“It is true also, is it not,” continued Beauregard, “that General Grant has gone or is going tonight to Savannah to meet General Buell, and confer with him about a speedy advance upon our army at Corinth?”

Dick clenched his teeth harder than ever, and a spasm passed over his face.  He was conscious that six pairs of eyes, keen and intent, ready to note the slightest change of countenance and to read a meaning into it, were bent upon him.  It was only by a supreme effort that he remained master of himself, but after the single spasm his countenance remained unmoved.

“You do not choose to answer,” said Bragg, always a stern and ruthless man, “but we can drag what you know from you.”

“I am a prisoner of war,” replied Dick steadily.  “I was taken in full uniform.  I am no spy, and you cannot ill treat me.”

“I do not mean that we would inflict any physical suffering upon you,” said Bragg.  “The Confederacy does not, and will never resort to such methods.  But you are only a boy.  We can question you here, until, through very weakness of spirit, you will be glad to tell us all you know about Buell’s or any other Northern force.”

“Try me, and see,” said Dick proudly.

The blue eye of the silent Johnston flickered for an instant.

“But it is true,” said Beauregard, resuming his role of cross-examiner, “that your army, considering itself secure, has not fortified against us?  It has dug no trenches, built no earthworks, thrown up no abatis!”

The boy stood silent with folded arms, and Colonel George Kenton, standing on one side, threw his nephew a glance of sympathy, tinged with admiration.

“Still you do not answer,” continued Beauregard, and now a strong note of irony appeared in his tone, “but perhaps it is just as well.  You do your duty to your own army, and we miss nothing.  You cannot tell us anything that we do not know already.  Whatever you may know we know more.  We know tonight the condition of General Grant’s army better than General Grant himself does.  We know how General Buell and his army stand better than General Buell himself does.  We know the position of your brigades and the missing links between them better than your own brigade commanders do.”

The eyes of the Louisianian flashed, his swarthy face swelled and his shoulders twitched.  The French blood was strong within him.  Just so might some general of Napoleon, some general from the Midi, have shown his emotion on the eve of battle, an emotion which did not detract from courage and resolution.  But the Puritan general, Johnston, raised a deprecatory hand.

“It is enough, General Beauregard,” he said.  “The young prisoner will tell us nothing.  That is evident.  As he sees his duty he does it, and I wish that our young men when they are taken may behave as well.  Mr. Mason, you are excused.  You remain in the custody of your uncle, but I warn you that there is none who will guard better against the remotest possibility of your escape.”