“Here, you!  You stop that,” she cried angrily at the astonished troopers, who caught up their carbines at the sound of feet. “How dare you!”

There was a moment of surprise and then the four broke out in guffaws of laughter.

“Well, hang me if it isn’t the little girl we saw this morning,” shouted Dudley, without, however, stopping the torture of the defenseless Susan Jemima.  “Where did you drop from?”

“Ne’m min’ where I dropped from,” commanded the wrathful Virgie with her dark eyes like twin stars of hate.  “You’re the meanest old thing I ever saw. Give me back my baby!”

Back in the trees a little way a man was watching with a heavy heart.  He knew only too well what was to come.  No matter what the final outcome might be when he showed his safe-guard to his own army’s lines there would be a delay and searching questions and more of the old insults which always made his blood boil—­which always made the increasing burden of despair still harder to bear.  But there was no use in putting off the trial—­Virgie had slipped away in spite of every whispered remonstrance and now that she was there in the center of that group of guffawing Yankees, there, too, was the only place for him.  And so, he stepped out swiftly and faced the enemy.

“Hah!” shouted Dudley, looking up at the sound of branches crackling underfoot.  “A Johnnie Reb, eh—­walking right into camp!  That’s right, Harry, keep him covered.”

He looked Cary over from head to foot with a sneer at his tattered uniform.

“Well, sir,” he asked, “who are you?”

“A Confederate officer,” was the quiet reply, “acting as escort for this child.  We are on our way to Richmond.”

Cary’s hand went into the breast of his coat and he drew out a folded paper.

“Here is my authority for entering your lines—­a pass signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison.”

At the sound of the name Corporal Dudley started and quickly took the paper.  But before he opened it he gave Cary a keen look which, to the Confederate officer, did not bode well for the prospect of immediate release.  It seemed as if the man’s sharp wits had suddenly seized on something which he could profitably turn to his own account.

With his back turned on Cary and Virgie the Corporal unfolded the pass and studied it carefully, while the troopers gathered behind him and tried to read its contents over his shoulder.

“Pwhat does it say?” asked the young Irishman, Harry O’Connell, who had covered Cary with his carbine. “’Tis a precious bit of paper, bedad—­if it passes him through me.”

“It says:  ’Pass Virginia Cary and escort through all Federal lines, and assist them as far as possible in reaching Richmond,’” read the Corporal.

Deep in thought he turned the paper over and studied the name on the back.  At the sight of the signature there his mouth fell open and he uttered a shout of surprise.  His eyes brightened and he stepped back from the group and threw up his head with a look of triumph on his dark face.  He struck the paper a slap with the back of his hand.