A Lieutenant at Eighteen Part 35

"Ask him to come up here, and we will arrange things," returned the ruffian with unblus.h.i.+ng effrontery.

"The commander will do nothing of the sort," replied the colonel indignantly. "Do you really believe that he would trust himself with such cutthroats as you are?"

"We will agree not to hurt him, though he has used us very unfairly,"

said the spokesman. "He has tried to murder all of us!"

"You deserve to be hung; and it would be too merciful to shoot you!"

roared the colonel, his wrath getting the better of him.

"Do Union men hang their prisoners?" demanded the ruffian bitterly.

"Prisoners!" exclaimed the planter contemptuously. "You are such prisoners as they shut up in the penitentiary, or hang in the public square."

"Can I see the commander?" asked the spokesman, quite gently by this time.

"I will see him if he comes down into the parlor," said Deck. "I shall make prisoners of them; but I wish to stipulate that neither Sergeant Fronklyn nor myself shall have anything to do with punis.h.i.+ng them, either by hanging or shooting after they have surrendered."

"The commander will see you down-stairs; but I will shoot any other that attempts to put his foot on the first stair," shouted Colonel Hickman.

"I will come down," replied the spokesman; and he came to the head of the staircase with a gun in his hand.

"Halt!" cried the planter. "Leave all your arms up-stairs! Have you any pistols about you?"

He pa.s.sed his musket to one of the others, and did the same with a couple of pistols when the colonel mentioned them. Having complied with the order, he came down the stairs. He was directed to the parlor in which the lieutenant was waiting for him.

"Are you the commander here?" he inquired.

"I am. May I ask what you are?" demanded Deck, without rising from the armchair in which he was seated.

"I am called Captain Grundy."

"Not Mrs. Grundy?"

"Captain Grundy," replied the ruffian, with something of dignity in his looks and manner.

"Have you a captain's commission?"

"Not yet."

"In what service are you?"

"In the service of the Confederate States of America."

"In what regiment?"

"In no regiment; in a company organized by my government."

"A company of Partisan Rangers?"

"But in the service of my country."

"Are you a Kentuckian?"

"I am."

"And your service is to roam over your native State, killing, robbing, plundering your fellow-citizens; a highwayman, a thief, and a murderer," continued the lieutenant very severely. "This is the second time you have visited this mansion for plunder; but you don't come out of it so well as you expected," said Deck with a sneer, evident in his tones as well as his looks.

"Where is the rest of your company, Captain Grundy?"

"On duty in another county."

"But you expect the balance of your command here some time to-day?"

"There will soon be a time when the treatment we have received here will be returned with compound interest," said Grundy with a savage and revengeful look on his ill-favored countenance.

"You wished to see me; what is your business?" demanded the lieutenant.

"I am ready to surrender. You and your gang have murdered nearly all my men here in cold blood. I can do nothing more, and I must yield,"

replied Grundy.

"Are you a lawyer, Captain?"

"I am not; I am a horse-dealer."

"I should think you might be!" sneered Deck. "Do you think it is right to ride over the State, robbing your fellow-citizens, threatening to hang a planter to a tree for refusing to give up his money?"

"In the service of my country, yes! Kentucky belongs to the Confederacy; and those who fight to keep the State in the exploded Union are traitors, and should be treated as enemies of the State and the Confederacy."

"Suppose I should visit your house, demand your money, and hang you if you did not give it up? Would that be all right?"

"That is another matter," growled Grundy.

"Precisely; the same boot don't fit both feet," returned Deck.

"I am your prisoner; but you need not thorn me with your Union logic."

At this moment the lieutenant heard the voice of Davis Hickman in the hall, talking to his father. He called him into the parlor, and requested him to bring a quant.i.ty of cord or straps to him; and he went for them.

"What do you want of cords and straps?" asked Grundy.

"To bind my prisoner."

"Do you mean to hang me?"

"I do not; I leave that job to the regular hangman. He will perform it in due time, I have no doubt," replied Deck, as Davis brought in the cords.

"I don't mean to be tied up like a wildcat," said the captain doggedly.

"Then you do not surrender; and if you wish to do so, you may go up-stairs again."