mean. There are strangers in camp every day—farmers, planters, peddlers, people of all sorts with passes out of neighboring villages and towns. Do you ever talk to them?”

“I pass the time of day with polite folk that tells me howdy, suh.”

“Do you gossip? I mean about army matters? Conversation you hear when the family entertain? Or when officers come here?”

She seemed confused.

“I mean, do you babble to anybody anything you happen to hear?”

“I dunno,” she murmured in evident perplexity. But her dull voice and hanging head made it plain to him that here was no clever enemy to the Southland; no trained spy planted by Major Allen; nobody dangerous to the Confederacy save innocently and inadvertently and through the carelessness of the more intelligent who ought to govern their tongues.

He drew a long breath of unconscious relief. It would be rather terrible to discover in this young, dark, pretty thing anything evil enough to hang. He looked at her lovely throat and neck and a slight shiver passed through him.

“Why yuh ask me all these questions, Captain Gailliard, suh?” she inquired with a childish simplicity that shamed him.

“Oh, well,” said he, “I know you are all right.”

“Yes, suh, I am.”

He began to walk to and fro under the stars, his hands clasped behind him. The girl watched him in silence, the vague, half smile on her lips once more.

Then, abruptly, he bade her good night, went quickly to his horse, mounted, and was off in darkness at a gallop.

The girl stood unstirring as long as she could hear his horse’s hoofs on the hard, stone road.

When the distant sound had died away she went into the house. Joe, one of the spoiled Negroes of the establishment, in his gaudy servants’ livery, was asleep and snoring in the hallway. Others seemed to be in the kitchen across the yard. There was a light there, and another light moving about stables and barnyard.

The little laundress went very quietly up the carpeted stairs to the landing and paused before a closed door. Here Miss Boyd’s little sister slept.

Very cautiously Lucille Lyndon opened the door. The child was sound asleep.

Now, gently closing the door, she stole across to her own room which, in her quality of personal maid and laundress, had been allotted her.

In the room, also, slept Miss Belle’s own maid, but she was at Bower House, now, in attendance upon the family.

When the girl had entered her room and lighted a candle, she noiselessly locked and bolted the door.

The first thing she did was to lift her white starched skirt and cotton chemise. Under it, belted around her naked body, was the big knife in its velvet sheath.

This she slid out and pressed a spring in the big buck-horn hilt which proved to be hollow. Out of it she drew some small bits of tissue paper, a tiny magnifying glass, a delicate crow-quill pen scarcely thicker than a hairpin; a fine sponge, a small camel’s hair brush, and three little glass phials.

First of all she dipped the brush into one of the phials and, with it, carefully stained the half-moon at the base of her fingernails, a bluish color.

Then she slipped off her stockings and touched the base of each pretty toe.

Then, completely disrobing and removing her leather belt, she filled a tin washbowl with water and let fall into it a few drops of black liquid from another phial.

With the aid of an old wooden-rimmed looking glass she went over her entire body, face and limbs with the little sponge—the liquid drying almost instantly to a pale amber tint.

Now she replaced two phials, and the sponge and brush, in the knife hilt; and dressed herself.

The big Cherokee rose lay on the table. From it she detached a broad, heart-shaped petal, laid it over a little square of tissue paper and, with a pair of sewing scissors, cut the tissue into the shape of the rose petal.

Then she sat down at the pine table, dipped her crow-quill into the third phial, and wrote on the tissue paper—though her wet pen showed no stain of ink and left no trace of writing:

Major Allen:

Stuart crosses McCoy’s Ford to-night, October 10th, riding north toward the mountains, Mercersburg, and Chambersburg.

Two thousand cavalry, four guns.

Operator 13.

This bit of tissue she pinned to the white rose in place of the petal detached; and the lovely flower appeared to be perfect again.

Now she deliberately rolled together the single detached rose-petal and the shred of tissue, swallowed the rather fragrant pellet, extinguished the tallow candle, and went lightly to her window.

No light, now, in quarters, barn, or stable; all was still in the moon-set starlight. Not a sound save the hushed tinkle and gush of the silvery Opequon over its pebbles and glimmering sands.

She opened her door, stole down stairs. Hanging in the hall closet was an old slouch hat of Mr. Boyd’s. There were a pair of heavy, spurred boots there, also. They would keep the dew from her slippers, anyway. She pulled the hat over her short curls; drew on the boots over her slippers, and stole over the carpet to the veranda and out across the dew-wet lawn.

No lights, now, in the village; nothing visible yonder except ghostly white porticos and shadowy galleries; and tall, still trees in the starlight.

Now, for the first time, the little laundress felt afraid—or perhaps it was the chill of the river mist, thinly rising along the bushes, that made her so cold.

She went a little way up the road, then through an orchard to the open meadow. Not a glimmer of light in Darksville. Nobody could guess that two thousand gray-jackets were standing to horse down there, or that galloping mounted-artillery, saddled, harnessed, and hooked up, awaited only a whispered word of command to the gunners astride their horses.

She could neither see Bower House nor hear the distant dance music. Down along the river not a sound from the sentinels and gray-jacketed vedettes; only a low belt of fog along shores invisible, and a vast misty void beyond.

It seemed a century—it was less than twenty minutes—before she heard a horse coming—not fast. After a few moments the noise of hoofs ceased; and she saw ghostly shapes of horse and rider approaching her across the soaking grass.

When the horseman saw her he dismounted and led his mount to where she stood in the misty luster.

“Evenin’, suh,” said the little laundress softly. “H’it’s a night of stars.”

The passphrase of the United States Secret Service.

To it the shadowy horseman replied with the prescribed answer: “Yes, it’s a night of stars and bars. How many stars do you count?”

“Thirteen.”

“Add thirteen to ninety.”

“Done. And the answer is?”

“Union forever.”

He wore the uniform of a Confederate cavalryman. She hesitated a moment, then, impinning the white rose from her kerchief, handed it to him. “It’s this petal,” she whispered, touching it with the tip of her dusky middle finger. “It’s pinned fast,” she added.

He drew the pale blossom through an open button-hole of his gray jacket, mounted his horse and gathered curb and snaffle into steady, capable hands.

“You are Augustus Littlefield,” she murmured.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You have your pass and furlough?”

“No, ma’am. I ride over with Hampton’s Horse. My contact is Operator 17 in Mercersburg.”

“Mrs. Edmonds?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell her to hurry.”

“I will, ma’am.”

That was all.

Operator 13 watched horse and rider continuing their leisurely, soundless course across the grass.

When they had disappeared in the thin hill-mist, she turned back to the house below. Her starched skirts were limp and drenched with dew, but her stockings and feet were dry. After a little way she came again into the orchard, and stopped there, frightened.

For there was a light in her bedroom window. Across it, now and then, passed the phantom figure of a man.

Then, in the deathly danger of the moment, she felt that strange, warm charm of peril flow in her veins like a thread of blood stealing through chilly water.

She crept nearer. A saddled horse stood tied to the gate post.

She looked up at her lighted window. Two wavering shadows moved on wall and ceiling—a man’s and a woman’s. Once the man’s face was illumined by the candle. He was Vespasian Chancellor! Then the woman moved into the light for a moment; and the little laundress saw that she was Belle Boyd.

Chancellor came to the open window, presently, and called down to somebody near the lilac bushes below, whom she could not see:

“She’s skedaddled, suh. But there’s enough skin-dye in this hyar washbowl to tell the story!”

Oh, God! She had forgotten to empty the washbowl! Everything else she had remembered—taken every possible precaution except this!

“Why do you think it’s skin-dye?” came Jack Gailliard’s unsteady voice from the darkness.

“My hands is fast-brown a’ready,” said Chancellor, “and dry’s a bleached bone! She ain’t no nigger, suh: she’s Operator 13. An’ I reckon my instinc’ an’ feelin’s was right, suh; an’ this hyar washbowl is more’n enough to damn an’ hang her!”

For a moment her limbs, body, brain, and blood turned to ice; then that strange warmth stole through her again like a pulsing thread of blood.

She stooped low and crept along the fence under the honeysuckle until she came to the tied horse.

Strapped to the cantle was a long gray military overcoat.

With trembling fingers she unbuckled the straps, unrolled it, got into it, pulled her slouch hat low over her face, untied the horse, and, setting one clumsy, spurred boot to the stirrup, climbed into the saddle and freed the horse-pistol from its buttoned holster.

In the act of drawing it out she suddenly saw Captain Gailliard beside her, white as death in the starlight. He caught the horse’s head; and she swung her heavy horse-pistol by the barrel and struck him full in the face with all her might.

He crumpled up without a sound, his convulsive fingers dragging the horse’s head down with him to the wet grass.

She stared down at him. His face wore a scarlet mask of blood. Then, with a sob, she jerked the snaffle rein out of his nerveless fingers, touched the horse with knee and heel, guiding him out through tall, wet grasses and way into the thickening hill-fog where lay her only hope of life.