no pardon, but I say it WAS you! And now you will murder my
father--perhaps me."

"O, my excellent young lady, how you have misunderstood me! By Heaven, I
swear!"--his voice shook with sincere emotion,--"if I have committed a
fault, it has been for the love of you! Such faults surely may be
pardoned. Virginia! will you accept my life as an atonement for all I
have done amiss? You shall bear my name, possess my wealth, and, if you
do not like the cause I am engaged in, I will throw up my commission
to-morrow. I will take you to France--Italy--Switzerland--wherever you
wish to go. Nor do I forget your father. Whatever you ask for him shall
be granted. I have money--influence--position--every thing that can make
you happy."

There was a minute's pause, the intense glances of the girl piercing
through and through that pale, polite mask to his soul. A selfish,
chivalrous man; not a great villain, by any means; moved by a genuine,
eager, unscrupulous passion for her--sincere at least in that; one who
might be influenced to good, and made a most convenient and devoted
husband: this she saw.

"Well, what more?"

"What more? Ah, you are thinking of your friends--I should say, of your
friend! It is natural. I have no ill will against him. Whatever you ask
for him shall be granted. At a word from me, the fighting up there
ceases; and he and the rest shall be permitted to go wherever they
choose, unharmed."

"Well, and if I reject your generous offer?"

Augustus smiled as he answered, with a hard, inexorable purpose in his
tones,--

"Then, much as I love you, I can do nothing!"

"Nothing for my father?"

"Nothing!"

"Nor for me?"

"Not even for you!"

"Why, then, God pity us all!" said Virginia, calmly.

"Truly you may say, God pity you! For do you know what will happen? Your
father will die in prison: you will never see him again. Your friends
will be massacred to a man. I will be frank with you: to a man they will
be given to the sword. They are but a dozen; we are fifty--a hundred--a
thousand, if necessary. The sink has already been taken, and a force is
on its way to occupy this end of the cave. If your friends hold out,
they will be starved. If they fight, they will be bayoneted and shot. If
they surrender, every living man of them shall be hung. There is no help
for them. Lincoln's army, that has been coming so long, is a chimera; it
will never come. The power is all in our hands; and not even God can
help