On the seventeenth, Sherman, the "Great Avenger," sent an ultimatum advising Confederate General Hardee to surrender or see Savannah destroyed.
Hardee, determined to hold the city, made no reply and amassed his troops for the defense.
News of Sherman's threat to resort to the harshest measures circulated among the civilian population. The streets were clogged with people trying to get away, but there was no place to go. Federal troops skulked menacingly on every route of exit.
Recovering gradually from the shock of the Belle of Savannah sinking, Sarah worried that she had heard nothing further from Tom. In this atmosphere of confusion and desperation, she feared what might have happened to him. There were rumors the fighting had already begun. He could be lying dead or wounded, and she would never know.
Apart from her concern for his safety, she had to see him for another reason. Lurking in her memory was a faint impression of words he had spoken to her when she sat in a daze, but remembering them was like trying to conjure up the details of a dream. She knew simply that they gave her warmth and were of some great importance to her and to him.
 Unwilling to wait any longer, she donned a cloak and bonnet and set out to find him. No sooner had she reached the corner than he hove into view across the crowded street, hailing her excitedly.
"Sarah! Sarah! Don't try to cross!" he called. "Wait for me there!"
Dodging in and out among wagons, carriages, horses, mules, and people, Tom hurried to her.
"Oh, Tom, I'm so glad to see you!"
"I have something to tell you," he declared, embracing her breathlessly. "I was on my way to fetch you! I've been running all the way. Come with me!"
He took her by the arm and pulled her along the street.
"Where are we going, Tom?"
"I have orders to take you to the city jail," he said without further explanation.
Some blocks later, they turned into what indeed had been the city jail, but was now a military prison. The sergeant-at-arms, standing inside the doorway, greeted Tom.
"Suh!" he saluted smartly. "I've had the prisoner brought downstairs to the holding room. As you requested, I have provided him with pen and paper. He awaits you, suh!"
Tom returned the salute and escorted Sarah through a corridor to where a corporal stood guard. The soldier put down his rifle, unlocked a door and stood aside.
Tom led her into a sparsely furnished room with one small window near the ceiling. He closed the door. A man sat at a small table with his back to them. His legs were shackled to the table legs. He twisted in his chair as they entered.
Sarah gaped in astonishment.
"Cap'n Duncan!" she choked. "I thought you were drowned!"
"No," Philo responded, his face haggard with sorrow and despair, "but our loved ones rest with the Belle of Savannah at the bottom of the sea."
Tom helped Sarah to the other chair in the room.
"I was arrested at the dock," Philo proceeded. "A seaman who had given Captain Sam trouble in the past alerted the authorities to my presence. He pointed me out when I stood alone. He was the only member of the crew who had no family to save from Sherman. Apparently, I was worth a handsome bounty."
Tom stood beside Sarah's chair, a hand resting protectively on her shoulder. She did not shrug it away.
"When I was ordered this morning to witness a military tribunal," Tom told her, "I was amazed to discover Captain Duncan in the dock. I managed to talk with him after his sentencing."
"Yes," Philo confirmed, "the Confederate Army wasted no time in deciding that I have been sent here from Sherman's corps. Uniform or no, I am to be shot as a military spy."
Sarah leaned forward in great agitation. "But why didn't you send for me? I could have told them you are not a spy!"
Tom sighed and loosened his grip on her shoulder. "Sarah, you are forgetting what you are."
Perplexed, she looked up at him.
Philo nodded his understanding of Tom's remark. "To these Southerners, my dear, you are still a slave, a black woman of no legal standing. Your word would mean nothing in a military court. Aside from which, it would have been despicable of me to place you in a position where you could be charged as an accomplice. They would have taken great pleasure in hanging you as an example to the rest of the blacks, even on the eve of what will surely be a defeat for the Confederacy."
Sarah sat back in the chair, concern written on her face. "When...when is...when will they..."
"Shoot me?" Philo interposed. "I don't know. This is a strange time, with their puny army poised for battle against a Leviathan like Sherman at their gates. Sarah, Lieutenant LeMay has brought you here for a particular reason. I must presume upon you for one last favor in behalf of my family and of me."
He tapped his finger on a paper lying before him. "The tribunal has granted my last request, that I be permitted to write a letter to my wife," he explained. "It contains all that she needs to know about the deaths of her mother and Captain Sam and about what...what is going to happen to me."
Tears coursed down Sarah's cheeks.
"It also speaks of your courage and love. Nelle will tell Bessie. Your mother will be relieved that you are alright." He paused. "Sarah, you must take this letter to General Sherman when the time is right. Somehow you must contrive to see him personally. In this instance, being black will work in your favor. Sprinkled throughout the letter are coded phrases which inform Abraham Lincoln about things he needs to know concerning the privateers' operation at sea. Even if the Confederates were to read the letter, they would remain unaware of its military import."
Philo turned his gaze to Tom and uttered what might have passed for an ironic chuckle. "I guess this does, after all, make me a kind of spy. The irony is that I shall be shot for the spy that I am not - a reporter on Savannah's defenses - rather than the spy I really am! Lieutenant, you have proved so worthy of my trust in all that has gone before, I cannot help but expect you will not betray me in this last rendering of service to my country."
When Tom nodded his accord, Philo continued: "Sarah, tell General Sherman that President Lincoln must get this letter. Only he can guarantee that it will reach him. Do you understand?"
Drying her tears with a handkerchief passed to her by Tom, she looked intently at Philo. "I will do as you ask. You may trust me."
"And you may trust me as well, sir," added Tom.
Philo folded the letter and presented it to Sarah. She got up and turned away from the men to secure it beneath her skirts.
"Tom has told the military authorities," Philo said in conclusion, "that you are a slave of my wife's family. You have been allowed to come so that they will be properly informed. Go, now. If you ever see my wife, tell her that my last thoughts were of her and our sons."
All the way home, Sarah leaned heavily on Tom's arm. No words passed between them. The turbulent crowds seemed no more than shadows.
When they came to the house and went inside, she led Tom to the parlor.
"Tom," she said, "I am putting aside the horror of what is taking place everywhere I turn. If I am to preserve my sanity, I shall have to be strong. There is just one thing more to settle before I face whatever is to come. I have a vague recollection of things you said to me the other night. I want you to repeat them, just as you said them then."
Overwhelmed, he reddened, and fell into a chair.
His puppy-like confusion brought the day's first glimmer of a smile to her lips.
"Don't be shy, Tom," she said tenderly. "We can't afford to be so anymore."
His words tumbled out half strangled. "Should I...take that to mean you...have certain feelings...as do I...that you've not...not spoken of...because.....?"
"Because I am a slave, and a woman at that," she filled in, "without the right to tell a man, white or black, that I love him?"
She went to him and knelt, as he had previously done with her.
"Tell me, Tom," she said. "I want you to tell me that what I dreamed was not a dream. I am here, Tom. My mind is no longer far away."
He looked at her with such love in his eyes that there was no mistaking what he meant to say. He cupped her lovely face in his hands, leaned forward, and kissed her softly on the lips.
"I love you, Sarah," he whispered, having found his voice at last. "I don't know how, I don't know when, but we shall be man and wife." He slipped down beside her.
She sighed and pulled him with her until they lay entwined upon the rug. With profound gentleness, he caressed her, but made no attempt to possess her body.
"My bride, my wife," he murmured, "our day will come, my darling. Then you will be mine."
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