Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/339

 Rh "Who, in heavens name, are you?" I asked, at last finding my voice. "Confederates here?"

"Your first guess is an excellent one," he answered lightly, evidently enjoying the scene. "It evidences a well disciplined mind, and marvelous power of observation. Yes, my Yankee friend, you now behold Confederates, Johnny Rebs, the enemy; you have the honor of being prisoner to the Third Kentucky Cavalry. Wharton."

"Yes, sir."

"Conduct the lady and gentleman to the sanctity of the pulpit, Sergeant, where they may commune with the presiding genius of this house of worship erected in the wilderness, imagine not," he continued with a wave of the hand, "that the blackened optic which adorns the ministerial countenance was a gift of the Confederacy. Far be it from us," bowing humbly to the astonished Noreen, "to war against either ladies, or the church; beauty and goodness are ever safe in our hands, and I assure you both that the reverend gentleman was delivered into our care in his present condition of disfigurement."

"You mean you hold prisoner Parson Nichols?" I asked, scarcely grasping the sense of his rambling speech.

"No doubt 'tis he, although I have no recollection that he has confided his name to our ears. We