“Oh, thank you, thank you!” She clapped her hands together, mockingly.

“Before now, women less beautiful than you have robbed men of their reason, have led them to do things fatal as open treason to their country.  These men were older than you or I. Perhaps, as you will agree, they were better able to weigh the consequences.  You are younger than they, younger than I, myself; but you are charming—­and you are young.  Call it cruel of me, if you like, to take you by the hand and lead you gently away from that sort of danger for just a few days.  Call me jailer, if you like.  None the less it is my duty, and I shall call it in part a kindness to you to take you away from scenes which might on both sides be dangerous.  Some of the oldest and best minds of this country have felt—­”

“At least those minds were shrewd in choosing their agent,” she rejoined.  “Yes; you are fanatic, that is plain.  You will obey orders.  And you have not been much used to women.  That makes it harder for me.  Or easier!” She smiled at him again, very blithe for a prisoner.

“It ought to have been held down to that,” he began disconsolately, “I should have been all along professional only.  It began well when you gave me your parole, so that I need not sit nodding and blinking, over against you also nodding and blinking all night long.  Had you been silly, as many women would have been, you could not this morning be so fresh and brilliant—­even though you tell me you have not slept, which seems to me incredible.  I myself slept like a boy, confident in your word.  Now, you have banished sleep!  Nodding and blinking, I must henceforth watch you, nodding—­and blinking, unhappy, uncomfortable; whereas, were it in my power, I would never have you know the first atom of discomfort.”

“There, there!  I am but an amanuensis, my dear Captain Carlisle.”

He colored almost painfully, but showed his own courage.  “I only admire the wisdom of the Vehmgerichte.  They knew you were dangerous, and I know it.  I have no hope, should I become too much oppressed by lack of sleep, except to follow instructions, and cast you overboard somewhere below Kentucky!”

“You ask me not to attempt any escape?”

“Yes.”

“Why, I would agree to as much as that.  It is, as you say, a matter of indifference to me whether I leave the boat at Cairo or at some point farther westward.  Of course I would return to Washington as soon as I escaped from bondage.”

“Excellent, Madam!  Now, please add that you will not attempt to communicate with any person on the boat or on shore.”

“No; that I will not agree to as a condition.”

“Then still you leave it very hard for me.”

She only smiled at him again, her slow, deliberate smile; yet there was in it no trace of hardness or sarcasm.  Keen as her mind assuredly was, as she smiled she seemed even younger, perhaps four or five and twenty at most.  With those little dimples now rippling frankly into view at the corners of her mouth, she was almost girlish in her expression, although the dark eyes above, long-lashed, eloquent, able to speak a thousand tongues into shame, showed better than the small curving lips the well-poised woman of the world.