Insulted a white woman. And the Yankees are very upset because so

many uppity darkies have been killed recently. They can't prove it

on Captain Butler but they want to make an example of someone, so

Dr. Meade says. The doctor says that if they do hang him it will

be the first good honest job the Yankees ever did, but then, I

don't know. . . . And to think that Captain Butler was here just a

week ago and brought me the loveliest quail you ever saw for a

present and he was asking about you and saying he feared he had

offended you during the siege and you would never forgive him."

"How long will he be in jail?"

"Nobody knows. Perhaps till they hang him, but maybe they won't be

able to prove the killing on him, after all. However, it doesn't

seem to bother the Yankees whether folks are guilty or not, so long

as they can hang somebody. They are so upset"--Pitty dropped her

voice mysteriously--"about the Ku Klux Klan. Do you have the Klan

down in the County? My dear, I'm sure you must and Ashley just

doesn't tell you girls anything about it. Klansmen aren't supposed

to tell. They ride around at night dressed up like ghosts and call

on Carpetbaggers who steal money and negroes who are uppity.

Sometimes they just scare them and warn them to leave Atlanta, but

when they don't behave they whip them and," Pitty whispered,

"sometimes they kill them and leave them where they'll be easily

found with the Ku Klux card on them. . . . And the Yankees are

very angry about it and want to make an example of someone. . . .

But Hugh Elsing told me he didn't think they'd hang Captain Butler

because the Yankees think he does know where the money is and just

won't tell. They are trying to make him tell."

"The money?"

"Didn't you know? Didn't I write you? My dear, you have been

buried at Tara, haven't you? The town simply buzzed when Captain

Butler came back here with a fine horse and carriage and his

pockets full of money, when all the rest of us didn't know where

our next meal was coming from. It simply made everybody furious

that an old speculator who always said nasty things about the

Confederacy should have so much money when we were all so poor.

Everybody was bursting to know how he managed to save his money but

no one had the courage to ask him--except me and he just laughed

and said: 'In no honest way, you may be sure.' You know how hard

It is to get anything sensible out of him."

"But of course, he made his money out of the blockade--"

"Of course, he did, honey, some of it. But that's not a drop in

the bucket to what that man has really got. Everybody, including

the Yankees, believes he's got millions of dollars in gold

belonging to the Confederate government hid out somewhere."

"Millions--in gold?"

"Well, honey, where did all our Confederate gold go to? Somebody

got it and Captain Butler must be one of the somebodies. The

Yankees thought President Davis had it when he left Richmond but

when they captured the poor man he had hardly a cent. There just

wasn't any money m the treasury when the war was over and everybody

thinks some of the blockade runners got it and are keeping quiet

about it."

"Millions--in gold! But how--"

"Didn't Captain Butler take thousands of bales of cotton to England

and Nassau to sell for the Confederate government?" asked Pitty

triumphantly. "Not only his own cotton but government cotton too?

And you know what cotton brought in England during the war! Any

price you wanted to ask! He was a free agent acting for the

government and he was supposed to sell the cotton and buy guns with

the money and run the guns in for us. Well, when the blockade got

too tight, he couldn't bring in the guns and he couldn't have spent

one one-hundredth of the cotton money on them anyway, so there

were simply millions of dollars in English banks put there by

Captain Butler and other blockaders, waiting till the blockade

loosened. And you can't tell me they banked that money in the name

of the Confederacy. They put it in their own names and it's still

there. . . . Everybody has been talking about it ever since the

surrender and criticizing the blockaders severely, and when the

Yankees arrested Captain Butler for killing this darky they must

have heard the rumor, because they've been at him to tell them where

the money is. You see, all of our Confederate funds belong to the

Yankees now--at least, the Yankees think so. But Captain Butler

says he doesn't know anything. . . . Dr. Meade says they ought to

hang him anyhow, only hanging is too good for a thief and a

profiteer-- Dear, you look so oddly! Do you feel faint? Have I

upset you talking like this? I knew he was once a beau of yours but

I thought you'd fallen out long ago. Personally, I never approved

of him, for he's such a scamp--"

"He's no friend of mine," said Scarlett with an effort. "I had a

quarrel with him during the siege, after you went to Macon. Where--

where is he?"

"In the firehouse over near the public square!"

"In the firehouse?"

Aunt Pitty crowed with laughter.

"Yes, he's in the firehouse. The Yankees use it for a military

jail now. The Yankees are camped in huts all round the city hall

in the square and the firehouse is just down the street, so that's

where Captain Butler is. And Scarlett, I heard the funniest thing

yesterday about Captain Butler. I forget who told me. You know

how well groomed he always was--really a dandy--and they've been

keeping him in the firehouse and not letting him bathe and every

day he's been insisting that he wanted a bath and finally they led

him out of his cell onto the square and there was a long horse

trough where the whole regiment had bathed in the same water! And

they told him he could bathe there and he said No, that he

preferred his own brand of Southern dirt to Yankee dirt and--"

Scarlett heard the cheerful babbling voice going on and on but she

did not hear the words. In her mind there were only two ideas,

Rhett had more money than she had even hoped and he was in jail.

The fact that he was in jail and possibly might be hanged changed

the face of matters somewhat, in fact made them look a little

brighter. She had very little feeling about Rhett being hanged.

Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to

bother about his ultimate fate. Besides, she half shared Dr.

Meade's opinion that hanging was too good for him. Any man who'd

leave a woman stranded between two armies in the middle of the

night, just to go off and fight for a Cause already lost, deserved

hanging. . . . If she could somehow manage to marry him while he

was in jail, all those millions would be hers and hers alone should

he be executed. And if marriage was not possible, perhaps she

could get a loan from him by promising to marry him when he was

released or by promising--oh promising anything! And if they

hanged him, her day of settlement would never come.

For a moment her imagination flamed at the thought of being made a

widow by the kindly intervention of the Yankee government.

Millions in gold! She could repair Tara and hire hands and plant

miles and miles of cotton. And she could have pretty clothes and

all she wanted to eat and so could Suellen and Carreen. And Wade

could have nourishing food to fill out his thin cheeks and warm

clothes and a governess and afterward go to the university . . .

and not grow up barefooted and ignorant like a Cracker. And a good

doctor could look after Pa and as for Ashley--what couldn't she do

for Ashley!

Aunt Pittypat's monologue broke off suddenly as she said