The Purchase Price | Page 3

who conveyed my orders to me--he comes from Kentucky, you see--said to me that while I could not bow-string you, it would be quite proper to put you in a sack and throw you overboard. 'Only,' said he to me, 'be careful that this sack be tightly tied; and be sure to drop her only where the water is deepest. And for God's sake, my dear young man,' he said to me, 'be sure that you do not drop her anywhere along the coast of my own state of Kentucky; for if you do, she will untie the sack and swim ashore into my constituency, where I have trouble enough without the Countess St. Auban, active abolitionist, to increase it. Trouble '--said he to me--'thy name is Josephine St. Auban!'
"My dear lady, to that last, I agree. But, there you have my orders. You are, as may be seen, close to the throne, so far as we have thrones in this country."
"Then I am safe until we get below the Kentucky shore?" she queried calmly.
"I beg you not to feel disturbed,--" he began.
"Will you set me down at Louisville?"
"Madam, I can not."
"You have not been hampered with extraordinary orders. You have just said, the carte blanche is in your hands."
"I have no stricter orders at any time than those I take from my own conscience, Madam. I must act for your own good as well as for that of others."
Her lip curled now. "Then not even this country is free! Even here there are secret tribunals. Even here there are hired bravos."
"Ah, Madam, please, not that! I beg of you--"
"Excellently kind of you all, to care so tenderly for me--and yourselves! I, only a woman, living openly, with ill will for none, paying ray own way, violating no law of the land--"
"Your words are very bitter, Madam."
"The more bitter because they are true. You will release me then at Cairo, below?"
"I can not promise, Madam. You would be back in Washington by the first boats and trains."
"So, the plot runs yet further? Perhaps you do not stop this side the outer ways of the Mississippi? Say, St. Louis, New Orleans?"
"Perhaps even beyond those points," he rejoined grimly. "I make no promises, since you yourself make none."
"What are your plans, out there, beyond?"
"You ask it frankly, and with equal frankness I say I do not know. Indeed, I am not fully advised in all this matter. It was imperative to get you out of Washington, and if so, it is equally imperative to keep you out of Washington. At least for a time I am obliged to construe my carte blanche in that way, my dear lady. And as I say, my conscience is my strictest officer."
"Yes," she said, studying his face calmly with her steady dark eyes.
It was a face sensitive, although bony and lined; stern, though its owner still was young. She noticed the reddish hair and beard, the florid skin, the blue eye set deep--a fighting eye, yet that of a visionary.
"You are a fanatic," she said.
"That is true. You, yourself, are of my own kind. You would kill me without tremor, if you had orders, and I--"
"You would do as much!"
"You are of my kind, Madam. Yes; we both take orders from our own souls. And that we think alike in many ways I am already sure."
"None the less--"
"None the less, I can not agree to set you down at Cairo, or at any intermediate point. I will only give my promise in return for your own parole. That, I would take as quickly as though it were the word of any officer; but you do not give it."
"No, I do not. I am my own mistress. I am going to escape as soon as I can."
He touched his cap in salute. "Very well, then. I flattered myself we had done well together thus far--you have made it easy. But now--no, no, I will not say it. I would rather see you defiant than to have you weaken. I love courage, and you have it. That will carry you through. It will keep you clean and safe as well."
Her face clouded for the first time.
"I have not dared to think of that," she said. "So long as we came in the special train, with none to molest or make me afraid--afraid with that fear which a woman must always have--we did well enough, as I have said; but now, here in the open, in public, before the eyes of all, who am I, and who are you to me? I am not your mother?"
"Scarcely, at twenty three or four." He pursed a judicial lip.
"Nor your sister?"
"No."
[Illustration: The _Mount Vernon_]
"Nor your wife?"
"No." He flushed here, although he answered simply.
"Nor your assistant in any way?"
His face lighted suddenly.
"Why not?"