Milicent had drawn Captain Locke aside, and was urging him to go, as I knew, and, as I think, to destroy the papers which Holliway felt imperiled him. He gave her a smiling negative.
“You must go yourself, and please help us make the captain go,” I was saying to Mr. Holliway.
“You will have to do that,” he replied. “I have said what I could. It is madness for us to stay, as I am thoroughly convinced now. You would be safer without us. Locke doesn’t think so, but I know it. His character and the papers he carries increase the danger for us all.”
Captain Locke and Milicent had finished their conference.
“We will go,” he said quietly. “A pen and ink, my friend,” to the Dutchman.
“We have time enough,” he said, consulting his watch very coolly. “It is not yet half-past eleven.”
He wrote a note and gave it to the Dutchman to be mailed that night.
“If you get into any trouble,” he said to Milicent, “telegraph to this address.”
And he gave her a slip of paper on which was written: “ Gov. ----, Baltimore, Md.”
“The letter is to my uncle, and if you are in any trouble he will help you out. The Governor will be advised of your situation, and a telegram to him will be understood.”
“Good night, ladies, and _au revoir_,” he said gaily, bowing over our hands. “We will meet in Baltimore.”
“I echo that,” said Mr. Holliway with assumed cheerfulness. “It has been a great pleasure and privilege to know you, ladies. With all its shadows, this journey will always be one of my sweetest memories.”
We might never see them again. We knew it as we looked into Locke’s bonnie blue eyes and Holliway’s dark sad ones. They had been our brave and gentle knights, shielding us and enduring all the hardships cheerfully. One of them was weaker, we knew, because he had given his blanket to keep us warm. We looked bravely back into the two brave faces that looked into ours--one sign of faltering and they would not leave us.
“I will say a ‘Hail Mary’ for each of you every night,” I said.
“Thank you,” there was a quiver in each voice now. “We will try to deserve your prayers, dear ladies.”
Then they bowed themselves out with smiling faces. One of them we never saw again.
THE LITTLE JEW BOY AND THE PROVOST’S DEPUTY
The Dutchman went with them to show them the way he said they must take. His wife came in and gossiped with us.
