XXVII
HARD GOING, UP STREAM
Very pleasant it was to stand thus on the tremulous deck of the swiftestcraft in the whole Confederate service. Pleasant to see on either handthe flat landscape with all its signs of safety and plenty; its orangegroves, its greening fields of young sugar-cane, its pillared andmagnolia-shaded plantation houses, its white lines of slave cabins inrows of banana trees, and its wide wet plains swarming with wild birds;pleasant to see it swing slowly, majestically back and melt into askyline as low and level as the ocean's.
Anna and Kincaid went inside to see the upper and more shining portionsof the boat's beautiful machinery. No one had yet made rods, cranks, andgauge-dials sing anthems; but she knew it was Hilary and an artisan ortwo in his foundry whose audacity in the remaking of these gliding,plunging, turning, vanishing, and returning members had given them theirfine new speed-making power, and as he stood at her side and pointedfrom part to part they took on a living charm that was reflected intohim. Pleasant it was, also, to hear two or three droll tales about hisbattery boys; the personal traits, propensities, and soldierly value ofmany named by name, and the composite character and temper thatdistinguished the battery as a command; this specific quality of eachparticular organic unit, fighting body, among their troops being asneedful for commanders to know as what to count on in the individualman. So explained the artillerist while the pair idled back to the opendeck. With hidden vividness Anna liked the topic. Had not she a right,the right of a silent partner? A secret joy of the bond settled on herlike dew on the marshes, as she stood at his side.
Hilary loved the theme. The lives of those boys were in his hands; attimes to be hoarded, at times to be spent, in sudden awful junctures tobe furiously squandered. He did not say this, but the thought was inboth of them and drew them closer, though neither moved. The boatrounded to, her engines stopped, an officer came aboard from a skiff,and now she was under way again and speeding up stream on her return,but Hilary and Anna barely knew it. He began to talk of the boys'sweethearts. Of many of their tender affairs he was confidentiallyinformed. Yes, to be frank, he confessed he had prompted some fellows tolet their hearts lead them, and to pitch in and win while--
"Oh! certainly!" murmured Anna in compassion, "some of them."
"Yes," said their captain, "but they are chaps--like Charlie--whosehearts won't keep unless they're salted down and barrelled, and I givethe advice not in the sweethearts' interest but--"
"Why not? Why shouldn't a--" The word hung back.
"A lover?"
"Yes. Why shouldn't he confess himself in _her_ interest? That needn'tpledge her."
"Oh! do you think that would be fair?"
"Perfectly!"
"Well, now--take an actual case. Do you think the mere fact that Adolphetruly and stick-to-it-ively loves Miss Flora gives her a right to knowit?"
"I do, and to know it a long, long time before he can have any right toknow whether--"
"Hum! while he goes where glory waits him--?"
"Yes."
"And lets time--?"
"Yes."
"And absence and distance and rumor try his unsupported constancy?"
"Yes."
With tight lips the soldier drew breath. "You know my uncle expects nowto be sent to Virginia at once?"
"Yes."
"Adolphe, of course, goes with him."
"Yes."
"Yet you think--the great principle of so-much-for-so-much to thecontrary notwithstanding--he really owes it to her to--"
Anna moved a step forward. She was thinking what a sweet babe she was,thus to accept the surface of things. How did she know that thislaughing, light-spoken gallant, seemingly so open and artless--oh! moreinfantile than her very self!--was not deep and complex? Or that it wasnot _he_ and Flora on whose case she was being lured to speculate? Theboat, of whose large breathings and pulsings she became growingly aware,offered no reply. Presently from the right shore, off before them, camea strain of band music out of Camp Callender.
"Anna."
"What hosts of stars!" said she. "How hoveringly they follow us."
The lover waited. The ship seemed to breathe deeper--to glide faster. Hespoke again: "May I tell you a secret?"
"Doesn't the boat appear to you to tremble more than ever?" was the soleresponse.
"Yes, she's running up-stream. So am I. Anna, we're off this time--sureshot--with the General--to Virginia. The boys don't know it yet,but--listen."
Over in the unseen camp the strain was once more--
"I'd offer thee this hand of mine--"
"We're turning in to be landed, are we not?" asked Anna as the starsbegan to wheel.
"Yes. Do you really believe, Anna, that that song is not the true wordfor a true lover and true soldier, like Adolphe, for instance--to say tohimself, of course, not to _her_?"
"Oh, Captain Kincaid, what does it matter?"
"Worlds to me. Anna, if I should turn that song into a solemn avowal--toyou--"
"Please don't!--Oh, I mean--I don't mean--I--I mean--"
"Ah, I know your meaning. But if I love you, profoundly, abidingly,consumingly--as I do, Anna Callender, as I do!--and am glad to pledge mysoul to you knowing perfectly that you have nothing to confess to me--"
"Oh, don't, Captain Kincaid, don't! You are not fair to me. You make meappear--oh--we were speaking only of your cousin's special case. I don'twant your confession. I'm not ready for--for anybody's! You mustn't makeit! You--you--"
"It's made, Anna Callender, and it makes me fair to you at last."
"Oh-h-h!"
"I know that matters little to you--"
"Oh, but you're farther from fair than ever, Captain Kincaid; you got myword for one thing and have used it for another!" She turned and theytardily followed their friends, bound for the gangway. A torch-basket ofpine-knots blazing under the bow covered flood and land with crimsonlight and inky shadows. The engines had stopped. The boat swept theshore. A single stage-plank lay thrust half out from her forwardquarter. A sailor stood on its free end with a coil of small line. Thecrouching earthwork and its fierce guns glided toward them. Knots ofidle cannoneers stood along its crest. A few came down to the water'sedge, to whom Anna and Hilary, still paired alone, were a compellingsight. They lifted their smart red caps. Charlie ventured a query: "It'strue, Captain, isn't it, that Virginia's out?"
"I've not seen her," was the solemn reply, and his comrades tittered.
"Yes!" called Constance and Miranda, "she's out!"
"Miss Anna," murmured Hilary with a meekness it would have avengedCharlie to hear, "I've only given you the right you claim for everywoman."
"Oh, Captain Kincaid, I didn't say every woman! I took particular--I--Imean I--"
"If it's any one's right it's yours."
"I don't want it!--I mean--I mean--"
"You mean, do you not? that I've no right to say what can only distressyou."
"Do _you_ think you have?--Oh, Lieutenant, it's been a perfectly lovelytrip! I don't know when the stars have seemed so bright!"
"They're not like us dull men, Miss Callender," was the sailor's unluckyreply, "they can rise to any occasion a lady can make."
"Ladies don't _make_ occasions, Lieutenant."
"Oh, don't they!" laughed the sea-dog to Hilary. But duty called. "No,no, Miss Val--! Don't try that plank alone! Captain Kincaid, will yougive--? That's right, sir.... Now, Captain Irby, you and MissCallender--steady!"
Seventh and last went the frail old lady, led by Kincaid. She would havenone other. She kept his arm with definite design while all seven wavedthe departing vessel good-by. Then for the walk to the house she sharedIrby with Anna and gave Flora to Hilary, with Miranda and Constance infront outmanoeuvred by a sleight of hand so fleeting and affable thateven you or I would not have seen it.