Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/47

AN UNEXPECTED PREDICAMENT throat, the rolling over and over, our limbs twisted together, and then my throttling him until he lay prone and helpless. There was a derringer in his inner jacket pocket. I felt it as I rested on top, and, wrenching it forth, I pressed the round muzzle against his forehead, my voice full of threat at the slightest movement. The fellow now lay breathless, trembling like an aspen from exertion, more frightened than hurt, yet with all the fight whipped out of him.

Using little enough ceremony, I stripped him of jacket and trousers, flinging down in return beside his prostrate body my own fragments of uniform. As I hastily donned the garments thus feloniously appropriated, my fingers chanced to touch the braided insignia of rank on the jacket collar, and I stopped, staring down in surprise at the dark outline still cowering before the levelled derringer.

"Who are you, an orderly?"

"No, a lieutenant of cavalry."

A flash of light came to me; I had waylaid the speeding bridegroom.

"Oh, indeed," I said, the surprise of discovery rendering me careless. "Then I suppose you must be Calvert Dunn?"

He made no reply which I could understand.

"Come, you might as well answer me."

"I am."

"Of Johnston's staff, I believe, but what regiment?"

"The Tenth Georgia. But who are you? What do you mean by this attack? How do you happen to know my name?" [ 39 ]