CHAPTER XIII

A LAST FAREWELL

Mr. Holliway opened it to admit the Dutchman.

“Shentlemen,” he began earnestly, “tey haf got te leetle Chew poy trunk mit giffin’ him visky, unt he haf tolt everyding. I pe your vrent. You mus’ get avay pefore mitnight.”

“The little Jew knows nothing to tell,” said the captain. “His drunken babble is not worth attention. We can not leave my sisters.”

“How you help tem by stayin’? I gif you my vort dat tey vill get to Paltimore all right. I hates to see tem Yankees takes you up in mine house.”

Milicent and I believed in the German. So I think did both gentlemen by this time, but we had come this far under their care, and they were loath to leave us unless entirely convinced that it was for our safety as well as their own. Mr. Holliway was no less concerned about us than Captain Locke was, but he took a darker view of the situation. He drew Locke aside and they talked together in low tones. I caught the word “reckless” and “those papers,” and “a disadvantage to them,” “safer without us.” When they turned back to us Captain Locke said:

“We leave the question in your hands, ladies. Perhaps we--and more particularly I--endanger you by remaining. But I hate to leave you alone this way, and I am not afraid of anything that can happen to me. If the worst came to the worst, and we were arrested, I have some influence in the North which might still be of benefit to us all.”

“Use it for yourself and Mr. Holliway,” we said, “and go.”

“Think well, ladies. You want us to go now, but when we are gone and you are here alone, won’t you feel desolate and deserted?”

“We will only be glad you’re gone,” I said.

“I don’t think I ever heard such a polite speech in my life,” said Captain Locke, laughing. “Holliway, I think we had better leave immediately.”

He stood cool and smiling, but Mr. Holliway, whose health was not robust, and upon whom the hardships of the journey and the excitement had told, was ghastly. Not that he lacked courage. He would have stayed and died for us, as far as that was concerned; but his physical endurance was not great, and from the first he had been oppressed with a presentiment of evil.

Milicent had drawn Captain Locke aside, and was urging him to go, as I knew, and, as I think, to destroy the papers which Holliway felt imperiled him. He gave her a smiling negative.

“You must go yourself, and please help us make the captain go,” I was saying to Mr. Holliway.

“You will have to do that,” he replied. “I have said what I could. It is madness for us to stay, as I am thoroughly convinced now. You would be safer without us. Locke doesn’t think so, but I know it. His character and the papers he carries increase the danger for us all.”

Captain Locke and Milicent had finished their conference.

“We will go,” he said quietly. “A pen and ink, my friend,” to the Dutchman.

“Make haste and go,” we pleaded.

But he waited for the pen and ink.

“We have time enough,” he said, consulting his watch very coolly. “It is not yet half-past eleven.”

He wrote a note and gave it to the Dutchman to be mailed that night.

“If you get into any trouble,” he said to Milicent, “telegraph to this address.”

And he gave her a slip of paper on which was written: “ Gov. ----, Baltimore, Md.”

“The letter is to my uncle, and if you are in any trouble he will help you out. The Governor will be advised of your situation, and a telegram to him will be understood.”

“Good night, ladies, and _au revoir_,” he said gaily, bowing over our hands. “We will meet in Baltimore.”

“I echo that,” said Mr. Holliway with assumed cheerfulness. “It has been a great pleasure and privilege to know you, ladies. With all its shadows, this journey will always be one of my sweetest memories.”

We might never see them again. We knew it as we looked into Locke’s bonnie blue eyes and Holliway’s dark sad ones. They had been our brave and gentle knights, shielding us and enduring all the hardships cheerfully. One of them was weaker, we knew, because he had given his blanket to keep us warm. We looked bravely back into the two brave faces that looked into ours--one sign of faltering and they would not leave us.

“I will say a ‘Hail Mary’ for each of you every night,” I said.

“I, too,” said Milicent softly.

“Thank you,” there was a quiver in each voice now. “We will try to deserve your prayers, dear ladies.”

Then they bowed themselves out with smiling faces. One of them we never saw again.