"But I don't care to practice my art on you, remember! Good bye!"

The words were spoken in the gangway as the handsome Sergeant pa.s.sed out, and--though it is by no means certain,--something very like the sound of a kiss followed close upon them.

"Good bye!"

Ah, how many times the words are uttered on the border of shadows that shall pall loving hearts. It is well that good-byes can be said in happy ignorance of the morrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote Y: Appendix, Note A.]

CHAPTER IX.

NIGHT WATCHES.

The four Brownie maidens were once more together in their own quarters.

There was little said for a long time. The meeting between Sophia and her lover had awakened tender and anxious thoughts in the hearts of all.

Agatha was following in imagination the agile form of Lieutenant MacWhirlie, as he went the grand rounds of his pickets. The thoughts of Faith were with Adjutant Blythe who, somewhere in camp or field, served at the Captain's side, his faithful squire and counsellor. Grace's musings were of the gallant and stalwart Ensign of the Corps, Sergeant Lawe.

It would be too much to say that the Nurses had no anxiety about the safety of their lovers. But then, they had been bred in the midst of war's alarms. They knew that their fathers, kindred, and friends were brave, experienced, skillful, and devoted to one another. They had learned to regard war risks as matters of ordinary life and business, and were rarely troubled about them. There was special reason why they should be even more light hearted than usual that night. Yet, so strangely run the currents of one's thoughts, that these maidens were all sad.

There was some reason, indeed, why Agatha and Faith should feel thus, for the old saying fell true in their case about the course of true love not running smooth. Captain Bruce refused consent to the marriage of Agatha and MacWhirlie. The two had waited long, patiently, devotedly; yes, and hopefully, although they had often known that "hope deferred"

which "maketh the heart sick." Every one thought the Captain's conduct strange. But he never gave any reason, except that Agatha was too grave, and MacWhirlie too gay for a well balanced marriage. As obedience to parents is one of the unchanging laws of Brownieland, no one could oppose.

Now, it so happened that Commodore Rodney had taken up a like notion concerning his daughter and Adjutant Blythe. "Blythe is too jovial, and Faith is too serious," said the Commodore. "They could never sail smoothly in the same ship on a whole life's course." An odd feature of this trouble was that each of the fathers pooh-hooed the objection of the other, and each uncle was highly pleased with his niece's choice!

The best of Brownies, like other people, have their whimsies. Grace and Sophia had no such sorrows to vex them, and were looking forward to their wedding on the next Thanksgiving Day.

Enough for the present of these disappointments and hopes. The night watch in the Hospital has just been changed, as have also the outer sentinels. Blythe, for it is he who attends to this latter duty, has sounded a soft note on the whistle that hangs against the rear door of the Sanitary Tent. It is the signal that the Nurses are wanted in the Hospital. Night duty is divided between them, two of them always watching in the Hospital, while the others sleep in the marquee. Agatha and Grace have the first watch to-night, and pa.s.s into the Hospital. But Faith knows whose lips had sounded the call, and comes in to exchange a few words with her lover.

"Good-bye!"

Why should she, too, have come back with a tear upon her cheek?

The light is turned down low in the fox-fire lantern. The yellow hospital flag flaps lazily against the staff. The full moon hangs over Hillside. The tramp, tramp of the sentinel grows dim and clear by turns as he recedes from or nears the door. The noises of the camp have died away and silence reigns at last over plain, fort and field. Both Brownies and Pixies are weary with the day's battling and sleep well.

Faith and Sophia, too, after a long talk about their trials and their loves, their hopes, fears and joys, have fallen asleep in each other's arms.

The stars that mark the midnight hour are fast hastening into the zenith. The sentinels walk their beats with weary pace. The relief guards will soon be on the rounds. Faith and Sophia stir in their sleep uneasily as though dimly conscious that the whistle will soon call them to duty. There is a soft touch, as the touch of an angel's finger, upon their cheeks. It seems to rest upon their eyes, their lips. It is pressed against their nostrils. It stays their breathing. They turn restlessly on their couch. They toss their arms, but the soft touch is on them, too. Cannot they awake?

Yes, their eyes are open now. Is it a dream? Is it the vision of a nightmare? Two forms, the terrible forms of their foes, the Pixies, are bending over them, wrapping them around in the silken folds of their snares!

Alas! it is no dream. The most dreaded of all their enemies, Spite the Spy, chief of the Pixies, and Hide the son of Shame, are crouching at their bedside. The maidens start from their pillows, but fall back again hopeless. They are bound hand and foot as with grave-clothes. They are wrapped in a winding sheet of gossamer; enshrouded alive.[Z]

Spite reckoned truly that the next impulse of the Nurses would be to scream. He thrust his hairy face close against their cheeks, and hissed from between his lips, "Utter one sound and you die! Keep still and you shall not be harmed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOY'S ILl.u.s.tRATION.

FIG. 42.--Spite and Hide Carry off the Nurses.]

Sophia swooned quite away. Faith closed her eyes and waited in an agony of fear. She felt Spite's strong arms placed around her. She was lifted from her couch; was borne through the tent. She was in the open air, and the breeze blowing upon her cheeks revived her. She opened her eyes. In the clear moonlight she could see Hide pushing through the side of the covered gangway, close by the rear door of the marquee, carrying Sophia in his arms. With an instinct of hope that no terror could check she lifted her voice and screamed with the energy of despair. She felt the Pixie's hot breath upon her cheek; an awful oath sounded in her ear, and a rude hand smote upon her mouth. She fell back unconscious.

Let us follow backward the thread of our story into the Pixie's camp where we left Spite keeping his solitary watch, that we may account for this sudden appearance in the heart of the Brownie encampment. Spite could not sleep. Anger, mortification, hate, disappointed ambition, all the evil pa.s.sions were ablaze within him, as he thought of what the Brownies had already gained, and of their a.s.sured victory on the morrow.

His troops discouraged, provisions cut off, Madam Breeze (for aught he knew) ready to side again with the Brownies,--his utter defeat, the loss of the fort, and the ma.s.sacre of his people seemed certain.

"If we could abandon the fort," he muttered; "if we could quietly steal out and leave the enemy watching an empty camp? That would be our salvation! But we can't; those troopers of MacWhirlie's are patrolling the plain, and the woods in the rear are swarming with pickets. But--I don't know?--"

He sprang to his feet, crossed over to Hide's quarters in Fort Tegenaria, bade him join him, and walked hastily to the line of breastworks on the lake front. He stopped under a bush that stood within the entrenchment. The night was cloudless, and by the moonlight streaming through the leaves, the two Pixies saw stretched among the upper branches a round, vertical web. It was the inner abutment of a bridge that once extended from Fort Spinder to Lakeside, but had been long in disuse.

"Do you know the condition of the Old Bridge?" asked Spite. "It has been a long time since I crossed it."

"I know little, except that I have heard some of my boys say that the piers on this end are in pretty good condition, and that some of the cables are still up."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 43.--"A Round, Vertical Web"--p. 86.]

"Very well," said Spite, after musing a few moments, "let us explore a little. You always used to be ready for a scout, Hide, and I suppose have not forgotten your old cunning. The Brownie sentinels are just beyond us, there. Yon big fellow's beat runs under the middle of the second span."

Hide was quite as ready for the adventure as Spite. Without more words the two swung themselves into the bushes, climbed up the sides of the abutment wall, and were presently at the top.

"Here are the cables, at any rate," said Hide. "Only two of them, however. The rest are broken off. They hang down the sides of the abutment, and over the ends of the branches."

"Pull on the one next you," cried Spite, who had himself laid hold of one of the sound cables, and was pushing down upon it with all his might. "Mine holds. It is fast to the second pier in yonder bush, I am sure. How with yours?"

"It is all right," answered Hide, "I am willing to venture on it."

Nearly fifteen hundred millimetres distant was another and taller bush in which pier No. 1 of the bridge was built. The Pixies could not see this since the darkness of the night and the shadow of the leaves hid the white outlines of the web-wall. But they knew that it must be there, and therefore crept upon the silken ropes each upon one, and began their journey.[AA]

Three thousand millimetres above the ground, for the whole distance from bush to bush over that single coil of rope those two creatures crawled.

The cables shook, swayed and bent down, but neither parted, and the adventurous Pixies landed safely on top of the pier.

The next pier was in a clump of bushes thirty-five hundred millimetres away, not in a direct course, but angling slightly across the field. The architects of the Old Bridge had taken advantage of the brushwood between the hill and lake. But as the shrubs grew at irregular distances from each other, and in various lines of direction, the course of the bridge was somewhat broken from the right line. Only one cable remained of those that had united pier No. 1 and pier No. 2. The scouts must therefore cross singly. To add to the danger a Brownie sentinel was stationed underneath the cable, about midway between the piers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 44.--A Cobweb Bridge Across a Path.]

"What say you, Hide?" asked the chief, "shall we go on?"

"What have you to gain by it, Cap'n? That's the question with me. Tell me what you intend by exploring this old suspension bridge, and I'll say whether it seems worth the risk."

"Certainly," said Spite. "My plan is to repair these cables by bracing the old ones, and putting up new ones, so that we can abandon the fort secretly, if we are pressed too hard. We could pa.s.s the whole force across the bridge by night, embark in our vessels, and cross the lake to the other sh.o.r.e, or to the island. The point I want to settle is, whether the cables are so far good that we can make a good roadway in the time at our command. We must do night work, repairing as well as crossing; and if we are hard pushed by the Brownies, we shall have to do some rapid engineering. That's the plan; what say you?"

"Good," cried Hide, "very good! It will be a fine stroke to slip away and leave the enemy to watch bare walls. Ha, ha! I fancy I see their solemn faces, on the discovery of our flight." Hide grew quite merry over his conceit.

"Very well then, that settles it. Here goes!" So saying, Spite stepped upon the single cable and began the pa.s.sage. He moved slowly at first, until he found that the line was strong enough to bear him; then he increased his gait, and soon landed upon the top of pier No. 2.

Hide perceived that Spite had reached the pier, for the cable had ceased to vibrate under his movement, and accordingly began his voyage. Midway between piers he saw the Brownie sentinel approach. He pa.s.sed underneath the cable humming some pretty ditty as he paced his beat.