Hoodooed

BY SEABURY QUINN

.. . and revenge comes on both sides of the grave

DERRICOTE flattened on the sopping leaf mould as the cavalry patrol splashed by. It was at least the thousandth time that he had taken similar cover in the past four clays, and creeping like a snake among the underbrush or lying quiet as a rabbit in a briar patch had become automatic with him every time he heard the pound of horseshoes or the scuff of marching feet. Fatigue was now so deep that it was almost anesthesia, his uniform was ripped to tatters by the brambles, his eyes were gritty with sleep and hunger gnawed at his midriff like a starved rat. But he could still smile. "I'm surely gettin' an elegant worm's eye view of O' Virginny," he grinned as the last of the rain-slicked blue backs disappeared around the bend of the woods road.

Orders to abandon Petersburg had come early on the morning of the second, and he had gone out with his squadron to cover the retreat of Greenleaf's infantry. They knew the Yanks were pressing on the earthworks, for beyond the leaf-screen of the April woods they heard the rattle of musketry and the dull, almost continuous roar of cannon. It would not be long before the last desperate rear guard fell back, then . . .

At noon they paused for a meal of corn pone and the parched rye and acorn that did duty for coffee. The fire had hardly begun crackling underneath the pot when the blue-bellies came galloping over the rise, sturdy, well-fed veterans of Phil Sheridan's command, riding hell-for-leather and yelling like Comanches.

"Mount!" Derricote spat out a mouthful of seasonless corn bread. "Draw sabers! Forward — trot — gallop—charge!" He drove the spurs in Caesar's flanks and the tired horse snorted furiously as he strained against the bridle. Behind him his men rode stirrup to stirrup in a long wedge whose point was the tip of his saber thrusting like a unicorn's horn from beyond Caesar's starting eyes.

They raised the Rebel Yell as they dashed at the blue-clad rank, but the Yankees did not meet them. Instead, they fanned out in a deep V, then closed in like the jaws of a steel trap, battering his men with sabers, shooting them from the saddle—he drove a vicious thrust at a burly trooper in blue and yellow, leaned down to dash his hilt into a grinning red-faced corporal's mouth, evaded the slash of a broad-bladed saber, then with a sudden, vast, outrageous crash, the world had come to an end.

How long he lay senseless he had no idea. The patter of the gentle April rain on his face wakened him, and when he sat up dizzily he saw the dark had come and, save for some grotesque gray-clad forms that sprawled unnaturally on the fresh grass and one or two stiff -legged horses lying motionless as uprooted tree stumps, he had the field to himself. His horse, his men, even the enemy had disappeared.

He felt for his watch. Gone. So were his gold cuff links and cameo. They'd taken time to go through him, apparently, before they rode back to report their victory—or maybe it had been his own men who rifled his pockets. He noted with a grin that had no humor in it that they'd left his wallet stuffed with fifty-dollar bills; Confederate money had small buying power, even south of Mason-Dixon's Line, but gold was gold the world over. That watch or those cuff links or scarf pin would be legal tender at any sutler's, enough to buy a slab of side of meat or even a pound of coffee—real coffee, not the parched and pounded rye and acorn the South had used until the taste of mocha had become no more than a vague memory.

By degrees he regained control of his legs. The blow that knocked him out must have turned on the brass button on his kepi, so that only the flat of the blade hit him. There was a lump almost as big as a pigeon's egg just above his right ear, but there was no blood on his hand when he brought it down from his head, and the soft spring rain was cool and soothing on his upturned face. Unsteadily, but gaining fresh stability with each step, he walked across the field, then halted fifty yards or so from the highway. There was no sign or sound of life anywhere. Greenleaf's men, together with the remnants of his squadron would have gone long since, either making for the rendezvous on the Appomattox or striking overland toward Lynchburg and the mountains. Grant and Weitzel would be on their flanks like gadflies, Union troopers would be between him and them—the drumming of shod hoofs and clatter of accoutrement came to him even as he halted, and he dropped face-downward to the sod, arms clasped above his head.

THE patrol galloped by so close that water from the horses' pounding hoofs splashed on him. "There's another of 'em, Bill," he heard a trooper call to the man next him as they clattered past. "Ol' Simpson must a cut them Johnnie up in style this mornin'."

"Yeah, an' we'll have the rest of 'em by tomorrer if things keep up this-a-way. Jeez, how them Rebs can fight with nothin' in their bellies sure beats hell, don't it?"

"Wal," the voice of a third trooper had a Middle-Western twang to it, "I reckon that's because they're Amurricans, too. Any other army would of chucked the towel in long ago, but these fellers will fight till they've shot their last ca'tridge, then ten to one they'll fight us with the bay'nit till we've killed the whole damn kit-kaboodle of 'em."

The patrol trotted out of sight and Derricote rose cautiously, staggering across the sodden meadow till he reached a patch of woodland and found friendly-shelter in the undergrowth.

Since then he'd played a desperate game of hide and seek with bands of Yankee cavalry and infantry detachments, hiding, creeping into bramble patches and small thickets when a Northern patrol hove in view, trudging furtively along the road, or running across fields when no enemy was in sight, getting handouts from farmers' wives, but always working steadily toward Laurelwood and sanctuary—Laurelwood, where they would bathe and feed him, let him sleep between clean sheets and recruit strength to rejoin Lee's army and fight, as the Yankee trooper put it, "till the last ca'tridge had been fired."

He lay listening a few moments when the cavalry detail had passed, making sure no more were following, then got to his feet once more and crept through the woods until he came out at the hilltop overlooking the plantation. The rain had stopped, and in the light of a low moon lie looked across the gently rolling land while a lump rose in his throat and a sob formed in his chest. The breeze that blew across the fields was redolent with memories, for this had been his second home, more dear to him than any place on earth except his father's farmstead, since he had been a little lad. Here he had a riddle on his first fox hunt, here he had danced his first quadrille and polka, here he had shared life with Jessica since childhood. From that wide, white-pillared porch he had ridden to join his troop in '62, brave in his spotless new gray uniform with a red rose from her knotted in the gold cord of his aiguilette and the remembrance of her kiss upon his lips. "I'll be waitin' for you, Howard," she had promised as she tightened soft bare arms about his neck, "waitin' for my brave, victorious lover—"

"Maybe he won't be victorious," he had interrupted. "Mr. Lincoln's raised three hundred thousand volunteers, and they're already almost two to one—"

"Howard Derricote, how you talk! To hear you anyone would think one Southerner couldn't whip ten Yankees with one hand tied behind him. Of course you'll win this war, an' take of Lincoln prisoner, too!"

"But if we should lose, Jessica—"

The somberness in his voice sobered her. "Win or lose, my lover-man, there'll never be another for me. I've loved you since I was a little girl, an' all my life I'll keep on lovin' you. It's not as if we were just ordinary people; we've been together so much that we've grown to be part of each other. You're like my heart—I just couldn't go on livin' without you, honey-lamb." Then she had drawn his face down to hers as he leaned from the saddle, kissed him on both cheeks and on the mouth, and after that . . . the clatter of the gravel under Caesar's hoofs, the long, hot, dusty road to camp Fair Oaks, Gains Mill and Mechanicsville, three years of almost constant fighting while victory after victory cheered the gray-dad soldiers of the South. But Nashville, Chicarnauga and Chattanooga were another story; Gettysburg and Cold Harbor were blows that sent the once-victorious army reeling from the field to take shelter behind hastily constructed earthworks. Now Petersburg had been abandoned, and Richmond, capital of the Confederacy. The end was in sight, inevitable. . . .

A small, irresolute breeze played hesitantly among the leafage, and a sigh that was half gratitude at homecoming, half sorrow, escaped him. The oak and maple trees that grew around the big house tossed their leaf-laced branches till they seemed to ripple like green spray; beyond the rolling fields there stood the unforgotten circle of blue hills, and everywhere the mountain laurel from which the plantation took its name was bursting into bud.

A SQUARE of luminance attracted his attention. That would be the cabin of old Mammy Cicely, the aged manumitted Negress at whose black breast two generations of Skipwell children had nursed. Mammy Ciss possessed a widespread reputation as a "conjur 'oman," her boss-fix powders were famous, as were the love charms she concocted, the stay-home potions which kept errant wives' and husbands' eyes—and affections—from roving were known as sovereign remedies in domestic crises, and her git-away charms had more than once sent a strayed man back to his fireside. It was rumored and believed that she possessed more sinister powers. Madness was a thing almost unknown among the Negroes, yet there had been instances of it. Field hands and house servants alike shook their heads and whispered—but not in hearing of the white folks—that Mammy Ciss had "spelled" the lunatics, and more than one mysterious illness and unexplained death had been laid to her door. Those who approached her cabin seeking favors walked charily as Saul when he sought out the Witch of Endor. But Mammy Ciss had always been his friend. Her hut would offer sanctuary. He could get water there to wash away the grime of flight and battle before he went to the big house—make himself at least halfway presentable.

He hurried down the grassy slope, climbed the stone fence that marked the boundary of the cabin's plot of land, and knocked on the rough puncheons of the door.

The light behind the window was obscured a moment as a figure passed before the fire, and a deep musical voice challenged, "Who dar?"

"Mammy Ciss," he answered in a whisper, for caution had become a habit with him, "it's I Marse Howard."

"Who?"

"Howard Derricote. You know, Marse Howard—"

"Bress de Lawd!" The door flung open and a pair of calico-clad arms enfolded him, straining him against a deep, capacious bosom. "If it's sho'-nuff Marse Howard hisself! Mah other baby's done come back ter me!" He had been nurtured at a black breast, brought up, corrected—sometimes soundly spanked—by colored mammies, and the warm affection he had for this woman's kind was unaffected as it was natural. He kissed the gleaming chocolate-colored cheeks and put his arms about the massive shoulders, returning the old woman's embrace fervently as it was given. Then, as she drew him into the neat single room of the cabin, "Got any hot water around—and something to eat?" he demanded. "Lord, but I'm hungry—and dirty!"

"Yuh jes' set dar an' res' yo'sef, honey," the Negress answered. "Pull off yo' boots an' favor yo' feets. Ah'll git some vittles fo' yuh in two shakes an' set de kittle b'ilin' fo' yo' baff in half a minit."

Hoe-cake—not the crumbly, almost unseasoned corn of bread of the impoverished farm folk, but the crisp, golden-brown confection that defies comparison —appeared on the table almost as if by magic, and with it came a plate of snapping hot fried chitterlings and a lump of fresh-churned pale gold butter almost large as a man's fist. Last of all a pot of steaming coffee with cream to cut its bitterness and sorghum syrup for "long sweetening."

"Lawdy, but yun's beat-out lookin', Marse Howard," the old woman sympathized as she refilled his plate. "Whut dey bin doin' ter mah baby ?"

"Chasin' him, I reckon you'd call it," he responded with a grin. "Chasin' him up hill and down dale. How's Miss Jessica?"

She busied herself with the coffee pot a moment, refilling his cup and adding cream and syrup. Two horizontal wrinkles furrowed themselves across her forehead and her eyes did not meet his.

"I said, 'How's Miss Jessica?' " an edge of sudden sharpness came to his voice. He knew the symptoms. She had heard his question perfectly, but after the immemorial manner of her kind she had to mull it over before bringing out a suitably noncommittal reply.

"She's tol'able, Ah reckon, suh."

"What d'ye mean ? She isn't ill, is she?"

"Naw, sub. Ain't nothin' happen to her, exzacly—" Her eyes sought the square of the window, seemed to search among the glowing embers on the hearth, finally came back to his, but showed hardly any expression.

"See here, Mammy," a sudden feeling of apprehension made his voice tremble, "you know Miss Jessica and I are to be married—"

"Yas, suh. Ah knows hit."

"Very well, then. If anything's gone wrong for her I have a right to know it. I must know if I'm to help her."

"She don' need no he'pin, Marse Howard."

"Well, then, what is it?" Exasperation made his words brittle.

"Well, suh, Marse Howard—" she was plainly embarrassed and just as plainly eager to avoid hurting him—"hit's dis yere way. Yuh know de Yankees come an' tuck de big house fo' dey haidquarters—"

"Took Laurelwood? No! When?"

"Erbout six months ergo, suh. Dey's still yere—"

"Good Lord!" He started up from the table, oversetting his chair. "Poor Jessie —if they've harmed her—"

"Dey ain't done her no hurt, suh. But—"

"Yes? But—" He could have shaken her in his impatience.

"Well, suh, Marse Howard, hit 'pears ter me lak she's bin mighty civil ter dem Yankee ossifers—"

"Good heavens, Mammy Ciss, how you scared me!" He set his chair upright and collapsed into it weakly. "Of course, she's civil to them. Miss Jessica is a lady and whatever they may tell you otherwise, there are Yankee gentlemen. You know I lived among 'em while I went to Harvard College."

"Yassuh?" She seemed unconvinced.

"Of course. But this is serious, this business of Laurelwood's being used for their headquarters. If they catch me they'll put me in prison, and—"

"Dey ain't gwine ter ketch yuh, honey chile. Yuh jes' res' easy. Mammy Ciss'll see yule gits erway."

"But Miss Jessica—I've come all the way from Petersburg to see her—"

"Datil be a'right, too, sugar. Ah'll run up to de big house an' tell her yuh's come home. She'll come a-runnin' when she hears dat. Den when yuh's through yo' co'tin' yuh kin steal erway—"

"You think of everything, don't you ?" he laughed. "But it's too early in the mornin' to wake her. Let her sleep a while, and"—he stifled a prodigious yawn—"let me get some sleep, too. I haven't had a peaceful nap in almost a week."

HE HAD been more exhausted than he realized, for when he woke with a start and glanced toward the window he saw the air was stained a lilac purple and the sky was a deep turquoise with a vein of tender amethyst run through it. Outside he heard the rhythmic rub of knuckles on a washboard, the splashing of soap suds and Mammy Ciss as she sang at her work:

Ah's gwine ter glory, gwine ter glory,

Ah's gwine ter glory,

Yas, mah Lawd!

"Mammy Ciss?"

"Yassuh, Marse Howard, honey ?"

"What're you doin'?"

"Washin' out yo' clo'se, sugar. Ah 'clare ter glory, dey wuz filthy as er polecat!"

"Bring my uniform at once, please."

"Cain't, honey-lamb. Hit's in de tub dis minit, an' presen'ly Ah aims ter gib hit eh good goin'-ober wif de sad-iron. Ah's mended hit an' fixed hit, but phew! hit cer'ainly wuz dirty. 'Pears ter me hit was so stiff hit would 'a' held yuh up if you'd fell down!"

Consternation seized him. "D'ye mean you've got all my clothes in the tub?"

"Nawsuh, Marse Howard, honey. Yo' shirt an' underclo'se is on de line now dryin', an' I snuk up to de big house an' got yuh er fresh change o' raiment. Marse Willie won't be needin’ em no mo' since they kilt him daid at Cedar Crick. Yuh jes' lay quiet er spell. Ah'll bring a tubful o' hot water fo yuh presen'ly an' yuh can wash yo'self all nice an' pritty fo' Miss Jessica when she conies ober from de big house."

"She's comin' here?"

"Yahhuh, coon's de sun hides her face. She cain't go gallivantin' off ter see yuh right under dem Yankee gen'lemen's noses in broad daylight."

It was pleasant to lie there between the coarse, clean sheets and watch the night come gently down as if a curtain of soft lavender were drawn across the sky, and in a little while a star or two peeked out from the dim vault of the heavens, and behind the purple-shadowed hills the moon rose, laying silver plating over everything.

Mammy Ciss lugged in a washtub with two pails of steaming water, with a plate of soft soap and a dishrag gourd for washcloth.

"Now yuh jes' make yo'self all sweet an' clean," she admonished, "an bime-by Miss Jessica'll be yere."

Half an hour later, rested, bathed and dressed in a fresh suit of homespun, he lounged outside the cabin door while Mammy busied herself with the intricate process of frying chicken in the spider. Instinctively he cast a planter's weather-wise eye at the sky. The rain had softened the ground well, and there would be a spell of fair, warm days if he were any judge. Ideal for getting in the seed. It only they could find the labor and stave Grant off until the crops were gathered they might retreat to the mountains and carry on guerrilla warfare till—

"Howard!" The hail came in the well-remembered, loved voice, and with a patter of small feet on the flagstones she came running to him through the scented darkness. Both her hands were lifted to him, and both of his reached out to hers.

"Oh, Jess, my dear—my dear!" he almost sobbed as his arms closed about her and he held her to him a long, trembling moment. He had borne the memory of her in his heart three years, half the time not realizing she was there, as much a part of him as the blood coursing in his veins, but even the precious memory had not done justice to this graceful, fragile woman with hair the color of ripe corn and eyes as blue as July skies.

She leaned against him for a moment with her face upturned and eyes closed, and a sudden chill, like that which comes into the air when wind-blown clouds obscure the sun, seemed spreading over his heart, for though she made no move to free herself lips were passive under his, and he might almost as well have held a lovely, lifeless statue in his arms.

HE PUT her from him gently, holding her by both shoulders and look-at her with hurt, puzzled eyes. "Jess, dear, what is it? You seem so strange, so cold. Don't you—" He could not complete the question, but continued gazing at her as a starving man might gaze at food. For the first time he noticed that the long dark cape above her white gown was blue lined with light yellow—a Yankee officer's cloak.

Once more her hands sought his, and when she looked at him it seemed that all feeling had gone from her eyes. "You mustn't stay here, Howard," she whispered.

"Of course, not, dear. Mammy Ciss has told me how they've squatted troops on you. If I were caught it would mean one less officer for Marse Robert, and he's needin' every able-bodied man. We're not through yet, Jess darling. The crops will be in presently, and if we can hold out till winter—"

"No, Howard no!" There was a dead finality in her tone. "It's no use; none whatever. Remember what you said the night you went away—that Lincoln had two men for every one of ours? That isn't half, or a third of it. He has three, five, a dozen soldiers to our one, and fresh recruits are coming in each day. The Southern cause is doomed, Howard, and when we've lost the war we'll be a crushed and ruined people. Even if they let us keep our land it will be worthless without slave labor there'll be no wealth, no happiness, no gracious living anywhere but in the North, and"—her voice faltered, stopped altogether, then went on tonelessly as that of an old woman—"and I am going there to live, Howard."

"But, Jess dear, this is our home, our country. Our fathers held it under Royal grant, defended it from red-skinned men of the woods, then from red-coated men of the King. Its very clay is stained with our best blood. We're part and parcel of this land, dearest. We can't leave it to founder, as they say the rats desert the sinking ship—"

"I didn't say that we were going, Howard. I said I am. There is a Yan —a Union officer, a Captain Amesbury—"

"Oha?" The exclamation came grittily from his throat.

"I know what you'd say, Howard, but it isn't so. He is a gentleman, as bred as you or I. His family helped to found Connecticut; they have amorial bearings old and honorable as ours—"

"Do you love him, Jessica?"

She ignored the question, hurried her defense. "They're wealthy, too. They've had everything that money buys for generations, and all that's come to them has had a chance to grow. They're rich and cultured—and secure."

"Do you love him, Jessica?" His low voice was insistent as accusing conscience.

"Oh, what difference does it make? I have my life to live, my future to consider. I've not been used to poverty. I couldn't scrimp and sew and bake and scrub like white trash. Won't you try to understand?"

"I think that I can understand without half trying," he answered levelly, but in his heart there was a dreadful, soundless cry, "Dear God, to think that I have worshipped such a poor thing all these years of bloody war!"

Her lips moved soundlessly, groping desperately for words. "You hate me, don't you, Howard?"

"Hate you? No. One can't hate what he's loved so long, so dearly—" His voice did not quite break, but it came out of his throat without any tone.

"Oh, please, please try not to be so bitter! Some day, perhaps, you'll understand, and—Oh!" The exclamation was half sob of dismay, half involuntary cry of terror, and she turned from him with a swirl of drapery, running up the path that led to the big house.

She vanished in the shrouding shrubbery, running soundlessly as a pursued cat, and involuntarily he followed. "Jessica!" he had to make one last effort, have one final word. "Jessica—"

"Who goes there? Halt, or I'll fire!" Moonlight glinting on a carbine barrel and the buttons of a cavalryman's blouse. Heart-sickening realization came to Howard as he raised his hands. She must have seen the soldier coming as she looked across his shoulder, seen and run away without warning him.

THE Yankee colonel cleared his throat. He was a chunky, short man with iron-gray hair, thick-fingered, heavy-shouldered, a little puffy at the waist, a little tired-looking about the eyes, with a square-cut, stolid face that seemed woven, vaguely unhuman, yet instinct with power and ruthlessness. "Captain Derricote, the court finds you guilty of the specification of being out of uniform and in our lines. Therefore, under the articles of war and rules of military law, you are adjudged a spy. Have you anything to say why sentence should not be passed on you?"

"Speak up, man, this is your last chance. It's suicide to keep silent!" his counsel urged in a fierce whisper, but Howard looked at him with a bleak smile and stared back levelly at the colonel.

"Nothing, sir."

"Then it is the sentence of this court-martial that at sunrise tomorrow, April 7, 1865, you be shot to death by musketry, and may God have mercy on your soul."

That had been at ten o'clock last night, and even though he had no watch he had been able to keep track of time by changes of the guard. The sentry standing before the springhouse where they had confined him had been changed three times, that would mean six hours gone; he had at most two more before they—He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Why didn't they get it over?

His world had gone to pieces under him, despair engulfed him like a choking, strangling cloud of poison vapor. Anticipating his defense they had put Jessica upon the witness stand, and, "Miss Skipwell, do you recognize the prisoner?" asked the judge advocate.

Her face had the smooth, even tone of ivory in the glow, of the astral lamps as she looked at him with eyes that were the eyes of a stranger. "I never saw him before."

When his counsel would have cross-examined he forbade it. What was the use? if she could swear his life away so heartlessly, what was the use? Misery of flesh and spirit flooded through him, and the eyes he turned on her were terrible in their fixed stare, but she would not meet his gaze.

Old Mammy Ciss had told a true, straightforward story, but when her testimony was completed the judge advocate advanced on her, Howard's wallet in his hand. "This was found in your house. Do you recognize it?"

"'Course, Ah does. Hit's Marse Howard's pocketbook."

He opened the wallet, counted out a dozen fifty-dollar bills of the Confederacy. "I invite the court's attention to this currency," he laid the bills on the table, spreading them out fanwise. "The witness could not be expected to know that it is worthless; it must have seemed a fortune to her, and I submit that for a much less sum she could have been induced to swear to anything."

"The court takes notice of the currency and of the circumstances in which it was found," the colonel ruled.

Between the prejudice of the court-martial and Jessica's perjury his defense had been crushed to dust.

A KEY grated in the lock, and "May I come in?" the pleasant, cultured voice of his counsel asked.

"Of course," Howard rose from the cot on which he had not slept and took the Yankee's proffered hand. "But please don't ask me to make a plea for clemency—“

"To old Dutcher? No fear! Persephone would have a better chance of wheedling Pluto into giving her a latchkey. I've brought you some segars and whiskey to help pass the time. We haven't a chaplain on the post, but"—his face flushed with embarrassment as he tugged at the pocket of his military frock coat—"I've brought along a Prayer Book. Thought you might like to read it while you're waiting—"

"Thanks." Howard took the proffered gifts and laid them on the table. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Captain." By the irony of fate they had assigned him this young man for counsel, Captain Prescott Amesbury, the man Jessica was to marry, and despite everything he had liked him instantly. Fair and tall, lean, long-jawed, he was; true Norman-English ancestry was marked in his features, his gray eyes had a look of frank candor and his cheeks the high color of one bred in a land of cold mists and snows. The unaffected gentility of his voice and manner proclaimed him as much a product of the best the North could offer as Howard was of Southern aristocracy. In happier circumstances these men could have been firm friends.

His voice was casual and friendly, not demanding an answer, merely inviting one. "You were born near here, Captain?"

"Not far away?"

"Know the country round about quite intimately?"

"Fairly."

"It's odd you didn't know the Skipwell family. I should have thought that neighbors would have been friends."

Howard shook his head. "You heard the testimony, Captain. The court-martial believed it; you might as well."

The other gave a relieved sigh.

"Thanks, Captain. The young lady of the house, Miss Skipwell, might be gravely embarrassed if the old colored woman's testimony were accepted. I don't think Colonel Dutcher would hesitate a moment to have her shot merely because she happens to be a woman."

"If you don't mind, Captain"—how Howard kept his voice steady he had no idea, but somehow he contrived it—"I'd like to be alone until—"

"Of course," the other rose, held out his hand. "I'm sorry, Captain Derricote, genuinely sorry. Our country will have need of men like you when the war's over. It's a pity, a great pity, but—c' est la guerre, as the French say."

HOWARD picked the Prayer Book up and thumbed through it. ". . . for I have eaten ashes as it were bread and mingled my drink with weeping. . ." Amen to that. Bread turned to ashes, everything that he had loved and trusted proven false, his country on the verge of defeat, the woman he had worshipped a traitress and jill-flirt ready to deny her country and contract a loveless marriage that her way of life might be continued, ready to deny she'd ever known him lest she be involved ...

Once more the key grated in the lock and the door swung open to reveal a young man in the uniform of a lieutenant of cavalry. He was little more than a boy and his cheeks were almost grey in the light of the lantern held by the sentry. For a moment he stood irresolute, then brought his hand up to the brim of his slouch hat. "Are you ready, Captain Derricote?" he asked, and it seemed to Howard that his lips fumbled for the words.

"Quite ready, Lieutenant," Howard laid the Prayer Book down. Somehow, he felt a boundless pity for this youngster. For him it would be over in a little while, the other had to live with it as long as he breathed.

The sky was still dark, but the beginning light gave promise of an immaculate dawn as they marched toward the stone fence bordering the barnyard.

Two squads of cavalrymen were drawn up facing each other, leaving a narrow lane between. At the far end of this aisle there showed an ominous square of blank stone wall, and as Howard and his escort marched between the double ranks an order came sharply: "Present arms!” and the troopers' carbines snapped to salute.

"No blindfold, if you please, Lieutenant," Howard asked. "I've looked into gun muzzles too often to be frightened of 'em—"

"Just as you please, Captain," the young man agreed. His teeth were almost chattering and he could hardly control his voice. "Excuse me, this is necessary." From his pocket he drew out a square of paper about the size of a playing card and fastened it with a pin to Howard's coat over the left breast.

Howard leaned against the stone Ivan and closed his eyes more in weariness than to shut out the sight of the eight men standing at attention ten paces away. Two years—even two days—ago he would have rebelled. Now nothing seemed to matter. Defeat was had enough, but Jessica—his jaw hardened and his muscles tightened. Might she know the misery that was his, might she see her world—the world for which she'd betrayed love and loyalty—break in pieces as his had—

The volley struck him with the impact of a knotted fist. The bullets didn't hurt.

They knocked the wind out of him, made him feel dizzy—numb.

He trembled for a moment like a man beset with chill, leaned slightly forward, then sank slowly as the stiffening went from his knees. He fell face-forward on the ground and lay there quivering, not with pain, but in the final reflex of the body as the soul takes its departure. The young lieutenant who commanded the firing squad ran forward, cocked revolver in hand. He checked his step before the pool of blood that widened on the ground, pressing his lips together and averting his eyes. The prisoner was still breathing and his body twitched spasmodically. The youngster pressed the muzzle of his Colt against the prone man's temple, pulled the trigger. The head lifted to the shock of the bullet, then fell back. The body contracted with a final shudder and lay still.

JESSICA knelt by her window watching the light pale in the east. She had not slept. All night she'd paced her bedroom floor, knelt by the window when tired muscles screamed for rest, then risen to resume her pacing. In her nightrobe of sheer linen she was like a sheeted specter, for her face was almost pale as the white garment and the blood seemed to have retreated from her lips, leaving them without a trace of color. Flesh and spirit, faith and unfaith, wrestled in her, and the flesh and unfaith won. A dozen times she went as far as the door, intent on going to the colonel and telling him the truth. Each time she paused with her hand on the knob. Suppose the colonel refused to believe her? Suppose he should decide that she, too, was a spy? They'd put her in prison—maybe shoot her as they were going to shoot Howard— She shrank from the thought as from a hot iron thrust at her face. She could not—dared not—take the risk. Howard was a soldier. Soldiers ran the risk of death as part of their duty, but she . . .

A dawn breeze came across the fields like a spirit walking, and in the east the first rays of the sun came over the hills like a battalion of slim gilded lances. From the barnyard she heard a voice, brittle as an icicle: "Squad forward—front rank kneel—ready—aim—fire!"

The silence was split by a shot, then like the crackling of a clap of summer thunder came a ragged volley that ripped the air as if it had been dry paper, and a moment later the dull report of a pistol like the popping of a champagne cork.

Her hands clutched at the sill, but there was no strength in her fingers and she slipped down to the floor and lay there quietly as that which had been Howard Derricote lay in the barnyard. A blue jay, startled by the shooting, gave a raucous caw: ka-a-a-a-a-t! ka-a-a-a-a-t! and in the pine copse beyond the meadow a mocking bird mimicked the cry, then burst into a flood of song.

NO ONE paid attention to the aged Negress hobbling round the place of execution later in the morning—no one but Jack-Ambrose, butler and factoum of the big house, who had chosen to remain and wait upon the Yankee officers. As he saw Mammy Ciss delve in the soft mortar of the barn wall and extract a flattened carbine bullet, then scrape a little blood-stained earth from the barnyard, Jack-Ambrose thrust his knuckles hard against his mouth, and his cafe noir complexion paled to a cafe au kit. "Lawdy-Gawdy !" he murmured. "Ol’ Mammy Ciss sure fixin' to wuck hoodoo on sumbuddy ! Pow'ful strong hoodoo; too; bullet dat done kilt er man an' dirt all wet wif daid man's blood. Oh, Lawd, Ah hopes t'ain't me she's fixin' ter hoodoo!"

Jack-Ambrose might have spared himself incipient nervous prostration, for Mammy Ciss had no thought of him. All afternoon she pottered round her herb garden, toward evening she made a trip to the woods. That night, although the April air was balmy, a great fire blazed on her "herth" and candlelight came from her windows till the stars paled with the coming of the new day.

She had killed a "toad-frawg," smeared its little corpse with syrup and laid it on an ant hill. When the little skeleton, looking gruesomely human, had been quite denuded of its flesh she dried it on the hearth until it was as brittle as a bit of chalk, then pounded it to powder in a mortar, mixing ashes of henbane, the scorched leaves of pipissewa and dried root of the dragon's-blood plant with the bones. When all had been reduced to a fine powder she took the cover from a Dutch oven in which the body of a water moccasin had been baking to a state of brittleness and added the snake ashes to the mixture. Last of all she dropped in dried sweet lavender, desiccated rose petals and the leaves of clove-pinks and added oil of lemon grass and powdered orris root. When scrapings from the bullet she had salvaged from the barn wall and a pinch of blood-soaked earth from the barnyard had been added the compound was complete.

It had a pleasant, rather spicy odor and looked a bit like white corn meal as she measured it into four little pyramids and wrapped each small cone in a heart-shaped bag of clean white cotton.

"One," she pronounced as she touched the first sack, "is fo' rememberin', an' two's fo' wishin' yuh could change hit; three's fo' knowin' dat yuh cain't, and fo's fo' knowin' dat hit t'ain't no use." She tucked the little bags into the pocket of her apron and set out for the big house.

Jessica lay in the big tester bed, her bead pillowed on one arm. About her face her bronze hair loosened, lay in a warm, sensuous cloud, her lips were lightly parted and on the crescents of dark lashes that curved against her cheeks there glistened little jewel-like drops of tears. She stirred a little, whimpering like a child who suffers a bad dream, as Mammy Ciss crept into the bedroom, but in a moment she lay quiet and the old woman moved forward from the door. A draft of air would have made more noise on the polished floor than she as she crossed to the linen press and drew its drawers open. One by one she laid the little bags of hoodoo powder on the dainty, fragile lingerie that had been made in French convents in days before the war, drawing folds of linen and soft cotton over them.

There was no telltale click as she let herself from the chamber, no board creaked under her as she crept down the stairs; no one saw her as she crossed the fields to her cabin. No one but Jack-Ambrose, who, rising early from dream-troubled sleep, looked from the dormer window of his attic room. "Oh, Lawdy," he whispered fearfully, "Ol' Mammy Ciss done bin in de big house. Ah sho'- nuff hopes she ain't been fixin' ter put no hoodoo on me!"

FOR almost an hour carriages had been coming to St. John's-in-the-Fields.

Varick Place was lined with elegant equipages from fashionable Second Avenue, Bleecher Street and Lafayette Place, the lovely little church that faced on St. John's Park was full almost to overflowing, and still the guests kept coming.

"Who is the bride? Do you know her?" asked Mrs. Schuyler Van Riper behind a discreetly raised fan. "I've heard she was a school ma'am—"

"She taught French in Miss Holdrup's Academy in East Broadway," corrected Mrs. Tandy Nostrand. "I've met her. She's quite charming. Member of an old Virginian family that lost everything in the war, you know. Of course, she isn't wealthy, but she has blood and breeding, and goodness knows Pres Amesbury has plenty for them both with his fine law practice and his father's money—"

"S-s-sh!” interrupted Mrs. Van Riper, for the organ had begun to play and the choir was singing.

The voice that breathed o'er Eden

that earliest wedding day,

The primal marriage blessing,

It hath not passed away. . . .

Jessica came up the aisle slowly, her eyes demurely downcast underneath her veil, a little smile upon her lips, a slight flush on her cheeks as she heard whispered comments of the women in the pews: "What a lovely gown! . . . Such exquisite taste!" and the frankly spoken verdict of a major of artillery who viewed her through his eyeglass as if she were a filly on display at the Horse Show. "By George, she's captivatin'!"

Prescott met her at the chancel steps, and with her white-gloved fingers resting lightly in the crook of his left elbow they went up into the choir where the rector waited for them. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God and in the face of this company. . . ." In a few minutes she would be Mrs. Prescott Amesbury, all her poverty and insecurity behind her, safe, sure of the future. . . .

Prescott had made his vows, now the rector prompted her: "I, Jessica, take thee, Prescott . . . from this way forward. . . ." Something seemed the matter with her throat, she couldn't make the words come out.

“From this day forward," repeated the rector, a tolerant little smile on his smooth face. He had seen more than one bride become dumb at the crucial moment. "From this day forward. . . ."

The words seemed echoing and reverberating, like a shout in a tunnel "Forward—forward—forward. . . ."

The candles on the altar swayed and reeled. There were eight of them, three each side of the cross, one at each end of the table. Now they seemed to lean to the right, slanting precisely, like muskets on the shoulders of a squad of marching men. Dimly, confusedly, she heard the clergyman: "From this day forward. ..."

But the phrase did not ring true. What had he said? Not "From this day forward," but, "Squad forward!"

The candles seemed to wheel and swing in line, to incline till they pointed straight at her.

Candles? Dear God, no! She faced a double row of leveled carbines, and their muzzles converged on her heart.

"No—no!" she screamed and tried to hide behind the startled man who stood at her side. "Oh, no!"

Implacably the order came, "Aim—fire!"

A dreadful pain ripped through her bosom and she felt herself go stiff in a swift spasm, then suddenly an awful weakness flooded through her. Her bouquet of white roses and lilies-of-the-valley fell with a little thud to the red carpet of the chancel. She was still on her feet, but she had no idea how she kept on them. The floor seemed very far away, as if she looked at it from the top of a tall tower, and she knew that in a moment she would crash down to it, falling, falling from a dizzy height. But she would not feel it when she struck. She would never feel anything again. . . ."

DR. THIEBAULT downed his mug of porter and stared combatively at Drs. Swan and Essary. "I know it's utterly impossible," he agreed, "but just the same, it's so. I saw it myself, and all my class will back me up. I tell you—"

"What's the argument ?" demanded Dr. Matsell as he came through the swinging doors, dropped into the vacant seat beside Essary and pounded on the marble table-top with a quarter to attract the waiter's attention. "Old Thiebault tellin' one of his fairy tales?"

"It's so!" Thiebault shot back hotly. "Damnedest thing I ever saw—"

"What was it?" Matsell blew the foam from his schooner and took a Brobdingnagian draught of porter. "Don't keep me waitin', man ! The suspense is killin' me.”

Thiebault leaned forward, tapping him upon the arm for emphasis. "I had to dissect the heart for my boys at the college today. The stiff was a lovely one, not a blemish on it. Young female, 'bout twenty-two or three, I'd judge, and fresh as a daisy. They must have stolen her from the graveyard the night after her burial. Isaacson had opened up the thorax for his class, so all I had to do was lift the heart out.

"It seemed to me it weighed more than it should, for there was no sign of enlargement, but when I'd laid the pericardium aside and made a section of the organ I saw the reason. There were four bullets in it, one in each ventricle and auricle."

"And no wound in the pericardium?"

"Not so much as a scratch. That's the uncanny part of it. Last year when I was servin' as surgeon of the 18th, they shot a feller for a spy down in Virginia. Only execution I ever witnessed. It took place on a plantation known as Laurelwood, just two days before Lee's surrender. Poor feller, if they'd caught him forty-eight hours later he'd 'a' gone Scot-free. Pres Amesbury acted as his counsel, and did all he could to get him off, but—"

"Never mind the history," Dr. Mat-sell interrupted. "You were tellin' us about this cadaver you worked on today—"

"Precisely. They let me make an autopsy of the executed spy that day. The position of the bullets I found in him was almost exactly like that of those I found in that woman's heart this morning. But, of course, there were gunshot wounds in the poor chap's chest and pericardium. The bullets in this woman's heart had no excuse for bein' there. There was no possible physical way they could have lodged in her heart without rippin' her chest to ribbons and puncturin' the heart-sac, but—make anything you want to of it!—there they were. I haven't any more idea than you how they got there, but one thing I'm sure of. Death must have been instantaneous."