“Shut the door—­quick!” She obeyed in silence.  “Lock it!” She turned the rusty key, and waited.  “Now the windows!  Hurry, but do it quietly.”

She closed the clumsy shutters and set the heavy bars into their slots; then the man came forward, knelt down before her and took her hands.

“Listen, Virginia,” he whispered earnestly; “don’t you remember how your dear, dear mother—­and I, too, darling—­always told you never to tell a lie?”

“An’ I haven’t, Daddy-man,” she protested, wondering. “‘Deed, an’ ’deed, I haven’t.  Why—­”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he interrupted hurriedly; “but now—­you must!” As the child stepped backward and tried to draw away, he clasped her hands more tightly still.  “But listen, dear; it’s to save me!  Don’t you understand?—­and it’s right!  When those men come, they mustn’t find me.  Say I was here, but I’ve gone.  If they ask which way, tell them I went down past the spring—­through the blackberry patch.  Do you understand?—­and can you remember?” She nodded gravely, and the Southerner folded her tightly in his arms.  “Be a brave little rebel, honey—­for me!”

He released her and began to mount the ladder leading to the scuttle in the ceiling; but halfway up he paused, as Virgie checked him with a solemn question: 

“Daddy—­would Gen’ral Lee want me to tell that lie?”

“Yes, dear,” he answered slowly, thoughtfully; “this once!  And, if ever you see him, ask him, and he’ll tell you so himself.  God help you, darling; it’s for General Lee—­and you!”

The littlest rebel sighed, as though a weight had been lifted from her mind, and she cocked her head at the sound of louder hoof-beats on the carriage road.

“All right, Daddy-man.  I’ll tell—­a whopper!”

CHAPTER V

The man crawled up through the scuttle hole and disappeared; then drew the ladder after him and closed the trap, while Virgie tiptoed to the table and slipped into a seat.

The cabin was now in semi-darkness, except for a shaft of sunlight entering through the jagged wound from the cannon-shot above the door; and it fell on the quaint, brown head of little Miss Virginia Cary, and the placid form of Susan Jemima, perching opposite, in serene contempt of the coming of a conquering host.

The jingling clank of sabers grew louder to the listeners’ ears, through the rumble of pounding hoofs; a bugle’s note came winnowing across the fields, and Virgie leaned forward with a confidential whisper to her doll: 

“Susan Jemima, I wouldn’t tell anybody else—­no, not for anything—­but I cert’n’y am awful scared!”

There came a scurrying rush, a command to halt, and a rustling, scraping noise of dismounting men; a pause, and the sharp, loud rap of a saber hilt against the door.  Virgie breathed hard, but made no answer.