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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE

VOLUME II

m

on

The publishers certify that this edition of

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE

consists of two hundred and fifty numbered sets, auto- graphed by the author, and that th^ number of this set is .^("hii^P j^

Copyright, 1909, by The Neale Publishing Company

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

Denied existence by the chief publishing houses of the country, this book owes itself to Mr. E. L. G. Steele, merchant, of this city. In attesting Mr. Steele's faith in his judgment and his friend, it will serve its au- thor's main and best ambition.

A. B.

San Francisco, Sept. 4, 1891.

CONTENTS

PAGE

A Horseman in the Sky 15

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 27

Chickamauga 46

A Son of the Gods 58

One of the Missing 71

Killed at Resaca 93

The Affair at Coulter's Notch 105

The Coup de Grace 122

Parker Adderson, Philosopher .133

An Affair of Outposts 146

The Story of A Conscience 165

One Kind of Officer 178

One Officer, One Man 197

George Thurston 209

The Mocking-Bird 218

CIVILIANS

The Man Out of the Nose 233

An Adventure at Brownville 247

The Famous Gilson Bequest 266

CONTENTS

PAOE

The Applicant 281

A Watcher by the Dead 290

The Man and the Snake 3"

A Holy Terror 324

The Suitable Surroundings 350

The Boarded Window 364

A Lady from Red Horse Z7Z

The Eyes of the Panther 385

SOLDIERS

A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY

ONE sunny afternoon in the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in a clump of laurel by the side of a road in western Virginia. He lay at full length upon his stomach, his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon the left forearm. His extended right hand loosely grasped his rifle. But for the somewhat methodical disposition of his limbs and a slight rhythmic movement of the cartridge-box at the back of his belt he might have been thought to be dead. He was asleep at his post of duty. But if detected he would be dead shortly afterward, death being the just and legal penalty of his crime.

The clump of laurel in which the criminal lay was in the angle of a road which after ascending southward a steep acclivity to that point turned sharply to the west, running along the summit for perhaps one hundred yards. There it turned southward again and went zigzagging downward through the for-' est. At the salient of that second angle was a

16 THE COLLECTED WORKS

large flat rock, jutting out northward, over- looking the deep valley from which the road ascended. The rock capped a high cliff; a stone dropped from its outer edge would have fallen sheer downward one thousand feet to the tops of the pines. The angle where the soldier lay was on another spur of the same cliff. Had he been awake he would have com- manded a view, not only of the short arm of the road and the jutting rock, but of the entire profile of the cliff below it. It might well have made him giddy to look.

The country was wooded everywhere ex- cept at the bottom of the valley to the north- ward, where there was a small natural meadow, through which flowed a stream scarcely visible from the valley's rim. This open ground looked hardly larger than an ordinary door-yard, but was really several acres in extent. Its green was more vivid than that of the inclosing forest. Away beyond it rose a line of giant cliffs similar to those upon which we are supposed to stand in our survey of the savage scene, and through which the road had somehow made its climb to the summit. The configuration of the valley, in- deed, was such that from this point of observa- tion it seemed entirely shut in, and one could

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 17

but have wondered how the road which found a way out of it had found a way into it, and whence came and whither went the waters of the stream that parted the meadow more than a thousand feet below.

No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theatre of war; concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat-trap, in which half a hundred men in possession of the exits might have starved an army to sub- mission, lay five regiments of Federal in- fantry. They had marched all the previous day and night and were resting. At nightfall they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their unfaithful sentinel now slept, and descending the other slope of the ridge fall upon a camp of the enemy at about midnight. Their hope was to surprise it, for the road led to the rear of it. In case of fail- ure, their position would be perilous in the extreme; and fail they surely would should accident or vigilance apprise the enemy of the movement.

II

The sleeping sentinel in the clump of laurel was a young Virginian named Carter Druse. He was the son of wealthy parents, an only child, and had known such ease and cultiva-

18 THE COLLECTED WORKS

tion and high living as wealth and taste were able to command in the mountain country of western Virginia. His home was but a few miles from where he now lay. One morning he had risen from the breakfast-table and said, quietly but gravely: "Father, a Union regiment has arrived at Grafton. I am going to join it."

The father lifted his leonine head, looked at the son a moment in silence, and replied: "Well, go, sir, and whatever may occur do what you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which you are a traitor, must get on with- out you. Should we both live to the end of the war, we will speak further of the matter. Your mother, as the physician has informed you, is in a most critical condition ; at the best she cannot be with us longer than a few weeks, but that time is precious. It would be better not to disturb her."

So Carter Druse, bowing reverently to his father, who returned the salute with a stately courtesy that masked a breaking heart, left the home of his childhood to go soldiering. By conscience and courage, by deeds of devotion and daring, he soon commended himself to his fellows and his officers; and it was to these qualities and to some knowledge of the coun-

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 19

try that he owed his selection for his present perilous duty at the extreme outpost. Never- theless, fatigue had been stronger than resolu- tion and he had fallen asleep. What good or bad angel came in a dream to rouse him from his state of crime, who shall say? Without a movement, without a sound, in the profound silence and the languor of the late afternoon, some invisible messenger of fate touched with unsealing finger the eyes of his consciousness — whispered into the ear of his spirit the mys- terious awakening word which no human lips ever have spoken, no human memory ever has recalled. He quietly raised his forehead from his arm and looked between the masking stems of the laurels, instinctively closing his right hand about the stock of his rifle.

His first feeling was a keen artistic delight. On a colossal pedestal, the cliff, — motionless at the extreme edge of the capping rock and sharply outlined against the sky, — was an equestrian statue of impressive dignity. The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse, straight and soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carved in the marble which lim- its the suggestion of activity. The gray cos- tume harmonized with its aerial background; the metal of accoutrement and caparison was

20 THE COLLECTED WORKS

softened and subdued by the shadow; the animal's skin had no points of high light. A carbine strikingly foreshortened lay across the pommel of the saddle, kept in place by the right hand grasping it at the " grip " ; the left hand, holding the bridle rein, was invisible. In silhouette against the sky the profile of the horse was cut with the sharpness of a cameo ; it looked across the heights of air to the con- fronting cliffs beyond. The face of the rider, turned slightly away, showed only an outline of temple and beard; he was looking down- ward to the bottom of the valley. Magnified by its lift against the sky and by the soldier's testifying sense of the formidableness of a near enemy the group appeared of heroic, al- most colossal, size.

For an instant Druse had a strange, half- defined feeling that he had slept to the end of the war and was looking upon a noble work of art reared upon that eminence to com- memorate the deeds of an heroic past of which he had been an inglorious part. The feeling was dispelled by a slight movement of the group : the horse, without moving its feet, had drawn its body slightly backward from the verge; the man remained immobile as be- fore. Broad awake and keenly alive to the

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 21

significance of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman — seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his brave, com- passionate heart.

Is it then so terrible to kill an enemy in war — an enemy who has surprised a secret vital to the safety of one's self and comrades — an enemy more formidable for his know- ledge than all his army for its numbers? Carter Druse grew pale; he shook in every limb, turned faint, and saw the statuesque group before him as black figures, rising, fall- ing, moving unsteadily in arcs of circles in a fiery sky. His hand fell away from his weapon, his head slowly dropped until his face rested on the leaves in which he lay. This courageous gentleman and hardy soldier was near swooning from intensity of emotion.

It was not for long; in another moment his face was raised from earth, his hands resumed

22 THE COLLECTED WORKS

their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound. He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was plain : the man must be shot dead from am- bush— without warning, without a moment's spiritual preparation, with never so much as an unspoken prayer, he must be sent to his account. But no — there is a hope; he may have discovered nothing — perhaps he is but admiring the sublimity of the landscape. If permitted, he may turn and ride carelessly away in the direction whence he came. Surely it will be possible to judge at the in- stant of his withdrawing whether he knows. It may well be that his fixity of attention — Druse turned his head and looked through the deeps of air downward, as from the surface to the bottom of a translucent sea. He saw creeping across the green meadow a sinuous line of figures of men and horses — some fool- ish commander was permitting the soldiers of his escort to water their beasts in the open, in plain view from a dozen summits I

Druse withdrew his eyes from the valley and fixed them again upon the group of man

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 2a

and horse in the sky, and again it was through the sights of his rifle. But this time his aim was at the horse. In his memory, as if they were a divine mandate, rang the words of his father at their parting: "Whatever may oc- cur, do what you conceive to be your duty." He was calm now. His teeth were firmly but not rigidly closed ; his nerves were as tranquil as a sjeeping babe's — not a tremor affected any muscle of his body; his breathing, until suspended in the act of taking aim, was regu- lar and slow. Duty had conquered ; the spirit had said to the body: "Peace, be still." He fired.

Ill An officer of the Federal force, who in a spirit of adventure or in quest of knowledge had left the hidden bivouac in the valley, and with aimless feet had made his way to the lower edge of a small open space near the foot of the cliff, was considering what he had to gain by pushing his exploration further. At a distance of a quarter-mile before him, but apparently at a stone's throw, rose from its fringe of pines the gigantic face of rock, tow- ering to so great a height above him that it made him giddy to look up to where its edge cut a sharp, rugged line against the sky. It

24 THE COLLECTED WORKS

presented a clean, vertical profile against a background of blue sky to a point half the way down, and of distant hills, hardly less blue, thence to the tops of the trees at its base. Lifting his eyes to the dizzy altitude of its summit the officer saw an astonishing sight — a man on horseback riding down into the valley through the air!

Straight upright sat the rider, in military fashion, with a firm seat in the saddle, a strong clutch upon the rein to hold his charger from too impetuous a plunge. From his bare head his long hair streamed upward, waving like a plume. His hands were concealed in the cloud of the horse's lifted mane. The ani- mal's body was as level as if every hoof- stroke encountered the resistant earth. Its motions were those of a wild gallop, but even as the officer looked they ceased, with all the legs thrown sharply forward as in the act of alighting from a leap. But this was a flight I

Filled with amazement and terror by this apparition of a horseman in the sky — half be- lieving himself the chosen scribe of some new Apocalypse, the officer was overcome by the intensity of his emotions; his legs failed him and he fell. Almost at the same instant he

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 25

heard a crashing sound in the trees — a sound that died without an echo — and all was still.

The officer rose to his feet, trembling. The familiar sensation of an abraded shin re- called his dazed faculties. Pulling himself together he ran rapidly obliquely away from the cliff to a point distant from its foot; there- about he expected to find his man ; and there- about he naturally failed. In the fleeting in- stant of his vision his imagination had been so wrought upon by the apparent grace and ease and intention of the marvelous perform- ance that it did not occur to him that the line of march of aerial cavalry is directly down- ward, and that he could find the objects of his search at the very foot of the cliff. A half- hour later he returned to camp.

This officer was a wise man ; he knew better than to tell an incredible truth. He said nothing of what he had seen. But when the commander asked him if in his scout he had learned anything of advantage to the expedi- tion he answered :

"Yes, sir; there is no road leading down into this valley from the southward."

The commander, knowing better, smiled.

26 THE COLLECTED WORKS

IV

After firing his shot, Private Carter Druse reloaded his rifle and resumed his watch. Ten minutes had hardly passed when a Fed- eral sergeant crept cautiously to him on hands and knees. Druse neither turned his head nor looked at him, but lay without motion or sign of recognition.

" Did you fire?" the sergeant whispered.

" Yes."

"At what?"

" A horse. It was standing on yonder rock — pretty far out. You see it is no longer there. It went over the cliff."

The man's face was white, but he showed no other sign of emotion. Having answered, he turned away his eyes and said no more. The sergeant did not understand.

" See here. Druse," he said, after a mo- ment's silence, "it's no use making a mys- tery. I order you to report. Was there any- body on the horse?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"My father."

The sergeant rose to his feet and walked away. " Good God 1 " he said.

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 27

AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE

A MAN stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet be- low. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was at- tached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers sup- porting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners — two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a cap- tain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as " support," that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest — a

28 THE COLLECTED WORKS

formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the centre of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.

Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground — a gentle acclivity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loop- holed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Mid- way of the slope between bridge and fort were the spectators — a single company of infantry in line, at " parade rest," the butts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the centre of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring ston- ily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 29

banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good — a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock-coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been

30 THE COLLECTED WORKS

standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately be- hind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain ; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement com- mended itself to his judgment as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a slugg- ish stream !

He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some dist-

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 31

ance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift — all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new dis- turbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, dist- inct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil ; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably dis- tant or near by — it seemed both. Its recurr- ence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and — he knew not why — appre- hension. The intervals of silence grew pro- gressively longer ; the delays became madden- ing. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. " If I could free my hands," he thought, " I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God,

32 THE COLLECTED WORKS

is as yet outside their lines ; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance."

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant

stepped aside.

II

Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama fam- ily. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician he was naturally an orig- inal secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imper- ious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the dis- astrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the op- portunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to per- form in aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 33

with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.

One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the en- trance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband ap- proached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.

"The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, " and are getting ready for an- other advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stock- ade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."

" How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?" Farquhar asked.

"About thirty miles."

" Is there no force on this side the creek?"

" Only a picket post half a mile out, on the

34 THE COLLECTED WORKS

railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge."

" Suppose a man — a civilian and student of hanging — should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar, smiling, "what could he accom- plish?"

The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tow."

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremon- iously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

Ill

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight down- ward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened — ages later, it seemed to him - — by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 35

his neck downward through every fibre of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was con- scious of nothing but a feeling of fulness — of congestion. These sensations were unaccom- panied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced ; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud plash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! — the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the

36 THE COLLECTED WORKS

darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface — knew it with reluctance, for he was now very com- fortable. " To be hanged and drowned," he thought, " that is not so bad ; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might ob- serve the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! — what magnificent, what superhuman strength ! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated up- ward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations re- sembling those of a water-snake. " Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 37

the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish 1 But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he ex- pelled in a shriek!

He was now in full possession of his phys- ical senses. They were, indeed, preternatu- rally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf — saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray

38 THE COLLECTED WORKS

spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, the strokes of the water- spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat — all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire ; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.

Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 39

from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remem- bered having read that gray eyes were keen- est, and that all famous markmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again look- ing into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a dis- tinctness that pierced and subdued all other pounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and piti- lessly— with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquillity in the men — with what accurately measured inter- vals fell those cruel words :

"Attention, company 1 . . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready I . . . Aiml . . . Fire!"

Farquhar dived — dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the

40 THE COLLECTED WORKS

voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singu- larly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their des- cent One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream — nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two senti- nels fired again, independently and ineffect- ually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning.

" The officer," he reasoned, " will not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to

OF AMBROSE BIERCE 41

fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!"

An appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, diminuendo, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an ex- plosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest be- yond.

"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun ; the smoke will apprise me — the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."

Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round — spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men — all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color — that was

42 THE COLLECTED WORKS

all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream — the southern bank — and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his mo- tion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with de- light. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds ; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants ; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of aeolian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape — was content to remain in that enchanting spot until re- taken.

A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The bafiled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to

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his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed in- terminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revela- tion.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and child- ren urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Over- head, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking un- familiar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign signific- ance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which — once, twice.

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and again — he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it he found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue — he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene — perhaps he has merely recov- ered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments ; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an atti- tude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp

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her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon — then all is darkness and silence 1

Peyton Farquhar was dead ; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

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CHICKAMAUGA

ONE sunny autumn afternoon a child I strayed away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unob- served. It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the oppor- tunity of exploration and adventure; for this child's spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest — victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries, whose victors' camps were cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its race it had conquered its way through two continents and passing a great sea had penetrated a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a heritage.

The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor planter. In his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized race to the far South. In the peace- ful life of a planter the warrior- fire survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military books and pictures and the

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boy had understood enough to make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race, and pausing now and again in the sunny space of the forest assumed, with some exaggeration, the postures of aggression and defense that he had been taught by the engraver's art. Made reckless by the ease with which he overcame invisible foes attempting to stay his advance, he com- mitted the common enough military error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme, until he found himself upon the margin of a wide but shallow brook, whose rapid waters barred his direct advance against the flying foe that had crossed with illogical ease. But the intrepid victor was not to be baffled; the spirit of the race which had passed the great sea burned unconquerable in that small breast and would not be denied. Finding a place where some bowlders in the bed of the stream lay but a step or a leap apart, he made his way across and fell again upon the rear-guard of his imaginary foe, putting all to the sword.

Now that the battle had been won, pru- dence required that he withdraw to his base of operations. Alas; like many a mightier

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conqueror, and like one, the mightiest, he

could not , , , r

curb the lust for war,

Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what direction, call- ing with inarticulate cries for his mother, wepping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little heart beating hard with terror — breathless, blind with tears — lost in the forest! Then, for more than an hour, he wandered with erring feet through the tangled undergrowth, till at last, overcome by fatigue, he lay down in a narrow space be- tween two rocks, within a few yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above his head ; the squirrels, whisk- ing their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming

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in celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother's heart was break- ing for her missing child.

Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and came to a more open ground — on his right the brook, to the left a gentle ac- clivity studded with infrequent trees ; over all, the gathering gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It fright- ened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving object which he took to be some large animal — a dog, a pig — he could not name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one. But something in form or movement of this object — some-

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thing in the awkwardness of its approach — told him that it was not a bear, and curiosity was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the long, menacing ears of the rabbit. Possibly his im- pressionable mind was half conscious of some- thing familiar in its shambling, awkward gait. Before it had approached near enough to re- solve his doubts he saw that it was followed by another and another. To right and to left were many more; the whole open space about him was alive with them — all moving toward the brook.

They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike, save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in pairs and in little groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting now and again while others crept slowly past them, then resuming their move- ment. They came by dozens and by hun- dreds ; as far on either hand as one could see

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in the deepening gloom they extended and the black wood behind them appeared to be in- exhaustible. The very ground seemed in motion toward the creek. Occasionally one who had paused did not again go on, but lay motionless. He was dead. Some, pausing, made strange gestures with their hands, erected their arms and lowered them again, clasped their heads; spread their palms up- ward, as men are sometimes seen to do in pub- lic prayer.

Not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by an elder ob- server; he saw little but that these were men, yet crept like babes. Being men, they were not terrible, though unfamiliarly clad. He moved among them freely, going from one to another and peering into their faces with childish curiosity. All their faces were singularly white and many were streaked and gouted with red. Something in this — some- thing too, perhaps, in their grotesque attitudes and movements — reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last summer in the circus, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on they crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic contrast between his laughter and

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their own ghastly gravity. To him it was a merry spectacle. He had seen his father's ne- groes creep upon their hands and knees for his amusement — had ridden them so, "making believe " they were his horses. He now ap- proached one of these crawling figures from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride. The man sank upon his breast, re- covered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that lacked a lower jaw — from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The un- natural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave this man the appear- ance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child ; the child, terrified at last, ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther side of it and took a more serious view of the situation. And so the clumsy multitude dragged itself slowly and painfully along in hideous pantomime — moved forward down the slope like a swarm of great black beetles, with never a sound of going — in si- lence profound, absolute.

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Instead of darkening, the haunted land- scape began to brighten. Through the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and bits of metal in their clothing. Instinctively the child turned to- ward the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng — not much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such a following.

Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the leader's mind, were coupled no significant associations : an occasional blanket,

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tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle — such things, in short, as are found in the rear of re- treating troops, the "spoor" of men flying from their hunters. Everywhere near the creek, which here had a margin of lowland, the earth was trodden into mud by the feet of men and horses. An observer of better ex- perience in the use of his eyes would have noticed that these footprints pointed in both directions; the ground had been twice passed over — in advance and in retreat. A few hours before, these desperate, stricken men, with their more fortunate and now distant com- rades, had penetrated the forest in thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking into swarms and re-forming in lines, had passed the child on every side — had almost trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not awakened him. Al- most within a stone's throw of where he lay they had fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry, the shock of the cannon, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting." He had slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with per- haps a tighter clutch in unconscious sympathy

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with his martial environment, but as heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead who had died to make the glory.

The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the creek, reflected to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing the whole landscape. It trans- formed the sinuous line of mist to the vapor of gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were many of the stones protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the less desperately wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the child now crossed with eager steps; he was going to the fire. As he stood upon the far- ther bank he turned about to look at the com- panions of his march. The advance was ar- riving at the creek. The stronger had al- ready drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into the flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads. At this the child's eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable understand- ing could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had the strength to back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it. They were drowned. In

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rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed the leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not nearly so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement and smilingly pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding light — a pillar of fire to this strange exodus.

Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the belt of woods, passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a fence, ran across a field, turning now and again to coquet with his responsive shadow, and so approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was visible. He cared nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering flames. He ran about, col- lecting fuel, but every object that he found was too heavy for him to cast in from the dis- tance to which the heat limited his approach. In despair he flung in his sword — a surrender to the superior forces of nature. His military career was at an end.

Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings which had an oddly fam- iliar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood considering them with won-

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der, when suddenly the entire plantation, with its inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little world swung half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He recognized the blazing building as his own home !

For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the revelation, then ran with stum- bling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin. There, conspicuous in the light of the con- flagration, lay the dead body of a woman — the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain pro- truded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles — the work of a shell.

The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries — some- thing between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey — a startling, soulless, un- holy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.

Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck.

58 THE COLLECTED WORKS A SON OF THE GODS

A STUDY IN THE PRESENT TENSE

A BREEZY day and a sunny land- scape. An open country to right and left and forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this wood, facing the open but not venturing into it, long lines of troops, halted. The wood is alive with them, and full of confused noises — the occasional rattle of wheels as a battery of artillery goes into position to cover the advance; the hum and murmur of the soldiers talking; a sound of innumerable feet in the dry leaves that strew the interspaces among the trees; hoarse com- mands of officers. Detached groups of horse- men are well in front — not altogether exposed — many of them intently regarding the crest of a hill a mile away in the direction of the in- terrupted advance. For this powerful army, moving in battle order through a forest, has met with a formidable obstacle — the open country. The crest of that gentle hill a mile away has a sinister look; it says. Beware! Along it runs a stone wall extending to left

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and right a great distance. Behind the wall is a hedge ; behind the hedge are seen the tops of trees in rather straggling order. Among the trees — what? It is necessary to know.

Yesterday, and for many days and nights previously, we were fighting somewhere; al- ways there was cannonading, with occasional keen rattlings of musketry, mingled with cheers, our own or the enemy's, we seldom knew, attesting some temporary advantage. This morning at daybreak the enemy was gone. We have moved forward across his earthworks, across which we have so often vainly attempted to move before, through the debris of his abandoned camps, among the graves of his fallen, into the woods beyond.

How curiously we had regarded every- thing! how odd it all had seemed! Nothing had appeared quite familiar; the most com- monplace objects — an old saddle, a splintered wheel, a forgotten canteen — everything had related something of the mysterious person- ality of those strange men who had been kill- ing us. The soldier never becomes wholly familiar with the conception of his foes as men like himself; he cannot divest himself of the feeling that they are another order of be- ings, differently conditioned, in an environ-

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ment not altogether of the earth. The smallest vestiges of them rivet his attention and engage his interest. He thinks of them as inaccess- ible; and, catching an unexpected glimpse of them, they appear farther away, and therefore larger, than they really are — like objects in a fog. He is somewhat in awe of them.

From the edge of the wood leading up the acclivity are the tracks of horses and wheels — the wheels of cannon. The yellow grass is beaten down by the feet of infantry. Clearly they have passed this way in thousands ; they have not withdrawn by the country roads. This is significant — it is the difference be- tween retiring and retreating.

That group of horsemen is our commander, his staff and escort. He is facing the distant crest, holding his field-glass against his eyes with both hands, his elbows needlessly elev- ated. It is a fashion; it seems to dignify the act; we are all addicted to it. Suddenly he lowers the glass and says a few words to those about him. Two or three aides detach them- selves from the group and canter away into the woods, along the lines in each direction. We did not hear his words, but we know them : " Tell General X. to send forward the skirmish line." Those of us who have been

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out of place resume our positions; the men resting at ease straighten themselves and the ranks are re-formed without a command. Some of us staff officers dismount and look at our saddle girths; those already on the ground remount.

Galloping rapidly along in the edge of the open ground comes a young officer on a snow- white horse. His saddle blanket is scarlet. What a fool ! No one who has ever been in action but remembers how naturally every rifle turns toward the man on a white horse; no one but has observed how a bit of red en- rages the bull of battle. That such colors are fashionable in military life must be accepted as the most astonishing of all the phenomena of human vanity. They would seem to have been devised to increase the death-rate.

This young officer is in full uniform, as if on parade. He is all agleam with bullion — a blue-and-gold edition of the Poetry of War. A wave of derisive laughter runs abreast of him all along the line. But how handsome he is! — with what careless grace he sits his horse!

He reins up within a respectful distance of the corps commander and salutes. The old soldier nods familiarly; he evidently knows him. A brief colloquy between them is going

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on; the young man seems to be preferring some request which the elder one is indisposed to grant. Let us ride a little nearer. Ah ! too late — it is ended. The young officer salutes again, wheels his horse, and rides straight to- ward the crest of the hill!

A thin line of skirmishers, the men de- ployed at six paces or so apart, now pushes from the wood into the open. The com- mander speaks to his bugler, who claps his instrument to his lips. Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la! The skirmishers halt in their tracks.

Meantime the young horseman has ad- vanced a hundred yards. He is riding at a walk, straight up the long slope, with never a turn of the head. How glorious! Gods! what would we not give to be in his place — with his soul! He does not draw his sabre; his right hand hangs easily at his side. The breeze catches the plume in his hat and flut- ters it smartly. The sunshine rests upon his shoulder-straps, lovingly, like a visible bene- diction. Straight on he rides. Ten thousand pairs of eyes are fixed upon him with an in- tensity that he can hardly fail to feel; ten thousand hearts keep quick time to the inaud- ible hoof-beats of his snowy steed. He is not alone — he draws all souls after him. But

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we remember that we laughed! On and on, straight for the hedge-lined wall, he rides. Not a look backward. O, if he would but turn — if he could but see the love, the adora- tion, the atonement!

Not a word is spoken ; the populous depths of the forest still murmur with their unseen and unseeing swarm, but all along the fringe is silence. The burly commander is an eques- trian statue of himself. The mounted staff officers, their field glasses up, are motionless all. The line of battle in the edge of the wood stands at a new kind of " attention," each man in the attitude in which he was caught by the consciousness of what is going on. All these hardened and impenitent man-killers, to whom death in its awfulest forms is a fact familiar to their every-day observation; who sleep on hills trembling with the thunder of great guns, dine in the midst of streaming missiles, and play at cards among the dead faces of their dearest friends — all are watch- ing with suspended breath and beating hearts the outcome of an act involving the life of one man. Such is the magnetism of courage and devotion.

If now you should turn your head you would see a simultaneous movement among

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the spectators — a start, as if they had received an electric shock — and looking forward again to the now distant horseman you would see that he has in that instant altered his direction and is riding at an angle to his former course. The spectators suppose the sudden deflection to be caused by a shot, perhaps a wound ; but take this field-glass and you will observe that he is riding toward a break in the wall and hedge. He means, if not killed, to ride through and overlook the country beyond.

You are not to forget the nature of this man's act; it is not permitted to you to think of it as an instance of bravado, nor, on the other hand, a needless sacrifice of self. If the enemy has not retreated he is in force on that ridge. The investigator will encounter nothing less than a line-of-battle ; there is no need of pickets, videttes, skirmishers, to give warn- ing of our approach; our attacking lines will be visible, conspicuous, exposed to an artillery fire that will shave the ground the moment they break from cover, and for half the dis- tance to a sheet of rifle bullets in which no- thing can live. In short, if the enemy is there, it would be madness to attack him in front; he must be manoeuvred out by the immemorial plan of threatening his line of communication,

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as necessary to his existence as to the diver at the bottom of the sea his air tube. But how- ascertain if the enemy is there? There is but one way, — somebody must go and see. The natural and customary thing to do is to send forward a line of skirmishers. But in this case they will answer in the affirmative with all their lives ; the enemy, crouching in double ranks behind the stone wall and in cover of the hedge, will wait until it is possible to count each assailant's teeth. At the first volley a half of the questioning line will fall, the other half before it can accomplish the predestined retreat. What a price to pay for gratified curiosity! At what a dear rate an army must sometimes purchase knowledge! "Let me pay all," says this gallant man — this military Christ!

There is no hope except the hope against hope that the crest is clear. True, he might prefer capture to death. So long as he ad- vances, the line will not fire — why should it? He can safely ride into the hostile ranks and become a prisoner of war. But this would defeat his object. It would not answer our question; it is necessary either that he return unharmed or be shot to death before our eyes. Only so shall we know how to act. If cap-

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tured — why, that might have been done by a half-dozen stragglers.

Now begins an extraordinary contest of in- tellect between a man and an army. Our horseman, now within a quarter of a mile of the crest, suddenly wheels to the left and gal- lops in a direction parallel to it. He has caught sight of his antagonist; he knows all. Some slight advantage of ground has enabled him to overlook a part of the line. If he were here he could tell us in words. But that is now hopeless; he must make the best use of the few minutes of life remaining to him, by compelling the enemy himself to tell us as much and as plainly as possible — which, nat- urally, that discreet power is reluctant to do. Not a rifleman in those crouching ranks, not a cannoneer at those masked and shotted guns, but knows the needs of the situation, the im- perative duty of forbearance. Besides, there has been time enough to forbid them all to fire. True, a single rifle-shot might drop him and be no great disclosure. But firing is in- fectious— and see how rapidly he moves, with never a pause except as he whirls his horse about to take a new direction, never directly backward toward us, never directly forward toward his executioners. All this is visible

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through the glass; it seems occurring within pistol-shot; we see all but the enemy, whose presence, whose thoughts, whose motives we infer. To the unaided eye there is nothing but a black figure on a white horse, tracing slow zigzags against the slope of a distant hill — so slowly they seem almost to creep.

Now — the glass again — he has tired of his failure, or sees his error, or has gone mad; he is dashing directly forward at the wall, as if to take it at a leap, hedge and all! One moment only and he wheels right about and is speeding like the wind straight down the slope — toward his friends, toward his death 1 Instantly the wall is topped with a fierce roll of smoke for a distance of hundreds of yards to right and left. This is as instantly dissip- ated by the wind, and before the rattle of the rifles reaches us he is down. No, he re- covers his seat; he has but pulled his horse upon its haunches. They are up and away! A tremendous cheer bursts from our ranks, relieving the insupportable tension of our feel- ings. And the horse and its rider? Yes, they are up and away. Away, indeed — they are making directly to our left, parallel to the now steadily blazing and smoking wall. The rattle of the musketry is continuous, and

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every bullet's target is that courageous heart.

Suddenly a great bank of white smoke pushes upward from behind the wall. An- other and another — a dozen roll up before the thunder of the explosions and the humm- ing of the missiles reach our ears and the missiles themselves come bounding through clouds of dust into our covert, knocking over here and there a man and causing a temporary distraction, a passing thought of self.

The dust drifts away. Incredible! — that enchanted horse and rider have passed a ravine and are climbing another slope to un- veil another conspiracy of silence, to thwart the will of another armed host. Another mo- ment and that crest too is in eruption. The horse rears and strikes the air with its fore- feet. They are down at last. But look again — the man has detached himself from the dead animal. He stands erect, motionless, holding his sabre in his right hand straight above his head. His face is toward us. Now he lowers his hand to a level with his face and moves it outward, the blade of the sabre describing a downward curve. It is a sign to us, to the world, to posterity. It is a hero's salute to death and history.

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Again the spell is broken; our men attempt to cheer; they are choking with emotion; they utter hoarse, discordant cries; they clutch their weapons and press tumultuously forward into the open. The skirmishers, without or- ders, against orders, are going forward at a keen run, like hounds unleashed. Our cannon speak and the enemy's now open in full chorus ; to right and left as far as we can see, the distant crest, seeming now so near, erects its towers of cloud and the great shot pitch roaring down among our moving masses. Flag after flag of ours emerges from the wood, line after line sweeps forth, catching the sunlight on its burnished arms. The rear battalions alone are in obedience; they pre- serve their proper distance from the insurgent front.

The commander has not moved. He now removes his field-glass from his eyes and glances to the right and left. He sees the human current flowing on either side of him and his huddled escort, like tide waves parted by a rock. Not a sign of feeling in his face; he is thinking. Again he directs his eyes for- ward; they slowly traverse that malign and awful crest. He addresses a calm word to his bugler. Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la! The injunc-

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tion has an imperiousness which enforces it. It is repeated by all the bugles of all the sub- ordinate commanders; the sharp metallic notes assert themselves above the hum of the advance and penetrate the sound of the cannon. To halt is to withdraw. The colors move slowly back; the lines face about and sullenly follow, bearing their wounded; the skirmishers return, gathering up the dead.

Ah, those many, many needless dead! That great soul whose beautiful body is lying over yonder, so conspicuous against the sere hill- side— could it not have been spared the bitter consciousness of a vain devotion? Would one exception have marred too much the pitiless perfection of the divine, eternal plan?

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ONE OF THE MISSING

JEROME SEARING, a private soldier of General Sherman's army, then con- fronting the enemy at and about Kenne- saw Mountain, Georgia, turned his back upon a small group of officers with whom he had been talking in low tones, stepped across a light line of earthworks, and disappeared in a forest. None of the men in line behind the works had said a word to him, nor had he so much as nodded to them in passing, but all who saw understood that this brave man had been intrusted with some perilous duty. Jerome Searing, though a private, did not serve in the ranks ; he was detailed for service at division headquarters, being borne upon the rolls as an orderly. "Orderly" is a word covering a multitude of duties. An orderly may be a messenger, a clerk, an officer's serv- ant— anything. He may perform services for which no provision is made in orders and army regulations. Their nature may depend upon his aptitude, upon favor, upon accident. Private Searing, an incomparable marksman, young, hardy, intelligent and insensible to

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fear, was a scout. The general commanding his division was not content to obey orders blindly without knowing what was in his front, even when his command was not on de- tached service, but formed a fraction of the line of the army; nor was he satisfied to re- ceive his knowledge of his vis-a-vis through the customary channels; he wanted to know more than he was apprised of by the corps commander and the collisions of pickets and skirmishers. Hence Jerome Searing, with his extraordinary daring, his woodcraft, his sharp eyes, and truthful tongue. On this occasion his instructions were simple : to get as near the enemy's lines as possible and learn all that he could.

In a few moments he had arrived at the picket-line, the men on duty there lying in groups of two and four behind little banks of earth scooped out of the slight depression in which they lay, their rifles protruding from the green boughs with which they had masked their small defenses. The forest extended without a break toward the front, so solemn and silent that only by an effort of the im- agination could it be conceived as populous with armed men, alert and vigilant — a forest formidable with possibilities of battle. Paus-

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ing a moment in one of these rifle-pits to ap- prise the men of his intention Searing crept stealthily forward on his hands and knees and was soon lost to view in a dense thicket of un- derbrush.

" That is the last of him," said one of the men; " I wish I had his rifle; those fellows will hurt some of us with it."

Searing crept on, taking advantage of every accident of ground and growth to give him- self better cover. His eyes penetrated every- where, his ears took note of every sound. He stilled his breathing, and at the cracking of a twig beneath his knee stopped his progress and hugged the earth. It was slow work, but not tedious ; the danger made it exciting, but by no physical signs was the excitement mani- fest. His pulse was as regular, his nerves were as steady as if he were trying to trap a sparrow.

" It seems a long time," he thought, " but I cannot have come very far; I am still alive."

He smiled at his own method of estimating distance, and crept forward. A moment later he suddenly flattened himself upon the earth and lay motionless, minute after minute. Through a narrow opening in the bushes he had caught sight of a small mound of yellow

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clay — one of the enemy's rifle-pits. After some little time he cautiously raised his head, inch by inch, then his body upon his hands, spread out on each side of him, all the while intently regarding the hillock of clay. In an- other moment he was upon his feet, rifle in hand, striding rapidly forward with little at- tempt at concealment. He had rightly in- terpreted the signs, whatever they were; the enemy was gone.

To assure himself beyond a doubt before going back to report upon so important a mat- ter, Searing pushed forward across the line of abandoned pits, running from cover to cover in the more open forest, his eyes vigilant to discover possible stragglers. He came to the edge of a plantation — one of those forlorn, deserted homesteads of the last years of the war, upgrown with brambles, ugly with broken fences and desolate with vacant build- ings having blank apertures in place of doors and windows. After a keen reconnoissance from the safe seclusion of a clump of young pines Searing ran lightly across a field and through an orchard to a small structure which stood apart from the other farm buildings, on a slight elevation. This he thought would enable him to overlook a large scope of

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country in the direction that he supposed the enemy to have taken in withdrawing. This building, which had originally consisted of a single room elevated upon four posts about ten feet high, was now little more than a roof; the floor had fallen away, the joists and planks loosely piled on the ground below or resting on end at various angles, not wholly torn from their fastenings above. The supporting posts were themselves no longer vertical. It looked as if the whole edifice would go down at the touch of a finger.

Concealing himself in the debris of joists and flooring Searing looked across the open ground between his point of view and a spur of Kennesaw Mountain, a half-mile away. A road leading up and across this spur was crowded with troops — the rear-guard of the retiring enemy, their gun-barrels gleaming in the morning sunlight.

Searing had now learned all that he could hope to know. It was his duty to return to his own command with all possible speed and report his discovery. But the gray column of Confederates toiling up the mountain road was singularly tempting. His rifle — an ordin- ary "Springfield," but fitted with a globe sight and hair-trigger — ^would easily send its

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ounce and a quarter of lead hissing into their midst. That would probably not affect the duration and result of the war, but it is the business of a soldier to kill. It is also his habit if he is a good soldier. Searing cocked his rifle and " set" the trigger.

But it was decreed from the beginning of time that Private Searing was not to murder anybody that bright summer morning, nor was the Confederate retreat to be announced by him. For countless ages events had been so matching themselves together in that won- drous mosaic to some parts of which, dimly discernible, we give the name of history, that the acts which he had in will would have marred the harmony of the pattern. Some twenty- five years previously the Power charged with the execution of the work ac- cording to the design had provided against that mischance by causing the birth of a cer- tain male child in a little village at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, had carefully reared it, supervised its education, directed its desires into a military channel, and in due time made it an officer of artillery. By the concurrence of an infinite number of favoring influences and their preponderance over an infinite number of opposing ones, this officer

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of artillery had been made to commit a breach of discipline and flee from his native country to avoid punishment. He had been directed to New Orleans (instead of New York), where a recruiting officer awaited him on the wharf. He was enlisted and promoted, and things were so ordered that he now com- manded a Confederate battery some two miles along the line from where Jerome Searing, the Federal scout, stood cocking his rifle. No- thing had been neglected — at every step in the progress of both these men's lives, and in the lives of their contemporaries and ancestors, and in the lives of the contemporaries of their ancestors, the right thing had been done to bring about the desired result. Had anything in all this vast concatenation been overlooked Private Searing might have fired on the retreating Confederates that morning, and would perhaps have missed. As it fell out, a Confederate captain of artillery, having no- thing better to do while awaiting his turn to pull out and be off, amused himself by sight- ing a field-piece obliquely to his right at what he mistook for some Federal officers on the crest of a hill, and discharged it. The shot flew high of its mark.

As Jerome Searing drew back the hammer

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of his rifle and with his eyes upon the distant Confederates considered where he could plant his shot with the best hope of making a widow or an orphan or a childless mother, — perhaps all three, for Private Searing, although he had repeatedly refused promotion, was not without a certain kind of ambition, — he heard a rushing sound in the air, like that made by the wings of a great bird swooping down upon its prey. More quickly than he could appre- hend the gradation, it increased to a hoarse and horrible roar, as the missile that made it sprang at him out of the sky, striking with a deafening impact one of the posts supporting the confusion of timbers above him, smash- ing it into matchwood, and bringing down the crazy edifice with a loud clatter, in clouds of blinding dust!

When Jerome Searing recovered conscious- ness he did not at once understand what had occurred. It was, indeed, some time before he opened his eyes. For a while he believed that he had died and been buried, and he tried to recall some portions of the burial service. He thought that his wife was kneeling upon his grave, adding her weight to that of the earth upon his breast. The two of them, widow and earth, had crushed his cofiin. Un-

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less the children should persuade her to go home he would not much longer be able to breathe. He felt a sense of wrong. " I cannot speak to her," he thought; " the dead have no voice ; and if I open my eyes I shall get them full of earth."

He opened his eyes. A great expanse of blue sky, rising from a fringe of the tops of trees. In the foreground, shutting out some of the trees, a high, dun mound, angular in outline and crossed by an intricate, pattern- less system of straight lines ; the whole an im- measurable distance away — a distance so in- conceivably great that it fatigued him, and he closed his eyes. The moment that he did so he was conscious of an insufferable light. A sound was in his ears like the low, rhythmic thunder of a distant sea breaking in successive waves upon the beach, and out of this noise, seeming a part of it, or possibly coming from beyond it, and intermingled with its cease- less undertone, came the articulate words: " Jerome Searing, you are caught like a rat in a trap — in a trap, trap, trap."

Suddenly there fell a great silence, a black darkness, an infinite tranquillity, and Jerome Searing, perfectly conscious of his rathood, and well assured of the trap that he was in,

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remembering all and nowise alarmed, again opened his eyes to reconnoitre, to note the strength of his enemy, to plan his defense.

He was caught in a reclining posture, his back firmly supported by a solid beam. An- other lay across his breast, but he had been able to shrink a little away from it so that it no longer oppressed him, though it was im- movable. A brace joining it at an angle had wedged him against a pile of boards on his left, fastening the arm on that side. His legs, slightly parted and straight along the ground, were covered upward to the knees with a mass of debris which towered above his narrow horizon. His head was as rigidly fixed as in a vise; he could move his eyes, his chin — no more. Only his right arm was partly free. " You must help us out of this," he said to it. But he could not get it from under the heavy timber athwart his chest, nor move it outward more than six inches at the elbow.

Searing was not seriously injured, nor did he sufifer pain. A smart rap on the head from a flying fragment of the splintered post, incurred simultaneously with the frightfully sudden shock to the nervous system, had momentarily dazed him. His term of un- consciousness, including the period of recov-

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ery, during which he had had the strange fancies, had probably not exceeded a few sec- onds, for the dust of the wreck had not wholly cleared away as he began an intelligent survey of the situation.

With his partly free right hand he now tried to get hold of the beam that lay across, but not quite against, his breast. In no way could he do so. He was unable to depress the shoulder so as to push the elbow beyond that edge of the timber which was nearest his knees; failing in that, he could not raise the forearm and hand to grasp the beam. The brace that made an angle with it downward and backward prevented him from doing any- thing in that direction, and between it and his body the space was not half so wide as the length of his forearm. Obviously he could not get his hand under the beam nor over it; the hand could not, in fact, touch it at all. Having demonstrated his inability, he de- sisted, and began to think whether he could reach any of the debris piled upon his legs.

In surveying the mass with a view to de- termining that point, his attention was ar- rested by what seemed to be a ring of shining metal immediately in front of his eyes. It appeared to him at first to surround some

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perfectly black substance, and it was some- what more than a half-inch in diameter. It suddenly occurred to his mind that the black- ness was simply shadow and that the ring was in fact the muzzle of his rifle protruding from the pile of debris. He was not long in satisfy- ing himself that this was so — if it was a satis- faction. By closing either eye he could look a little way along the barrel — to the point where it was hidden by the rubbish that held it. He could see the one side, with the corre- sponding eye, at apparently the same angle as the other side with the other eye. Looking with the right eye, the weapon seemed to be directed at a point to the left of his head, and vice versa. He was unable to see the upper surface of the barrel, but could see the under surface of the stock at a slight angle. The piece was, in fact, aimed at the exact centre of his forehead.

In the perception of this circumstance, in the recollection that just previously to the mischance of which this uncomfortable situ- ation was the result he had cocked the rifle and set the trigger so that a touch would dis- charge it, Private Searing was affected with a feeling of uneasiness. But that was as far as possible from fear ; he was a brave man, some-

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what familiar with the aspect of rifles from that point of view, and of cannon too. And now he recalled, with something like amuse- ment, an incident of his experience at the storming of Missionary Ridge, where, walk- ing up to one of the enemy's embrasures from which he had seen a heavy gun throw charge after charge of grape among the assailants he had thought for a moment that the piece had been withdrawn ; he could see nothing in the opening but a brazen circle. What that was he had understood just in time to step aside as it pitched another peck of iron down that swarming slope. To face firearms is one of the commonest incidents in a soldier's life — firearms, too, with malevolent eyes blazing be- hind them. That is what a soldier is for. Still, Private Searing did not altogether relish the situation, and turned away his eyes.

After groping, aimless, with his right hand for a time he made an ineffectual attempt to release his left. Then he tried to disengage his head, the fixity of which was the more an- noying from his ignorance of what held it. Next he tried to free his feet, but while exert- ing the powerful muscles of his legs for that purpose it occurred to him that a disturbance of the rubbish which held them might dis-

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charge the rifle; how it could have endured what had already befallen it he could not understand, although memory assisted him with several instances in point. One in particu- lar he recalled, in which in a moment of mental abstraction he had clubbed his rifle and beaten out another gentleman's brains, observing afterward that the weapon which he had been diligently swinging by the muzzle was loaded, capped, and at full cock — knowledge of which circumstance would doubtless have cheered his antagonist to longer endurance. He had always smiled in recalling that blunder of his "green and salad days" as a soldier, but now he did not smile. He turned his eyes again to the muzzle of the rifle and for a moment fancied that it had moved; it seemed somewhat nearer.

Again he looked away. The tops of the distant trees beyond the bounds of the plant- ation interested him: he had not before ob- served how light and feathery they were, nor how darkly blue the sky was, even among their branches, where they somewhat paled it with their green; above him it appeared al- most black. " It will be uncomfortably hot here," he thought, " as the day advances. I wonder which way I am looking."

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Judging by such shadows as he could see, he decided that his face was due north; he would at least not have the sun in his eyes, and north — ^well, that was toward his wife and children.

"Bah!" he exclaimed aloud, "what have they to do with it?"

He closed his eyes. " As I can't get out I may as well go to sleep. The rebels are gone and some of our fellows are sure to stray out here foraging. They'll find me."

But he did not sleep. Gradually he be- came sensible of a pain in his forehead — a dull ache, hardly perceptible at first, but growing more and more uncomfortable. He opened his eyes and it was gone — closed them and it returned. "The devil!" he said, irrelevantly, and stared again at the sky. He heard the singing of birds, the strange metall- ic note of the meadow lark, suggesting the clash of vibrant blades. He fell into pleasant memories of his childhood, played again with his brother and sister, raced across the fields, shouting to alarm the sedentary larks, entered the sombre forest beyond and with timid steps followed the faint path to Ghost Rock, stand- ing at last with audible heart-throbs before the Dead Man's Cave and seeking to penetrate

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Its awful mystery. For the first time he ob- served that the opening of the haunted cavern was encircled by a ring of metal. Then all else vanished and left him gazing into the bar- rel of his rifle as before. But whereas before it had seemed nearer, it now seemed an incon- ceivable distance away, and all the more sin- ister for that. He cried out and, startled by something in his own voice — the note of fear — lied to himself in denial : " If I don't sing out I may stay here till I die."

He now made no further attempt to evade the menacing stare of the gun barrel. If he turned away his eyes an instant it was to look for assistance (although he could not see the ground on either side the ruin), and he per- mitted them to return, obedient to the imper- ative fascination. If he closed them it was from weariness, and instantly the poignant pain in his forehead — the prophecy and menace of the bullet — forced him to reopen them.

The tension of nerve and brain was too severe ; nature came to his relief with intervals of unconsciousness. Reviving from one of these he became sensible of a sharp, smarting pain in his right hand, and when he worked his fingers together, or rubbed his palm with

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them, he could feel that they were wet and slippery. He could not see the hand, but he knew the sensation ; it was running blood. In his delirium he had beaten it against the jagged fragments of the wreck, had clutched it full of splinters. He resolved that he would meet his fate more manly. He was a plain, common soldier, had no religion and not much philosophy; he could not die like a hero, with great and wise last words, even if there had been some one to hear them, but he could die " game," and he would. But if he could only know when to expect the shot!

Some rats which had probably inhabited the shed came sneaking and scampering about. One of them mounted the pile of debris that held the rifle; another followed and another. Searing regarded them at first with indiffer- ence, then with friendly interest; then, as the thought flashed into his bewildered mind that they might touch the trigger of his rifle, he cursed them and ordered them to go away. " It is no business of yours," he cried.

The creatures went away; they would re- turn later, attack his face, gnaw away his nose, cut his throat — he knew that, but he hoped by that time to be dead.

Nothing could now unfix his gaze from the

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little ring of metal with its black interior. The pain in his forehead was fierce and incessant. He felt it gradually penetrating the brain more and more deeply, until at last its pro- gress was arrested by the wood at the back of his head. It grew momentarily more insuf- ferable: he began wantonly beating his lac- erated hand against the splinters again to counteract that horrible ache. It seemed to throb with a slow, regular recurrence, each pulsation sharper than the preceding, and sometimes he cried out, thinking he felt the fatal bullet. No thoughts of home, of wife and children, of country, of glory. The whole record of memory was effaced. The world had passed away — not a vestige remained. Here in this confusion of timbers and boards is the sole universe. Here is immortality in time — each pain an everlasting life. The throbs tick off eternities.

Jerome Searing, the man of courage, the formidable enemy, the strong, resolute war- rior, was as pale as a ghost. His jaw was fallen; his eyes protruded; he trembled in every fibre; a cold sweat bathed his entire body; he screamed with fear. He was not in- sane— he was terrified.

In groping about with his torn and bleeding

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hand he seized at last a strip of board, and, pulling, felt it give way. It lay parallel with his body, and by bending his elbow as much as the contracted space would permit, he could draw it a few inches at a time. Finally it was altogether loosened from the wreckage covering his legs ; he could lift it clear of the ground its whole length. A great hope came into his mind : perhaps he could work it up- ward, that is to say backward, far enough to lift the end and push aside the rifle; or, if that were too tightly wedged, so place the strip of board as to deflect the bullet. With this object he passed it backward inch by inch, hardly daring to breathe lest that act somehow defeat his intent, and more than ever unable to re- move his eyes from the rifle, which might perhaps now hasten to improve its waning opportunity. Something at least had been gained: in the occupation of his mind in this attempt at self-defense he was less sensible of the pain in his head and had ceased to wince. But he was still dreadfully frightened and his teeth rattled like castanets.

The strip of board ceased to move to the suasion of his hand. He tugged at it with all his strength, changed the direction of its length all he could, but it had met some ex-

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tended obstruction behind him and the end in front was still too far away to clear the pile of debris and reach the muzzle of the gun. It extended, indeed, nearly as far as the trigger iguard, which, uncovered by the rubbish, he could imperfectly see with his right eye. He tried to break the strip with his hand, but had no leverage. In his defeat, all his terror re- turned, augmented tenfold. The black aperture of the rifle appeared to threaten a sharper and more imminent death in punish- ment of his rebellion. The track of the bullet through his head ached with an intenser anguish. He began to tremble again.

Suddenly he became composed. His tremor subsided. He clenched his teeth and drew down his eyebrows. He had not ex- hausted his means of defense; a new design had shaped itself in his mind — another plan of battle. Raising the front end of the strip of board, he carefully pushed it forward through the wreckage at the side of the rifle until it pressed against the trigger guard. Then he moved the end slowly outward until he could feel that it had cleared it, then, closing his eyes, thrust it against the trigger with all his strength! There was no explosion; the rifle had been discharged as it dropped from his

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hand when the building fell. But it did its work.

Lieutenant Adrian Searing, in command of the picket- guard on that part of the line through which his brother Jerome had passed on his mission, sat with attentive ears in his breastwork behind the line. Not the faintest sound escaped him; the cry of a bird, the barking of a squirrel, the noise of the wind among the pines — all were anxiously noted by his overstrained sense. Suddenly, directly in front of his line, he heard a faint, confused rumble, like the clatter of a falling building translated by distance. The lieutenant me- chanically looked at his watch. Six o'clock and eighteen minutes. At the same moment an officer approached him on foot fromthe rear and saluted.

" Lieutenant," said the officer, " the colonel directs you to move forward your line and feel the enemy if you find him. If not, con- tinue the advance until directed to halt. There is reason to think that the enemy has retreated."

The lieutenant nodded and said nothing; the other officer retired. In a moment the men, apprised of their duty by the non-com-

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missioned officers in low tones, had deployed from their rifle-pits and were moving forward in skirmishing order, with set teeth and beat- ing hearts.

This line of skirmishers sweeps across the plantation toward the mountain. They pass on both sides of the wrecked building, observ- ing nothing. At a short distance in their rear their commander comes. He casts his eyes curiously upon the ruin and sees a dead body half buried in boards and timbers. It is so covered with dust that its clothing is Con- federate gray. Its face is yellowish white; the cheeks are fallen in, the temples sunken, too, with sharp ridges about them, making the forehead forbiddingly narrow; the upper lip, slightly lifted, shows the white teeth, rigidly clenched. The hair is heavy with moisture, the face as wet as the dewy grass all about. From his point of view the officer does not observe the rifle; the man was apparently killed by the fall of the building.

"Dead a week," said the officer curtly, moving on and absently pulling out his watch as if to verify his estimate of time. Six o'clock and forty minutes.

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KILLED AT RESACA

THE best soldier of our staff was Lieutenant Herman Brayle, one of the two aides-de-camp. I don't re- member where the general picked him up; from some Ohio regiment, I think; none of us had previously known him, and it would have been strange if we had, for no two of us came from the same State, nor even from adjoining States. The'general seemed to think that a position on his staff was a distinction that should be so judiciously conferred as not to beget any sectional jealousies and imperil the integrity of that part of the country which was still an integer. He would not even choose officers from his own command, but by some jugglery at department headquarters ob- tained them from other brigades. Under such circumstances, a man's services had to be very distinguished indeed to be heard of by his family and the friends of his youth ; and " the speaking trump of fame " was a trifle hoarse from loquacity, anyhow.

Lieutenant Brayle was more than six feet in height and of splendid proportions, with

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the light hair and gray-blue eyes which men so gifted usually find associated with a high order of courage. As he was commonly in full uniform, especially in action, when most officers are content to be less flamboyantly attired, he was a very striking and conspicuous figure. As to the rest, he had a gentleman's manners, a scholar's head, and a lion's heart. His age was about thirty.

We all soon came to like Brayle as much as we admired him, and it was with sincere concern that in the engagement at Stone's River — our first action after he joined us — we observed that he had one most objection- able and unsoldierly quality: he was vain of his courage. During all the vicissitudes and mutations of that hideous encounter, whether our troops were fighting in the open cotton fields, in the cedar thickets, or behind the railway embankment, he did not once take cover, except when sternly commanded to do so by the general, who usually had other things to think of than the lives of his staff officers — or those of his men, for that matter.

In every later engagement while Brayle was with us it was the same way. He would sit his horse like an equestrian statue, in a storm of bullets and grape, in the most exposed

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places — wherever, in fact, duty, requiring him to go, permitted him to remain — when, with- out trouble and with distinct advantage to his reputation for common sense, he might have been in such security as is possible on a battle- field in the brief intervals of personal inac- tion.

On foot, from necessity or in deference to his dismounted commander or associates, his conduct was the same. He would stand like a rock in the open when officers and men alike had taken to cover; while men older in service and years, higher in rank and of unquestion- able intrepidity, were loyally preserving behind the crest of a hill lives infinitely pre- cious to their country, this fellow would stand, equally idle, on the ridge, facing in the direc- tion of the sharpest fire.

When battles are going on in open ground it frequently occurs that the opposing lines, confronting each other within a stone's throw for hours, hug the earth as closely as if they loved it. The line officers in their proper places flatten themselves no less, and the field officers, their horses all killed or sent to the rear, crouch beneath the infernal canopy of hissing lead and screaming iron without a thought of personal dignity.

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In such circumstances the life of a staff officer of a brigade is distinctly " not a happy one," mainly because of its precarious tenure and the unnerving alternations of emotion to which he is exposed. From a position of that comparative security from which a civilian would ascribe his escape to a *^ miracle," he may be despatched with an order to some com- mander of a prone regiment in the front line — a person for the moment inconspicuous and not always easy to find without a deal of search among men somewhat preoccupied, and in a din in which question and answer alike must be imparted in the sign language. It is customary in such cases to duck the head and scuttle away on a keen run, an object of lively interest to some thousands of admiring marksmen. In returning — well, it is not cus- tomary to return.

Brayle's practice was different. He would consign his horse to the care of an orderly, — he loved his horse, — and walk quietly away on his perilous errand with never a stoop of the back, his splendid figure, accentuated by his uniform, holding the eye with a strange fascination. We watched him with suspended breath, our hearts in our mouths. On one occasion of this kind, indeed, one of our num-

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ber, an impetuous stammerer, was so possessed by his emotion that he shouted at me :

" I'll b-b-bet you t-two d-d-dollars they d-drop him b-b-before he g-gets to that d-d- ditch I"

I did not accept the brutal wager; I thought they would.

Let me do justice to a brave man's memory; in all these needless exposures of life there was no visible bravado nor subsequent narration. In the few instances when some of us had ventured to remonstrate, Brayle had smiled pleasantly and made some light reply, which, however, had not encouraged a further pur- suit of the subject. Once he said :

" Captain, if ever I come to grief by for- getting your advice, I hope my last moments will be cheered by the sound of your beloved voice breathing into my ear the blessed words, * I told you so.' "

We laughed at the captain — just why we could probably not have explained — and that afternoon when he was shot to rags from an ambuscade Brayle remained by the body for some time, adjusting the limbs with needless care — there in the middle of a road swept by gusts of grape and canister! It is easy to con- demn this kind of thing, and not very difficult

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to refrain from imitation, but it is impossible not to respect, and Brayle was liked none the less for the weakness which had so heroic an expression. We wished he were not a fool, but he went on that way to the end, sometimes hard hit, but always returning to duty about as good as new.

Of course, it came at last; he who ignores the law of probabilities challenges an adver- sary that is seldom beaten. It was at Resaca, in Georgia, during the movement that resulted in the taking of Atlanta. In front of our brigade the enemy's line of earthworks ran through open fields along a slight crest. At each end of this open ground we were close up to him in the woods, but the clear ground we could not hope to occupy until night, when darkness would enable us to burrow like moles and throw up earth. At this point our line was a quarter-mile away in the edge of a wood. Roughly, we formed a semicircle, the enemy's fortified line being the chord of the arc.

" Lieutenant, go tell Colonel Ward to work up as close as he can get cover, and not to waste much ammunition in unnecessary firing. You may leave your horse."

When the general gave this direction we

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were in the fringe of the forest, near the right extremity of the arc. Colonel Ward was at the left. The suggestion to leave the horse obviously enough meant that Brayle was to take the longer line, through the woods and among the men. Indeed, the suggestion was needless ; to go by the short route meant abso- lutely certain failure to deliver the message. Before anybody could interpose, Brayle had cantered lightly into the field and the enemy's works were in crackling conflagration.

"Stop that damned fool!" shouted the general.

A private of the escort, with more ambition than brains, spurred forward to obey, and within ten yards left himself and his horse dead on the field of honor.

Brayle was beyond recall, galloping easily along, parallel to the enemy and less than two hundred yards distant. He was a picture to seel His hat had been blown or shot from his head, and his long, blond hair rose and fell with the motion of his horse. He sat erect in the saddle, holding the reins lightly in his left hand, his right hanging carelessly at his side. An occasional glimpse of his handsome profile as he turned his head one way or the other proved that the interest which he took in what

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was going on was natural and without affecta- tion.

The picture was intensely dramatic, but in no degree theatrical. Successive scores of rifles spat at him viciously as he came within range, and our own line in the edge of the timber broke out in visible and audible de- fense. No longer regardful of themselves or their orders, our fellows sprang to their feet, and swarming into the open sent broad sheets of bullets against the blazing crest of the offending works, which poured an answering fire into their unprotected groups with deadly effect. The artillery on both sides joined the battle, punctuating the rattle and roar with deep, earth-shaking explosions and tearing the air with storms of screaming grape, which from the enemy's side splintered the trees and spattered them with blood, and from ours defiled the smoke of his arms with banks and clouds of dust from his parapet.

My attention had been for a moment drawn to the general combat, but now, glancing down the unobscured avenue between these two thunderclouds, I saw Brayle, the cause of the carnage. Invisible now from either side, and equally doomed by friend and foe, he stood in the shot-swept space, motionless,

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his face toward the enemy. At some little dis- tance lay his horse. I instantly saw what had stopped him.

As topographical engineer I had, early in the day, made a hasty examination of the tground, and now remembered that at that point was a deep and sinuous gully, crossing half the field from the enemy's line, its general course at right angles to it. From where we now were it was invisible, and Brayle had evi- dently not known about it. Clearly, it was impassable. Its salient angles would have afforded him absolute security if he had chosen to be satisfied with the miracle already wrought in his favor and leapt into it. He could not go forward, he would not turn back; he stood awaiting death. It did not keep him long waiting.

By some mysterious coincidence, almost in- stantaneously as he fell, the firing ceased, a few desultory shots at long intervals serving rather to accentuate than break the silence. It was as if both sides had suddenly repented of their profitless crime. Four stretcher-bearers of ours, following a sergeant with a white flag, soon afterward moved unmolested into the field, and made straight for Brayle's body. Several Confederate officers and men came

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out to meet them, and with uncovered heads assisted them to take up their sacred burden. 'As it was borne toward us we heard beyond the hostile works fifes and a muffled drum — a dirge. A generous enemy honored the fallen brave.

Amongst the dead man's eflfects was a soiled Russia-leather pocketbook. In the distribu- tion of mementoes of our friend, which the general, as administrator, decreed, this fell to me.

A year after the close of the war, on my way to California, I opened and idly inspected it. Out of an overlooked compartment fell a let- ter without envelope or address. It was in a woman's handwriting, and began with words of endearment, but no name.

It had the following date line : " San Fran- cisco, Cal., July 9, 1862." The signature was " Darling," in marks of quotation. Incident- ally, in the body of the text, the writer's full name was given — Marian Mendenhall.

The letter showed evidence of cultivation and good breeding, but it was an ordinary love letter, if a love letter can be ordinary. There was not much in it, but there was some- thing. It was this :

"Mr. Winters, whom I shall always hate

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for it, has been telling that at some battle in Virginia, where he got his hurt, you were seen crouching behind a tree. I think he wants to injure you in my regard, which he knows the story would do if I believed it. I could bear to hear of my soldier lover's death, but not of his cowardice."

These were the words which on that sunny afternoon, in a distant region, had slain a hundred men. Is woman weak?

One evening I called on Miss Mendenhall to return the letter to her. I intended, also, to tell her what she had done — but not that she did it. I found her in a handsome dwell- ing on Rincon Hill. She was beautiful, well bred — in a word, charming.

"You knew Lieutenant Herman Brayle," I said, rather abruptly. " You know, doubtless, that he fell in battle. Among his effects was found this letter from you. My errand here is to place it in your hands."

She mechanically took the letter, glanced through it with deepening color, and then, looking at me with a smile, said :

" It is very good of you, though I am sure it was hardly worth while." She started sud- denly and changed color. "This stain," she said, " is it — surely it is not "

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" Madam," I said, " pardon me, but that is the blood of the truest and bravest heart that ever beat."

She hastily flung the letter on the blazing coals. "Uhl I cannot bear the sight of blood I " she said. " How did he die? "

I had involuntarily risen to rescue that scrap of paper, sacred even to me, and now stood partly behind her. As she asked the question she turned her face about and slightly upward. The light of the burning letter was reflected in her eyes and touched her cheek with a tinge of crimson like the stain upon its page. I had never seen anything so beautiful as this detestable creature.

" He was bitten by a snake," I replied.

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THE AFFAIR AT COULTER'S NOTCH

DO you think, Colonel, that your brave I Coulter would like to put one of his guns in here?" the general asked. He was apparently not altogether serious; it certainly did not seem a place where any artillerist, however brave, would like to put a gun. The colonel thought that possibly his division commander meant good- humoredly to intimate that in a recent con- versation between them Captain Coulter's courage had been too highly extolled.

"General," he replied warmly, "Coulter would like to put a gun anywhere within reach of those people," with a motion of his hand in the direction of the enemy.

" It is the only place," said the general. He was serious, then.

The place was a depression, a " notch," in the sharp crest of a hill. It was a pass, and through it ran a turnpike, which reaching this highest point in its course by a sinuous ascent through a thin forest made a similar, though less steep, descent toward the enemy. For a mile to the left and a mile to the right, the

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ridge, though occupied by Federal infantry lying close behind the sharp crest and appear- ing as if held in place by atmospheric press- ure, was inaccessible to artillery. There was no place but the bottom of the notch, and that was barely wide enough for the roadbed. From the Confederate side this point was commanded by two batteries posted on a slightly lower elevation beyond a creek, and a half-mile away. All the guns but one were masked by the trees of an orchard ; that one — it seemed a bit of impudence — was on ^n open lawn directly in front of a rather grandiose building, the planter's dwelling. The gun was safe enough in its exposure — but only because the Federal infantry had been for- bidden to fire. Coulter's Notch — it came to be called so — was not, that pleasant summer afternoon, a place where one would " like to put a gun."

Three or four dead horses lay there sprawling in the road, three or four dead men in a trim row at one side of it, and a little back, down the hill. All but one were cav- alrymen belonging to the Federal advance. One was a quartermaster. The general com- manding the division and the colonel com- manding the brigade, with their staffs and es-

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corts, had ridden into the notch to have a look at the enemy's guns — which had straightway obscured themselves in towering clouds of smoke. It was hardly profitable to be curious about guns which had the trick of the cuttle- fish, and the season of observation had been brief. At its conclusion — a short remove backward from where it began — occurred the conversation already partly reported. " It is the only place," the general repeated thought- fully, " to get at them."

The colonel looked at him gravely. " There is room for only one gun, General — one against twelve."

" That is true — for only one at a time," said the commander with something like, yet not altogether like, a smile. " But then, your brave Coulter — a whole battery in himself."

The tone of irony was now unmistakable. It angered the colonel, but he did not know what to say. The spirit of military subordina- tion is not favorable to retort, nor even to deprecation.

At this moment a young officer of artillery came riding slowly up the road attended by his bugler. It was Captain Coulter. He could not have been more than twenty-three years of age. He was of medium height, but very

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slender and lithe, and sat his horse with some- thing of the air of a civilian. In face he was of a type singularly unlike the men about him ; thin, high-nosed, gray-eyed, with a slight blond mustache, and long, rather straggling hair of the same color. There was an appar- ent negligence in his attire. His cap was worn with the visor a trifle askew; his coat was buttoned only at the sword-belt, showing a considerable expanse of white shirt, toler- ably clean for that stage of the campaign. But the negligence was all in his dress and bear- ing; in his face was a look of intense interest in his surroundings. His gray eyes, which seemed occasionally to strike right and left across the landscape, like search-lights, were for the most part fixed upon the sky beyond the Notch ; until he should arrive at the sum- mit of the road there was nothing else in that direction to see. As he came opposite his division and brigade commanders at the road- side he saluted mechanically and was about to pass on. The colonel signed to him to halt.

" Captain Coulter," he said, " the enemy has twelve pieces over there on the next ridge. If I rightly understand the general, he directs that you bring up a gun and engage them."

There was a blank silence; the general

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looked stolidly at a distant regiment swarm- ing slowly up the hill through rough under- growth, like a torn and draggled cloud of blue smoke; the captain appeared not to have observed him. Presently the captain spoke, slowly and with apparent effort:

"On the next ridge, did you say, sir? Are the guns near the house? "

" Ah, you have been over this road before. Directly at the house."

"And it is — necessary — to engage them? The order is imperative? "

His voice was husky and broken. He was visibly paler. The colonel was astonished and mortified. He stole a glance at the com- mander. In that set, immobile face was no sign; it was as hard as bronze. A moment later the general rode away, followed by his staff and escort. The colonel, humiliated and indignant, was about to order Captain Coulter in arrest, when the latter spoke a few words in a low tone to his bugler, saluted, and rode straight forward into the Notch, where, presently, at the summit of the road, his field- glass at his eyes, he showed against the sky, he and his horse, sharply defined and statuesque. The bugler had dashed down the

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speed and disappeared behind a wood. Pres- ently his bugle was heard singing in the ce- dars, and in an incredibly short time a single gun with its caisson, each drawn by six horses and manned by its full complement of gunn- ers, came bounding and banging up the grade in a storm of dust, unlimbered under cover, and was run forward by hand to the fatal crest among the dead horses. A gesture of the captain's arm, some strangely agile movements of the men in loading, and almost before the troops along the way had ceased to hear the rattle of the wheels, a great white cloud sprang forward down the slope, and with a deafening report the affair at Coulter's Notch had begun.

It is not intended to relate in detail the progress and incidents of that ghastly con- test— a contest without vicissitudes, its alterna- tions only different degrees of despair. Al- most at the instant when Captain Coulter's gun blew its challenging cloud twelve answer- ing clouds rolled upward from among the trees about the plantation house, a deep mul- tiple report roared back like a broken echo, and thenceforth to the end the Federal can- noneers fought their hopeless battle in an atmosphere of living iron whose thoughts

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were lightnings and whose deeds were death.

Unwilling to see the efforts which he could not aid and the slaughter which he could not stay, the colonel ascended the ridge at a point a quarter of a mile to the left, whence the Notch, itself invisible, but pushing up suc- cessive masses of smoke, seemed the crater of a volcano in thundering eruption. With his glass he watched the enemy's guns, noting as he could the effects of Coulter's fire — if Coul- ter still lived to direct it. He saw that the Federal gunners, ignoring those of the enemy's pieces whose positions could be de- termined by their smoke only, gave their whole attention to the one that maintained its place in the open — the lawn in front of the house. Over and about that hardy piece the shells exploded at intervals of a few seconds. Some exploded in the house, as could be seen by thin ascensions of smoke from the breached roof. Figures of prostrate men and horses were plainly visible.

" If our fellows are doing so good work with a single gun," said the colonel to an aide who happened to be nearest, "they must be suffering like the devil from twelve. Go down and present' the commander of that

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piece with my congratulations on the accuracy of his fire."

Turning to his adjutant-general he said, "Did you observe Coulter's damned reluct- ance to obey orders?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Well, say nothing about it, please. I don't think the general will care to make any accusations. He will probably have enough to do in explaining his own connection with this uncommon way of amusing the rear- guard of a retreating enemy."

A young officer approached from below, climbing breathless up the acclivity. Almost before he had saluted, he gasped out:

" Colonel, I am directed by Colonel Har- mon to say that the enemy's guns are within easy reach of our rifles, and most of them vis- ible from several points along the ridge."

The brigade commander looked at him without a trace of interest in his expression. " I know it," he said quietly.

The young adjutant was visibly embar- rassed. " Colonel Harmon would like to have permission to silence those guns," he stam- mered.

" So should I," the colonel said in the same tone. "Present my compliments to Colonel

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Harmon and say to him that the general's orders for the infantry not to fire are still in force."

The adjutant saluted and retired. The col- onel ground his heel into the earth and turned to look again at the enemy's guns.

" Colonel," said the adjutant-general, " I don't know that I ought to say anything, but there is something wrong in all this. Do you happen to know that Captain Coulter is from the South?"

"No; was he, indeed?"

" I heard that last summer the division which the general then commanded was in the vicinity of Coulter's home — camped there for weeks, and "

" Listen ! " said the colonel, interrupting with an upward gesture. "Do you hear that?''

" That " was the silence of the Federal gun. The staff, the orderlies, the lines of infantry behind the crest — all had " heard," and were looking curiously in the direction of the crater, whence no smoke now ascended except desultory cloudlets from the enemy's shells. Then came the blare of a bugle, a faint rattle of wheels; a minute later the sharp reports recommenced with double activity. The de-

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molished gun had been replaced with a sound one.

" Yes," said the adjutant-general, resuming his narrative, " the general made the acquaint- ance of Coulter's family. There was trouble — I don't know the exact nature of it — some- thing about Coulter's wife. She is a red-hot Secessionist, as they all are, except Coulter himself, but she is a good wife and high-bred lady. There was a complaint to army head- quarters. The general was transferred to this division. It is odd that Coulter's battery should afterward have been assigned to it."

The colonel had risen from the rock upon which they had been sitting. His eyes were blazing with a generous indignation.

" See here, Morrison," said he, looking his gossiping staff officer straight in the face, " did you get that story from a gentleman or a liar?"

" I don't want to say how I got it. Colonel, unless it is necessary" — he was blushing a trifle — "but I'll stake my life upon its truth in the main."

' The colonel turned toward a small knot of officers some distance away. " Lieutenant Williams!" he shouted.

One of the officers detached himself from

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the group and coming forward saluted, say- ing: "Pardon me, Colonel, I thought you had been informed. Williams is dead down there by the gun. What can I do, sir? "

Lieutenant Williams was the aide who had had the pleasure of conveying to the officer in charge of the gun his brigade commander's congratulations.

" Go," said the colonel, " and direct the withdrawal of that gun instantly. No — I'll go myself."

He strode down the declivity toward the rear of the Notch at a break-neck pace, over rocks and through brambles, followed by his little retinue in tumultuous disorder. At the foot of the declivity they mounted their wait- ing animals and took to the road at a lively trot, round a bend and into the Notch. The spectacle which they encountered there was appalling!

Within that defile, barely broad enough for a single gun, were piled the wrecks of no fewer than four. They had noted the silenc- ing of only the last one disabled — there had been a lack of men to replace it quickly with another. The debris lay on both sides of the road; the men had managed to keep an open way between, through which the fifth piece

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was now firing. The men? — they looked like demons of the pitl All were hatless, all stripped to the waist, their reeking skins black with blotches of powder and spattered with gouts of blood. They worked like madmen, with rammer and cartridge, lever and lanyard. They set their swollen shoulders and bleeding hands against the wheels at each recoil and heaved the heavy gun back to its place. There were no commands; in that awful environ- ment of whooping shot, exploding shells, shrieking fragments of iron, and flying splint- ers of wood, none could have been heard. Officers, if officers there were, were indistin- guishable; all worked together — each while he lasted — governed by the eye. When the gun was sponged, it was loaded ; when loaded, aimed and fired. The colonel observed some- thing new to his military experience — some- thing horrible and unnatural: the gun was bleeding at the mouth I In temporary default of water, the man sponging had dipped his sponge into a pool of comrade's blood. In all this work there was no clashing; the duty of the instant was obvious. When one fell, an- other, looking a trifle cleaner, seemed to rise from the earth in the dead man's tracks, to fall in his turn.

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With the ruined guns lay the ruined men — alongside the wreckage, under it and atop of it; and back down the road — a ghastly pro- cession!— crept on hands and knees such of the wounded as were able to move. The colonel — he had compassionately sent his cavalcade to the right about — had to ride over those who were entirely dead in order not to crush those who were partly alive. Into that hell he tran- quilly held his way, rode up alongside the gun, and, in the obscurity of the last discharge, tapped upon the cheek the man holding the rammer — who straightway fell, thinking him- self killed. A fiend seven times damned sprang out of the smoke to take his place, but paused and gazed up at the mounted officer with an unearthly regard, his teeth flashing between his black lips, his eyes, fierce and expanded, burning like coals beneath his bloody brow. The colonel made an author- itative gesture and pointed to the rear. The fiend bowed in token of obedience. It was Captain Coulter.

Simultaneously with the colonel's arresting sign, silence fell upon the whole field of action. The procession of missiles no longer streamed into that defile of death, for the enemy also had ceased firing. His army had been gone for

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hours, and the commander of his rear-guard, who had held his position perilously long in hope to silence the Federal fire, at that strange moment had silenced his own. " I was not aware of the breadth of my authority," said the colonel to anybody, riding forward to the crest to see what had really happened.

An hour later his brigade was in bivouac on the enemy's ground, and its idlers were examining, with something of awe, as the faithful inspect a saint's relics, a score of straddling dead horses and three disabled guns, all spiked. The fallen men had been carried away; their torn and broken bodies would have given too great satisfaction.

Naturally, the colonel established himself and his military family in the plantation house. It was somewhat shattered, but it was better than the open air. The furniture was greatly deranged and broken. Walls and ceilings were knocked away here and there, and a lingering odor of powder smoke was everywhere. The beds, the closets of women's clothing, the cupboards were not greatly dam- aged. The new tenants for a night made themselves comfortable, and the virtual effacement of Coulter's battery supplied them with an interesting topic.

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During supper an orderly of the escort showed himself into the dining-room and asked permission to speak to the colonel.

"What is it, Barbour?" said that officer pleasantly, having overheard the request.

" Colonel, there is something wrong in the cellar; I don't know what — somebody there. I was down there rummaging about."

" I will go down and see," said a staff officer, rising.

" So will I," the colonel said ; " let the others remain. Lead on, orderly."

They toot a candle from the table and de- scended the cellar stairs, the orderly in visi- ble trepidation. The candle made but a feeble light, but presently, as they advanced, its narrow circle of illumination revealed a human figure seated on the ground against the black stone wall which they were skirting, its knees elevated, its head bowed sharply for- ward. The face, which should have been seen in profile, was invisible, for the man was bent so far forward that his long hair con- cealed it; and, strange to relate, the beard, of a much darker hue, fell in a great tangled mass and lay along the ground at his side. They involuntarily paused; then the colonel, taking the candle from the orderly's shaking

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hand, approached the man and attentively considered him. The long dark beard was the hair of a woman — dead. The dead woman clasped in her arms a dead babe. Both were clasped in the arms of the man, pressed against his breast, against his lips. There was blood in the hair of the woman; there was blood in the hair of the man. A yard away, near an irregular depression in the beaten earth which formed the cellar's floor — a fresh excavation with a convex bit of iron, having jagged edges, visible in one of the sides — lay an infant's foot. The colonel held the light as high as he could. The floor of the room above was broken through, the splinters pointing at all angles downward. "This casemate is not bomb-proof," said the colonel gravely. It did not occur to him that his summing up of the matter had any levity in it.

They stood about the group awhile in silence; the staff ofiicer was thinking of his unfinished supper, the orderly of what might possibly be in one of the casks on the other side of the cellar. Suddenly the man whom they had thought dead raised his head and gazed tranquilly into their faces. His com- plexion was coal black; the cheeks were ap-

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parently tattooed in irregular sinuous lines from the eyes downward. The lips, too, were white, like those of a stage negro. There was blood upon his forehead.

The staff officer drew back a pace, the or- derly two paces.

" What are you doing here, my man? " said the colonel, unmoved.

" This house belongs to me, sir," was the reply, civilly delivered.

"To you? Ah, I see! And these?"

" My wife and child. I am Captain Coul- ter."

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THE COUP DE GRAcE

THE fighting had been hard and con- tinuous ; that was attested by all the senses. The very taste of battle was in the air. All was now over; it re- mained only to succor the wounded and bury the dead — to " tidy up a bit," as the humorist of a burial squad put it. A good deal of " tidying up " was required. As far as one could see through the forests, among the splintered trees, lay wrecks of men and horses. Among them moved the stretcher-bearers, gathering and carrying away the few who showed signs of- life. Most of the wounded had died of neglect while the right to min- ister to their wants was in dispute. It is an army regulation that the wounded must wait; the best way to care for them is to win the battle. It must be confessed that victory is a distinct advantage to a man requiring atten- tion, but many do not live to avail themselves of it.

The dead were collected in groups of a dozen or a score and laid side by side in rows while the trenches were dug to receive them.

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Some, found at too great a distance from these rallying points, were buried where they lay. There was little attempt at identification, though in most cases, the burial parties being detailed to glean the same ground which they had assisted to reap, the names of the victor- ious dead were known and listed. The enemy's fallen had to be content with count- ing. But of that they got enough: many of them were counted several times, and the total, as given afterward in the official report of the victorious commander, denoted rather a hope than a result.

At some little distance from the spot where one of the burial parties had established its " bivouac of the dead," a man in the uniform of a Federal officer stood leaning against a tree. From his feet upward to his neck his attitude was that of weariness reposing; but he turned his head uneasily from side to side;

I his mind was apparently not at rest. He was perhaps uncertain in which direction to go; he was not likely to remain long where he was, for already the level rays of the setting sun

I straggled redly through the open spaces of the wood and the weary soldiers were quitting their task for the day. He would hardly make a night of it alone there among the dead.

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Nine men in ten whom you meet after a battle inquire the way to some fraction of the army — as if any one could know. Doubtless this officer was lost. After resting himself a mo- ment he would presumably follow one of the retiring burial squads.

When all were gone he walked straight away into the forest toward the red west, its light staining his face like blood. The air of confidence with which he now strode along showed that he was on familiar ground; he had recovered his bearings. The dead on his right and on his left were unregarded as he passed. An occasional low moan from some sorely-stricken wretch whom the relief-parties had not reached, and who would have to pass a comfortless night beneath the stars with his thirst to keep him company, was equally un- heeded. What, indeed, could the officer have done, being no surgeon and having no water?

At the head of a shallow ravine, a mere depression of the ground, lay a small group of bodies. He saw, and swerving suddenly from his course walked rapidly toward them. Scanning each one sharply as he passed, he stopped at last above one which lay at a slight remove from the others, near a clump of small trees. He looked at it narrowly. It seemed

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to stir. He stooped and laid his hand upon its face. It screamed.

The officer was Captain Downing Mad- well, of a Massachusetts regiment of infantry, a daring and intelligent soldier, an honorable man.

In the regiment were two brothers named Halcrow — Caffal and Creede Halcrow. Caf- fal Halcrow was a sergeant in Captain Mad- well's company, and these two men, the sergeant and the captain, were devoted friends. In so far as disparity of rank, differ- ence in duties and considerations of military discipline would permit they were commonly together. They had, indeed, grown up to- gether from childhood. A habit of the heart is not easily broken off. Caffal Halcrow had nothing military in his taste nor disposition, but the thought of separation from his friend was disagreeable ; he enlisted in the company in which Madwell was second-lieutenant. Each had taken two steps upward in rank, but between the highest non-commissioned and the lowest commissioned officer the gulf is deep and wide and the old relation was maintained with difficulty and a difference.

Creede Halcrow, the brother of Caffal, was

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the major of the regiment — a cynical, saturn- ine man, between whom and Captain Mad- well there was a natural antipathy which cir- cumstances had nourished and strengthened to an active animosity. But for the restrain- ing influence of their mutual relation to Caffal these two patriots would doubtless have en- deavored to deprive their country of each | other's services.

At the opening of the battle that morning the regiment was performing outpost duty a mile away from the main army. It was at- tacked and nearly surrounded in the forest, but stubbornly held its ground. During a lull in the fighting. Major Halcrow came to Captain Madwell. The two exchanged formal salutes, and the major said : " Cap- tain, the colonel directs that you push your company to the head of this ravine and hold your place there until recalled. I need hardly apprise you of the dangerous charac- ter of the movement, but if you wish, you can, I suppose, turn over the command to your first-lieutenant. I was not, however, directed to authorize the substitution; it is merely a suggestion of my own, unofficially made."

To this deadly insult Captain Madwell coolly replied:

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" Sir, I invite you to accompany the move- ment. A mounted officer would be a con- spicuous mark, and I have long held the opinion that it v^ould be better if you were dead."

The art of repartee was cultivated in mili- tary circles as early as 1862.

A half-hour later Captain Madwell's com- pany was driven from its position at the head of the ravine, with a loss of one-third its num- ber. Among the fallen was Sergeant Hal- crow. The regiment was soon afterward forced back to the main line, and at the close of the battle was miles away. The captain was now standing at the side of his subordi- nate and friend.

Sergeant Halcrow was mortally hurt. His clothing was deranged ; it seemed to have been violently torn apart, exposing the abdomen. Some of the buttons of his jacket had been pulled off and lay on the ground beside him and fragments of his other garments were strewn about. His leather belt was parted and had apparently been dragged from be- neath him as he lay. There had been no great effusion of blood. The only visible wound was a wide, ragged opening in the abdomen.

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It was defiled with earth and dead leaves. Protruding from it was a loop of small in- testine. In all his experience Captain Mad- well had not seen a wound like this. He could neither conjecture how it was made nor explain the attendant circumstances — the strangely torn clothing, the parted belt, the besmirching of the white skin. He knelt and made a closer examination. When he rose to his feet, he turned his eyes in different direc- tions as if looking for an enemy. Fifty yards away, on the crest of a low, thinly wooded hill, he saw several dark objects moving about among the fallen men — a herd of swine. One stood with its back to him, its shoulders sharply elevated. Its forefeet were upon a human body, its head was depressed and in- visible. The bristly ridge of its chine showed black against the red west. Captain Madwell drew away his eyes and fixed them again upon the thing which had been his friend.

The man who had suffered these monstrous mutilations was alive. At intervals he moved his limbs; he moaned at every breath. He stared blankly into the face of his friend and if touched screamed. In his giant agony he had torn up the ground on which he lay; his

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clenched hands were full of leaves and twigs and earth. Articulate speech was beyond his power; it was impossible to know if he were sensible to anything but pain. The expres- sion of his face was an appeal ; his eyes were full of prayer. For what?

There was no misreading that look; the captain had too frequently seen it in eyes of those whose lips had still the power to formulate it by an entreaty for death. Con- sciously or unconsciously, this writhing frag- ment of humanity, this type and example of acute sensation, this handiwork of man and beast, this humble, unheroic Prometheus, was imploring everything, all, the whole non-ego, for the boon of oblivion. To the earth and the sky alike, to the trees, to the man, to what- ever took form in sense or consciousness, this incarnate suffering addressed that silent plea.

For what, indeed? For that which we ac- cord to even the meanest creature without sense to demand it, denying it only to the wretched of our own race: for the blessed re- lease, the rite of uttermost compassion, the coup de grace.

Captain Madwell spoke the name of his friend. He repeated it over and over with- out effect until emotion choked his utterance.

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His tears plashed upon the livid face beneath his own and blinded himself. He saw no- thing but a blurred and moving object, but the moans were more distinct than ever, inter- rupted at briefer intervals by sharper shrieks. He turned away, struck his hand upon his forehead, and strode from the spot. The swine, catching sight of him, threw up their crimson muzzles, regarding him suspiciously a second, and then with a gruff, concerted grunt, raced away out of sight. A horse, its foreleg splintered by a cannon-shot, lifted its head sidewise from the ground and neighed piteously. Madwell stepped forward, drew his revolver and shot the poor beast between the eyes, narrowly observing its death- struggle, which, contrary to his expectation, was violent and long; but at last it lay still. The tense muscles of its lips, which had un- covered the teeth in a horrible grin, relaxed ; the sharp, clean-cut profile took on a look of profound peace and rest.

Along the distant, thinly wooded crest to westward the fringe of sunset fire had now nearly burned itself out. The light upon the trunks of the trees had faded to a tender gray ; shadows were in their tops, like great dark birds aperch. Night was coming and there

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were miles of haunted forest between Captain Madwell and camp. Yet he stood there at the side of the dead animal, apparently lost to all sense of his surroundings. His eyes were bent upon the earth at his feet; his left hand hung loosely at his side, his right still held the pistol. Presently he lifted his face, turned it toward his dying friend and walked rapidly back to his side. He knelt upon one knee, cocked the weapon, placed the muzzle against the man's forehead, and turning away his eyes pulled the trigger. There was no report. He had used his last cartridge for the horse.

The sufferer moaned and his lips moved convulsively. The froth that ran from them had a tinge of blood.

Captain Madwell rose to his feet and drew his sword from the scabbard. He passed the fingers of his left hand along the edge from hilt to point. He held it out straight before him, as if to test his nerves. There was no visible tremor of the blade; the ray of bleak skylight that it reflected was steady and true. He stooped and with his left hand tore away the dying man's shirt, rose and placed the point of the sword just over the heart. This time he did not withdraw his eyes. Grasping the hilt with both hands, he thrust downward

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with all his strength and weight. The blade sank into the man's body — through his body into the earth; Captain Madwell came near falling forward upon his work. The dying man drew up his knees and at the same time threw his right arm across his breast and grasped the steel so tightly that the knuckles of the hand visibly whitened. By a violent but vain effort to withdraw the blade the wound was enlarged ; a rill of blood escaped, running sinuously down into the deranged clothing. At that moment three men stepped silently forward from behind the clump of young trees which had concealed their ap- proach. Two were hospital attendants and carried a stretcher. The third was Major Creede Halcrow.

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P

son."

PARKER ADDERSON, PHILOSOPHER

RISONER, what is your name?"

" As I am to lose it at daylight to- morrow morning it is hardly worth while concealing it. Parker Adder-

"Your rank?"

" A somewhat humble one ; commissioned officers are too precious to be risked in the perilous business of a spy. I am a sergeant."

"Of what regiment?"

"You must excuse me; my answer might, for anything I know, give you an idea of whose forces are in your front. Such know- ledge as that is what I came into your lines to obtain, not to impart."

" You are not without wit."

" If you have the patience to wait you will find me dull enough to-morrow."

" How do you know that you are to die to- morrow morning?"

" Among spies captured by night that is the custom. It is one of the nice observances of the profession."

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The general so far laid aside the dignity appropriate to a Confederate officer of high rank and wide renown as to smile. But no one in his power and out of his favor would have drawn any happy augury from that out- ward and visible sign of approval. It was neither genial nor infectious ; it did not com- municate itself to the other persons exposed to it — the caught spy who had provoked it and the armed guard who had brought him into the tent and now stood a little apart, watching his prisoner in the yellow candle-light. It was no part of that warrior's duty to smile; he had been detailed for another purpose. The conversation was resumed ; it was in character a trial for a capital offense.

"You admit, then, that you are a spy — that you came into my camp, disguised as you are in the uniform of a Confederate sol- dier, to obtain information secretly regard- ing the numbers and disposition of my troops."

"Regarding, particularly, their numbers. Their disposition I already knew. It is morose."

The general brightened again; the guard, with a severer sense of his responsibility, ac- centuated the austerity of his expression and

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stood a trifle more erect than before. Twirl- ing his gray slouch hat round and round upon his forefinger, the spy took a leisurely survey of his surroundings. They were simple enough. The tent was a common " wall tent," about eight feet by ten in dimensions, lighted by a single tallow candle stuck into the haft of a bayonet, which was itself stuck into a pine table at which the general sat, now busily writing and apparently forgetful of his unwilling guest. An old rag carpet covered the earthen floor; an older leather trunk, a second chair and a roll of blankets were about all else that the tent contained; in General Clavering's command Confederate simplicity and penury of " pomp and circumstance " had attained their highest development. On a large nail driven into the tent pole at the en- trance was suspended a sword-belt supporting a long sabre, a pistol in its holster and, ab- surdly enough, a bowie-knife. Of that most unmilitary weapon it was the general's habit to explain that it was a souvenir of the peace- ful days when he was a civilian.

It was a stormy night. The rain cascaded upon the canvas in torrents, with the dull, drum-like sound familiar to dwellers in tents. As the whooping blasts charged upon it the

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frail structure shook and swayed and strained at its confining stakes and ropes.

The general finished writing, folded the half-sheet of paper and spoke to the soldier guarding Adderson : " Here, Tassman, take that to the adjutant-general ; then return."

"And the prisoner, General?" said the soldier, saluting, with an inquiring glance in the direction of that unfortunate.

" Do as I said," replied the officer, curtly.

The soldier took the note and ducked himself out of the tent. General Clavering turned his handsome face toward the Federal spy, looked him in the eyes, not unkindly, and said : " It is a bad night, my man."

" For me, yes."

" Do you guess what I have written?"

"Something worth reading, I dare say. And — perhaps it is my vanity — I venture to suppose that I am mentioned in it."

" Yes ; it is a memorandum for an order to be read to the troops at reveille concerning your execution. Also some notes for the guidance of the provost-marshal in arranging the details of that event."

" I hope. General, the spectacle will be in- telligently arranged, for I shall attend it my- self."

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" Have you any arrangements of your own that you wish to make? Do you wish to see a chaplain, for example?"

"I could hardly secure a longer rest for myself by depriving him of some of his."

"Good God, man! do you mean to go to your death with nothing but jokes upon your lips? Do you know that this is a serious mat- ter?"

"How can I know that? I have never been dead in all my life. I have heard that death is a serious matter, but never from any of those who have experienced it."

The general was silent for a moment; the man interested, perhaps amused him — a type not previously encountered.

" Death," he said, " is at least a loss — a loss of such happiness as we have, and of oppor- tunities for more."

"A loss of which we shall never be con- scious can be borne with composure and there- fore expected without apprehension. You must have observed, General, that of all the dead men with whom it is your soldierly pleasure to strew your path none shows signs of regret."

" If the being dead is not a regrettable con- dition, yet the becoming so — the act of dying

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— appears to be distinctly disagreeable to one who has not lost the power to feel."

^^ Pain is disagreeable, no doubt. I never suffer it without more or less discomfort. But he who lives longest is most exposed to it. What you call dying is simply the last pain — there is really no such thing as dying. Sup- pose, for illustration, that I attempt to escape. You lift the revolver that you are courteously concealing in your lap, and "

The general blushed like a girl, then laughed softly, disclosing his brilliant teeth, made a slight inclination of his handsome head and said nothing. The spy continued: " You fire, and I have in my stomach what I did not swallow. I fall, but am not dead. After a half-hour of agony I am dead. But at any given instant of that half-hour I was either alive or dead. There is no transition period.

"When I am hanged to-morrow morning it will be quite the same; while conscious I shall be living; when dead, unconscious. Nature appears to have ordered the matter quite in my interest — the way that I should have ordered it myself. It is so simple," he added with a smile, " that it seems hardly worth while to be hanged at all."

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At the finish of his remarks there was a long silence. The general sat impassive, looking into the man's face, but apparently not attentive to what had been said. It was as if his eyes had mounted guard over the prisoner while his mind concerned itself with other matters. Presently he drew a long, deep breath, shuddered, as one awakened from a dreadful dream, and exclaimed almost in- audibly: "Death is horrible!" — this man of death.

" It was horrible to our savage ancestors," said the spy, gravely, " because they had not enough intelligence to dissociate the idea of consciousness from the idea of the physical forms in which it is manifested — as an even lower order of intelligence, that of the monkey, for example, may be unable to imagine a house without inhabitants, and see- ing a ruined hut fancies a suffering occupant. To us it is horrible because we have inherited the tendency to think it so, accounting for the notion by wild and fanciful theories of an- other world — as names of places give rise to legends explaining them and reasonless con- duct to philosophies in justification. You can hang me. General, but there your power of evil ends ; you cannot condemn me to heaven."

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The general appeared not to have heard; the spy's talk had merely turned his thoughts into an unfamiliar channel, but there they pursued their will independently to conclu- sions of their own. The storm had ceased, and something of the solemn spirit of the night had imparted itself to his reflections, giving them the sombre tinge of a super- natural dread. Perhaps there was an element of prescience in it. " I should not like to die," he said — "not to-night."

He was interrupted — if, indeed, he had in- tended to speak further — by the entrance of an officer of his staff, Captain Hasterlick, the provost-marshal. This recalled him to him- self; the absent look passed away from his face.

"Captain," he said, acknowledging the officer's salute, " this man is a Yankee spy cap- tured inside our lines with incriminating papers on him. He has confessed. How is the weather? "

" The storm is over, sir, and the moon shin- ing."

"Good; take a file of men, conduct him at once to the parade ground, and shoot him."

A sharp cry broke from the spy's lips. He

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threw himself forward, thrust out his neck, ex- panded his eyes, clenched his hands.

"Good God!" he cried hoarsely, almost inarticulately; "you do not mean that! You forget — I am not to die until morning."

" I have said nothing of morning," replied the general, coldly ; " that was an assumption of your own. You die now."

" But, General, I beg — I implore you to re- member; I am to hang! It will take some time to erect the gallows — two hours — an hour. Spies are hanged ; I have rights under military law. For Heaven's sake. General, consider how short "

" Captain, observe my directions."

The officer drew his sword and fixing his eyes upon the prisoner pointed silently to the opening of the tent. The prisoner hesitated; the officer grasped him by the collar and pushed him gently forward. As he ap- proached the tent pole the frantic man sprang to it and with cat-like agility seized the handle of the bowie-knife, plucked the weapon from the scabbard and thrusting the captain aside leaped upon the general with the fury of a madman, hurling him to the ground and fall- ing headlong upon him as he lay. The table was overturned, the candle extinguished and

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they fought blindly in the darkness. The provost-marshal sprang to the assistance of his superior ofBcer and was himself prostrated upon the struggling forms. Curses and inar- ticulate cries of rage and pain came from the welter of limbs and bodies; the tent came down upon them and beneath its hampering and enveloping folds the struggle went on. Private Tassman, returning from his errand and dimly conjecturing the situation, threw down his rifle and laying hold of the flounc- ing canvas at random vainly tried to drag it off the men under it; and the sentinel who paced up and down in front, not daring to leave his beat though the skies should fall, discharged his rifle. The report alarmed the camp ; drums beat the long roll and bugles sounded the assembly, bringing swarms of half-clad men into the moonlight, dressing as they ran, and falling into line at the sharp commands of their oflScers. This was well; being in line the men were under control ; they stood at arms while the general's staff and the men of his escort brought order out of con- fusion by lifting off the fallen tent and pulling apart the breathless and bleeding actors in that strange contention. Breathless, indeed, was one : the captain was

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dead; the handle of the bowie-knife, protrud- ing from his throat, was pressed back beneath his chin until the end had caught in the angle of the jaw and the hand that delivered the blow had been unable to remove the weapon. In the dead man's hand was his sword, clenched with a grip that defied the strength of the living. Its blade was streaked with red to the hilt.

Lifted to his feet, the general sank back to the earth with a moan and fainted. Besides his bruises he had two sword-thrusts — one through the thigh, the other through the shoulder.

The spy had suffered the least damage. Apart from a broken right arm, his wounds were such only as might have been incurred in an ordinary combat with nature's weapons. But he was dazed and seemed hardly to know what had occurred. He shrank away from those attending him, cowered upon the ground and uttered unintelligible remonstrances. His face, swollen by blows and stained with gouts of blood, nevertheless showed white be- neath his disheveled hair — as white as that of a corpse.

" The man is not insane," said the surgeon, preparing bandages and replying to a ques-

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tion ; " he is suffering from fright. Who and what is he?"

Private Tassman began to explain. It was the opportunity of his life; he omitted no- thing that could in any way accentuate the importance of his o\yn relation to the night's events. When he had finished his story and was ready to begin it again nobody gave him any attention.

The general had now recovered conscious- ness. He raised himself upon his elbow, looked about him, and, seeing the spy crouch- ing by a camp-fire, guarded, said simply:

" Take that man to the parade ground and shoot him."

" The general's mind wanders," said an of- ficer standing near.

" His mind does not wander," the adjutant- general said. " I have a memorandum from him about this business; he had given that same order to Hasterlick" — with a motion of the hand toward the dead provost-marshal — " and, by God! it shall be executed."

Ten minutes later Sergeant Parker Adder-' son, of the Federal army, philosopher and wit, kneeling in the moonlight and begging in- coherently for his life, was shot to death by twenty men. As the volley rang out upon the

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keen air of the midnight, General Clavering, lying white and still in the red glow of the camp-fire, opened his big blue eyes, looked pleasantly upon those about him and said: "How silent it all is!"

The surgeon looked at the adjutant-general, gravely and significantly. The patient's eyes slowly closed, and thus he lay for a few moments ; then, his face suffused with a smile of ineffable sweetness, he said, faintly : " I suppose this must be death," and so passed away.

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AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS I

CONCERNING THE WISH TO BE DEAD

TWO men sat in conversation. One was the Governor of the State. The year was 1861 ; the war was on and the Governor already famous for the intelligence and zeal with which he di- rected all the powers and resources of his State to the service of the Union.

"What! you?'' the Governor was saying in evident surprise — " you too want a military commission? Really, the fifing and drumm- ing must have effected a profound alteration in your convictions. In my character of re- cruiting sergeant I suppose I ought not to be fastidious, but" — there was a touch of irony in his manner — "well, have you forgotten that an oath of allegiance is required?"

" I have altered neither my convictions nor my sympathies," said the other, tranquilly. "While my sympathies are with the South, as you do me the honor to recollect, I have never

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doubted that the North was in the right. I am a Southerner in fact and in feeling, but it is my habit in matters of importance to act as I think, not as I feel."

The Governor was absently tapping his desk with a pencil; he did not immediately reply. After a while he said : " I have heard that there are all kinds of men in the world, so I suppose there are some like that, and doubt- less you think yourself one. I've known you a long time and — pardon me — I don't think so."

" Then I am to understand that my applica- tion is denied?"

" Unless you can remove my belief that your Southern sympathies are in some de- gree a disqualification, yes. I do not doubt your good faith, and I know you to be abun- dantly fitted by intelligence and special train- ing for the duties of an officer. Your convic- tions, you say, favor the Union cause, but I prefer a man with his heart in it. The heart is what men fight with."

" Look here. Governor," said the younger man, with a smile that had more light than warmth : " I have something up my sleeve — a qualification which I had hoped it would not be necessary to mention. A great military

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authority has given a simple recipe for being a good soldier: *Try always to get yourself killed.' It is with that purpose that I wish to enter the service. I am not, perhaps, much of a patriot, but I wish to be dead."

The Governor looked at him rather sharply, then a little coldly. " There is a simpler and franker way," he said.

"In my family, sir," was the reply, "we do not do that — no Armisted has ever done that."

A long silence ensued and neither man looked at the other. Presently the Governor lifted his eyes from the pencil, which had resumed its tapping, and said:

"Who is she?"

" My wife."

The Governor tossed the pencil into the desk, rose and walked two or three times across the room. Then he turned to Armisted, who also had risen, looked at him more coldly than before and said : " But the man — would it not be better that he — could not the country spare him better than it can spare you? Or are the Armisteds opposed to * the unwritten law'?"

The Armisteds, apparently, could feel an insult: the face of the younger man flushed,

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then paled, but he subdued himself to the service of his purpose.

" The man's identity is unknown to me," he said, calmly enough.

" Pardon me," said the Governor, with even less of visible contrition than commonly un- derlies those words. After a moment's reflec- tion he added : " I shall send you to-morrow a captain's commission in the Tenth Infantry, now at Nashville, Tennessee. Good night."

" Good night, sir. I thank you."

Left alone, the Governor remained for a time motionless, leaning against his desk. Presently he shrugged his shoulders as if throwing off a burden. " This is a bad busi- ness," he said.

Seating himself at a reading-table before the fire, he took up the book nearest his hand, absently opening it. His eyes fell upon this sentence :

"When God made it necessary for an un- faithful wife to lie about her husband in justi- fication of her own sins He had the tender- ness to endow men with the folly to believe her."

He looked at the title of the book; it was, His Excellency the Fool,

He flung the volume into the fire.

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11

HOW TO SAY WHAT IS WORTH HEARING

The enemy, defeated in two days of battle at Pittsburg Landing, had sullenly retired to Corinth, whence he had come. For manifest incompetence Grant, whose beaten army had been saved from destruction and capture by Buell's soldierly activity and skill, had been relieved of his command, which nevertheless had not been given to Buell, but to Halleck, a man of unproved powers, a theorist, slugg- ish, irresolute. Foot by foot his troops, always deployed in line-of-battle to resist the enemy's bickering skirmishers, always en- trenching against the columns that never came, advanced across the thirty miles of forest and swamp toward an antagonist pre- pared to vanish at contact, like a ghost at cock-crow. It was a campaign of " excursions and alarums," of reconnoissances and counter- marches, of cross-purposes and counter- manded orders. For weeks the solemn farce held attention, luring distinguished civilians from fields of political ambition to see what they safely could of the horrors of war. Among these was our friend the Governor. At the headquarters of the army and in the

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camps of the troops from his State he was a familiar figure, attended by the several members of his personal stafif, showily horsed, faultlessly betailored and bravely silk-hatted. Things of charm they were, rich in sugges- tions of peaceful lands beyond a sea of strife. The bedraggled soldier looked up from his trench as they passed, leaned upon his spade and audibly damned them to signify his sense of their ornamental irrelevance to the austeri- ties of his trade.

" I think. Governor," said General Master- son one day, going into informal session atop of his horse and throwing one leg across the pommel of his saddle, his favorite posture — *^ I think I would not ride any farther in that direction if I were you. We've nothing out there but a line of skirmishers. That, I pre- sume, is why I was directed to put these siege guns here: if the skirmishers are driven in the enemy will die of dejection at being un- able to haul them away — they're a trifle heavy."

There is reason to fear that the unstrained quality of this military humor dropped not as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath the civilian's silk hat. Anyhow he abated none of his» dignity in recognition.

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" I understand," he said, gravely, " that some of my men are out there — a company of the Tenth, commanded by Captain Armi- sted. I should like to meet him if you do not mind."

" He is worth meeting. But there's a bad bit of jungle out there, and I should advise that you leave your horse and " — with a look at the Governor's retinue — "your other im- pedimenta."

The Governor went forward alone and on foot. In a half-hour he had pushed through a tangled undergrowth covering a boggy soil and entered upon firm and more open ground. Here he found a half-company of infantry lounging behind a line of stacked rifles. The men wore their accoutrements — their belts, cartridge-boxes, haversacks and canteens. Some lying at full length on the dry leaves were fast asleep: others in small groups gos- siped idly of this and that; a few played at cards; none was far from the line of stacked arms. To the civilian's eye the scene was one of carelessness, confusion, indifference; a sol- dier would have observed expectancy and readiness.

At a little distance apart an officer in fatigue uniform, armed, sat on a fallen tree

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noting the approach of the visitor, to whom a sergeant, rising from one of the groups, now came forward.

" I wish to see Captain Armisted," said the Governor.

The sergeant eyed him narrowly, saying nothing, pointed to the officer, and taking a rifle from one of the stacks, accompanied him.

"This man wants to see you, sir," said the sergeant, saluting. The officer rose.

It would have been a sharp eye that would have recognized him. His hair, which but a few months before had been brown, was streaked with gray. His face, tanned by exposure, was seamed as with age. A long livid scar across the forehead marked the stroke of a sabre; one cheek was drawn and puckered by the work of a bullet. Only a woman of the loyal North would have thought the man handsome.

"Armisted — Captain," said the Governor, extending his hand, "do you not know me?"

" I know you, sir, and I salute you — as the Governor of my State."

Lifting his right hand to the level of his eyes he threw it outward and downward. In

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the code of military etiquette there is no pro- vision for shaking hands. That of the civilian was withdrawn. If he felt either surprise or chagrin his face did not betray it.

" It is the hand that signed your commis- sion," he said.

" And it is the hand "

The sentence remains unfinished. The sharp report of a rifle came from the front, followed by another and another. A bullet hissed through the forest and struck a tree near by. The men sprang from the ground and even before the captain's high, clear voice was done intoning the command " At-ten-tion ! " had fallen into line in rear of the stacked arms. Again — and now through the din of a crack- ling fusillade— sounded the strong, deliberate sing-song of authority: "Take . . . arms!" followed by the rattle of unlocking bayo- nets.

Bullets from the unseen enemy were now flying thick and fast, though mostly well spent and emitting the humming sound which signi- fied interference by twigs and rotation in the plane of flight. Two or three of the men in the line were already struck and down. A few wounded men came limping awkwardly out of the undergrowth from the skirmish line

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in front; most of them did not pause, but held their way with white faces and set teeth to the rear.

Suddenly there was a deep, jarring report in front, followed by the startling rush of a shell, which passing overhead exploded in the edge of a thicket, setting afire the fallen leaves. Penetrating the din — seeming to float above it like the melody of a soaring bird — rang the slow, aspirated monotones of the captain's sev- eral commands, without emphasis, without accent, musical and restful as an evensong under the harvest moon. Familiar with this tranquilizing chant in moments of imminent peril, these raw soldiers of less than a year's training yielded themselves to the spell, exe- cuting its mandates with the composure and precision of veterans. Even the distinguished civilian behind his tree, hesitating between pride and terror, was accessible to its charm and suasion. He was conscious of a forti- fied resolution and ran away only when the skirmishers, under orders to rally on the re- serve, came out of the woods like hunted hares and formed on the left of the stiff little line, breathing hard and thankful for the boon of breath.

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III

THE FIGHTING OF ONE WHOSE HEART WAS NOT IN THE QUARREL

Guided in his retreat by that of the fugitive wounded, the Governor struggled bravely to the rear through the "bad bit of jungle." He was well winded and a trifle con- fused. Excepting a single rifle-shot now and again, there was no sound of strife behind him; the enemy was pulling himself together for a new onset against an antagonist of whose numbers and tactical disposition he was in doubt. The fugitive felt that he would prob- ably be spared to his country, and only com- mended the arrangements of Providence to that end, but in leaping a small brook in more open ground one of the arrangements incurred the mischance of a disabling sprain at the ankle. He was unable to continue his flight, for he was too fat to hop, and after several vain attempts, causing intolerable pain, seated himself on the earth to nurse his ignoble dis- ability and deprecate the military situation.

A brisk renewal of the firing broke out and stray bullets came flitting and droning by. Then came the crash of two clean, definite

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volleys, followed by a continuous rattle, through which he heard the yells and cheers of the combatants, punctuated by thunder- claps of cannon. All this told him that Armisted's little command was bitterly beset and fighting at close quarters. The wounded men whom he had distanced began to straggle by on either hand, their numbers visibly aug- mented by new levies from the line. Singly and by twos and threes, some supporting com- rades more desperately hurt than themselves, but all deaf to his appeals for assistance, they sifted through the underbrush and disap- peared. The firing was increasingly louder and more distinct, and presently the ailing fugitives were succeeded by men who strode with a firmer tread, occasionally facing about and discharging their pieces, then doggedly resuming their retreat, reloading as they walked. Two or three fell as he looked, and lay motionless. One had enough of life left in him to make a pitiful attempt to drag him- self to cover. A passing comrade paused beside him long enough to fire, appraised the poor devil's disability with a look and moved sullenly on, inserting a cartridge in his weapon.

In all this was none of the pomp of war

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' — no hint of glory. Even in his distress and peril the helpless civilian could not forbear to contrast it with the gorgeous parades and reviews held in honor of himself — with the brilliant uniforms, the music, the banners, and the marching. It was an ugly and sickening business : to all that was artistic in his nature, revolting, brutal, in bad taste.

" Ugh ! " he grunted, shuddering — " this is beastly I Where is the charm of it all? Where are the elevated sentiments, the devo- tion, the heroism, the "

From a point somewhere near, in the direc- tion of the pursuing enemy, rose the clear, de- liberate sing-song of Captain Armisted.

"Stead-y, men — stead-y. Halt! Com- mence fir-ing."

The rattle of fewer than a score of rifles could be distinguished through the general uproar, and again that penetrating falsetto:

" Cease fir-ing. In re-treat .... maaarch! "

In a few moments this remnant had drifted slowly past the Governor, all to the right of him as they faced in retiring, the men de- ployed at intervals of a half-dozen paces. At the extreme left and a few yards behind came the captain. The civilian called out his name,

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but he did not hear. A swarm of men in gray- now broke out of cover in pursuit, making directly for the spot where the Governor lay — some accident of the ground had caused them to converge upon that point: their line had become a crowd. In a last struggle for life and liberty the Governor attempted to rise, and looking back the captain saw him. Promptly, but with the same slow precision as before, he sang his commands :

" Skirm-ish-ers, halt!" The men stopped and according to rule turned to face the enemy.

"Ral-ly on the right!" — and they came in at a run, fixing bayonets and forming loosely on the man at that end of the line.

" Forward . . to save the Gov-ern-or of your State . . doub-le quick . . . maaarch!"

Only one man disobeyed this astonishing command! He was dead. With a cheer they sprang forward over the twenty or thirty paces between them and their task. The cap- tain having a shorter distance to go arrived first — simultaneously with the enemy. A half-dozen hasty shots were fired at him, and the foremost man — a fellow of heroic stature, hatless and bare-breasted — made a vicious sweep at his head with a clubbed rifle. The

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officer parried the blow at the cost of a broken arm and drove his sword to the hilt into the giant's breast. As the body fell the weapon was wrenched from his hand and before he could pluck his revolver from the scabbard at his belt another man leaped upon him like a tiger, fastening both hands upon his throat and bearing him backward upon the prostrate Governor, still struggling to rise. This man was promptly spitted upon the bayonet of a Federal sergeant and his death-gripe on the captain's throat loosened by a kick upon each wrist. When the captain had risen he was at the rear of his men, who had all passed over and around him and were thrusting fiercely at their more numerous but less coherent antag- onists. Nearly all the rifles on both sides were empty and in the crush there was neither time nor room to reload. The Confederates were at a disadvantage in that most of them lacked bayonets; they fought by bludgeoning — and a clubbed rifle is a formidable arm. The sound of the conflict was a clatter like that of the interlocking horns of battling bulls — now and then the pash of a crushed skull, an oath, or a grunt caused by the impact of a rifle's muzzle against the abdomen transfixed by its bayonet. Through an opening made by

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the fall of one of his men Captain Armisted sprang, with his dangling left arm ; in his right hand a full-charged revolver, v^hich he fired with rapidity and terrible effect into the thick of the gray crowd : but across the bodies of the slain the survivors in the front were pushed forward by their comrades in the rear till again they breasted the tireless bayonets. There were fewer bayonets now to breast — a beggarly half-dozen, all told. A few minutes more of this rough work — a little fighting back to back — and all would be over.

Suddenly a lively firing was heard on the right and the left: a fresh line of Federal skirmishers came forward at a run, driving before them those parts of the Confederate line that had been separated by staying the advance of the centre. And behind these new and noisy combatants, at a distance of two or three hundred yards, could be seen, indistinct among the trees a line-of-battle!

Instinctively before retiring, the crowd in gray made a tremendous rush upon its hand- ful of antagonists, overwhelming them by mere momentum and, unable to use weapons in the crush, trampled them, stamped savagely on their limbs, their bodies, their necks, their faces; then retiring with bloody feet across its

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own dead it joined the general rout and the incident was at an end.

THE GREAT HONOR THE GREAT

The Governor, who had been unconscious, opened his eyes and stared about him, slowly recalling the day's events. A man in the uni- form of a major was kneeling beside him ; he was a surgeon. Grouped about were the civilian members of the Governor's staff, their faces expressing a natural solicitude regarding their offices. A little apart stood General Masterson addressing another officer and gesticulating with a cigar. He was say- ing: "It was the beautifulest fight ever made — by God, sir, it was great!"

The beauty and greatness were attested by a row of dead, trimly disposed, and another of wounded, less formally placed, restless, half- naked, but bravely bebandaged.

" How do you feel, sir?" said the surgeon. " I find no wound."

" I think I am all right," the patient replied, sitting up. " It is that ankle."

The surgeon transferred his attention to the

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ankle, cutting away the boot. All eyes fol- lowed the knife.

In moving the leg a folded paper was un- covered. The patient picked it up and care- lessly opened it. It was a letter three months old, signed "Julia." Catching sight of his name in it he read it. It was nothing very remarkable — merely a weak woman's confes- sion of unprofitable sin — the penitence of a faithless wife deserted by her betrayer. The letter had fallen from the pocket of Captain Armisted ; the reader quietly transferred it to his own.

An aide-de-camp rode up and dismounted. Advancing to the Governor he saluted.

" Sir," he said, " I am sorry to find you wounded — the Commanding General has not been informed. He presents his compliments and I am directed to say that he has ordered for to-morrow a grand review of the reserve corps in your honor. I venture to add that the General's carriage is at your service if you are able to attend."

"Be pleased to say to the Commanding General that I am deeply touched by his kind- ness. If you have the patience to wait a few moments you shall convey a more definite reply."

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He smiled brightly and glancing at the surgeon and his assistants added: "At pres- ent— if you will permit an allusion to the hor- rors of peace — I am *in the hands of my friends.'"

The humor of the great is infectious; all laughed who heard.

"Where is Captain Armisted?" the Gov- ernor asked, not altogether carelessly.

The surgeon looked up from his work, pointing silently to the nearest body in the row of dead, the features discreetly covered with a handkerchief. It was so near that the great man could have laid his hand upon it, but he did not. He may have feared that it would bleed.

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THE STORY OF A CONSCIENCE

CAPTAIN PARROL HARTROY stood at the advanced post of his picket-guard, talking in low tones with the sentinel. This post was on a turnpike which bisected the captain's camp, a half-mile in rear, though the camp was not in sight from that point. The officer was appar- ently giving the soldier certain instructions — was perhaps merely inquiring if all were quiet in front. As the two stood talking a man approached them from the direction of the campj carelessly whistling, and was promptly halted by the soldier. He was evidently a civilian — a tall person, coarsely clad in the home-made stuff of yellow gray, called " but- ternut," which was men's only wear in the latter days of the Confederacy. On his head was a slouch felt hat, once white, from beneath which hung masses of uneven hair, seemingly unacquainted with either scissors or comb. The man's face was rather striking; a broad forehead, high nose, and thin cheeks, the mouth invisible in the full dark beard,

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which seemed as neglected as the hair. The eyes were large and had that steadiness and fixity of attention which so frequently mark a considering intelligence and a will not easily turned from its purpose — so say those phys- iognomists who have that kind of eyes. On the whole, this was a man whom one would be likely to observe and be observed by. He carried a walking-stick freshly cut from the forest and his ailing cowskin boots were white with dust.

" Show your pass," said the Federal sol- dier, a trifle more imperiously perhaps than he would have thought necessary if he had not been under the eye of his commander, who with folded arms looked on from the road- side.

" 'Lowed you'd rec'lect me, Gineral," said the wayfarer tranquilly, while producing the paper from the pocket of his coat. There was something in his tone — perhaps a faint sug- gestion of irony — which made his elevation of his obstructor to exalted rank less agreeable to that worthy warrior than promotion is com- monly found to be. " You-all have to be purty pertickler, I reckon," he added, in a more conciliatory tone, as if in half-apology for being halted.

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Having read the pass, with his rifle resting on the ground, the soldier handed the docu- ment back without a word, shouldered his weapon, and returned to his commander. The civilian passed on in the middle of the road, and when he had penetrated the circumjacent Confederacy a few yards resumed his whist- ling and was soon out of sight beyond an angle in the road, which at that point entered a thin forest. Suddenly the officer undid his arms from his breast, drew a revolver from his belt and sprang forward at a run in the same direction, leaving his sentinel in gaping astonishment at his post. After making to the various visible forms of nature a solemn promise to be damned, that gentleman re- sumed the air of stolidity which is supposed to be appropriate to a state of alert military attention.

II

Captain Hartroy held an independent com- mand. His force consisted of a company of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and a sec- tion of artillery, detached from the army to which they belonged, to defend an important defile in the Cumberland Mountains in Ten- nessee. It was a field officer's command held by a line officer promoted from the ranks,

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where he had quietly served until "discov- ered." His post was one of exceptional peril ; its defense entailed a heavy responsibility and he had wisely been given corresponding dis- cretionary powers, all the more necessary be- cause of his distance from the main army, the precarious nature of his communications and the lawless character of the enemy's irregular troops infesting that region. He had strongly fortified his little camp, which embraced a village of a half-dozen dwellings and a coun- try store, and had collected a considerable quantity of supplies. To a few resident civilians of known loyalty, with whom it was desirable to trade, and of whose services in various ways he sometimes availed himself, he had given written passes admitting them within his lines. It is easy to understand that an abuse of this privilege in the interest of the enemy might entail serious consequences. Captain Hartroy had made an order to the effect that any one so abusing it would be summarily shot.

While the sentinel had been examining the civilian's pass the captain had eyed the lat- ter narrowly. He thought his appearance familiar and had at first no doubt of having

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given him the pass which had satisfied the sentinel. It was not until the man had got out of sight and hearing that his identity was dis- closed by a revealing light from memory. With soldierly promptness of decision the officer had acted on the revelation.

Ill

To any but a singularly self-possessed man the apparition of an officer of the military forces, formidably clad, bearing in one hand a sheathed sword and in the other a cocked revolver, and rushing in furious pursuit, is no doubt disquieting to a high degree; upon the man to whom the pursuit was in this in- stance directed it appeared to have no other effect than somewhat to intensify his tranquill- ity. He might easily enough have escaped into the forest to the right or the left, but chose another course of action — turned and quietly faced the captain, saying as he came up : "I reckon ye must have something to say to me, which ye disremembered. What mout it be, neighbor?"

But the "neighbor" did not answer, being engaged in the unneighborly act of covering him with a cocked pistol.

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" Surrender," said the captain as calmly as a slight breathlessness from exertion would permit, " or you die."

There was no menace in the manner of this demand ; that was all in the matter and in the means of enforcing it. There was, too, some- thing not altogether reassuring in the cold gray eyes that glanced along the barrel of the weapon. For a moment the two men stood looking at each other in silence; then the civilian, with no appearance of fear — with as great apparent unconcern as when complying with the less austere demand of the sentinel — slowly pulled from his pocket the paper which had satisfied that humble functionary and held it out, saying:

" I reckon this 'ere parss from Mister Hart- roy is ^"

" The pass is a forgery," the officer said, in- terrupting. " I am Captain Hartroy — and you are Dramer Brune."

It would have required a sharp eye to observe the slight pallor of the civilian's face at these words, and the only other manifesta- tion attesting their significance was a volun- tary relaxation of the thumb and fingers hold- ing the dishonored paper, which, falling to the road, unheeded, was rolled by a gentle

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wind and then lay still, with a coating of dust, as in humiliation for the lie that it bore. A moment later the civilian, still looking un- moved into the barrel of the pistol, said:

"Yes, I am Dramer Brune, a Confederate spy, and your prisoner. I have on my person, as you will soon discover, a plan of your fort and its armament, a statement of the distribu- tion of your men and their number, a map of the approaches, showing the positions of all your outposts. My life is fairly yours, but if you wish it taken in a more formal way than by your own hand, and if you are willing to spare me the indignity of marching into camp at the muzzle of your pistol, I promise you that I will neither resist, escape, nor remon- strate, but will submit to whatever penalty may be imposed."

The ofBcer lowered his pistol, uncocked it, and thrust it into its place in his belt. Brune advanced a step, extending his right hand.

" It is the hand of a traitor and a spy," said the officer coldly, and did not take it. The other bowed.

" Come," said the captain, " let us go to camp; you shall not die until to-morrow morning."

He turned his back upon his prisoner, and

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these two enigmatical men retraced their steps and soon passed the sentinel, who ex- pressed his general sense of things by a need- less and exaggerated salute to his commander.

IV

Early on the morning after these events the two men, captor and captive, sat in the tent of the former. A table was between them on which lay, among a number of letters, official and private, which the captain had written during the night, the incriminating papers found upon the spy. That gentleman had slept through the night in an adjoining tent, unguarded. Both, having breakfasted, were now smoking.

" Mr. Brune," said Captain Hartroy, "you probably do not understand why I recognized you in your disguise, nor how I was aware of your name."

" I have not sought to learn. Captain," the prisoner said with quiet dignity.

" Nevertheless I should like you to know — if the story will not offend. You will perceive that my knowledge of you goes back to the autumn of 1861. At that time you were a private in an Ohio regiment — a brave and trusted soldier. To the surprise and grief of

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your officers and comrades you deserted and went over to the enemy. Soon afterward you were captured in a skirmish, recognized, tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot. Awaiting the execution of the sentence you were confined, unfettered, in a freight car standing on a side track of a railway."

"At Grafton, Virginia," said Brune, push- ing the ashes from his cigar with the little finger of the hand holding it, and without looking up.

"At Grafton, Virginia," the captain re- peated. " One dark and stormy night a sol- dier who had just returned from a long, fa- tiguing march was put on guard over you. He sat on a cracker box inside the car, near the door, his rifle loaded and the bayonet fixed. You sat in a corner and his orders were to kill you if you attempted to rise."

" But if I asked to rise he might call the corporal of the guard."

" Yes. As the long silent hours wore away the soldier yielded to the demands of nature : he himself incurred the death penalty by sleeping at his post of duty."

"You did."

" What! you recognize me? you have known me all along?"

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The captain had risen and was walking the floor of his tent, visibly excited. His face was flushed, the gray eyes had lost the cold, piti- less look which they had shown when Brune had seen them over the pistol barrel ; they had softened wonderfully.

" I knew you," said the spy, with his cus- tomary tranquillity, " the moment you faced me, demanding my surrender. In the circum- stances it would have been hardly becoming in me to recall these matters. I am perhaps a traitor, certainly a spy; but I should not wish to seem a suppliant."

The captain had paused in his walk and was facing his prisoner. There was a singular huskiness in his voice as he spoke again.

" Mr. Brune, whatever your conscience may permit you to be, you saved my life at what you must have believed the cost of your own. Until I saw you yesterday when halted by my sentinel I believed you dead — thought that you had suffered the fate which through my own crime you might easily have escaped. You had only to step from the car and leave me to take your place before the firing-squad. You had a divine compassion. You pitied my fatigue. You let me sleep, watched over me, and as the time drew near for the relief -guard

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to come and detect me in my crime, you gently waked me. Ah, Brune, Brune, that was well done — that was great — that "

The captain's voice failed him; the tears were running down his face and sparkled upon his beard and his breast. Resuming his seat at the table, he buried his face in his arms and sobbed. All else was silence.

Suddenly the clear warble of a bugle was heard sounding the " assembly." The captain started and raised his wet face from his arms ; it had turned ghastly pale. Outside, in the sunlight, were heard the stir of the men fall- ing into line ; the voices of the sergeants call- ing the roll; the tapping of the drummers as they braced their drums. The captain spoke again :

"I ought to have confessed my fault in order to relate the story of your magnanimity; it might have procured you a pardon. A hun- dred times I resolved to do so, but shame pre- vented. Besides, your sentence was just and righteous. Well, Heaven forgive me! I said nothing, and my regiment was soon afterward ordered to Tennessee and I never heard about you."

" It was all right, sir," said Brune, without visible emotion ; " I escaped and returned to

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my colors — the Confederate colors. I should like to add that before deserting from the Fed- eral service I had earnestly asked a discharge, on the ground of altered convictions. I was answered by punishment."

"Ah, but if I had sufifered the penalty of my crime — if you had not generously given me the life that I accepted without gratitude you would not be again in the shadow and imminence of death."

The prisoner started slightly and a look of anxiety came into his face. One would have said, too, that he was surprised. At that moment a lieutenant, the adjutant, ap- peared at the opening of the tent and saluted. "Captain," he said, "the battalion is formed."

Captain Hartroy had recovered his com- posure. He turned to the officer and said: " Lieutenant, go to Captain Graham and say that I direct him to assume command of the battalion and parade it outside the parapet. This gentleman is a deserter and a spy; he is to be shot to death in the presence of the troops. He will accompany you, unbound and unguarded."

While the adjutant waited at the door the two men inside the tent rose and exchanged

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ceremonious bows, Brune immediately retir- ing.

Half an hour later an old negro cook, the only person left in camp except the com- mander, was so startled by the sound of a vol- ley of musketry that he dropped the kettle that he was lifting from a fire. But for his con- sternation and the hissing which the contents of the kettle made among the embers, he might also have heard, nearer at hand, the single pistol shot with which Captain Hartroy re- nounced the life which in conscience he could no longer keep.

In compliance with the terms of a note that he left for the officer who succeeded him in command, he was buried, like the deserter and spy, without military honors ; and in the sol- emn shadow of the mountain which knows no more of war the two sleep well in long-for- gotten graves.

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ONE KIND OF OFFICER I

OF THE USES OF CIVILITY

CAPTAIN RANSOME, it is not permitted to you to. know anything. It is sufBcient that you obey my order — which permit me to repeat. If you perceive any movement of troops in your front you are to open fire, and if attacked hold this position as long as you can. Do I make myself understood, sir?"

"Nothing could be plainer. Lieutenant Price," — this to an officer of his own battery, who had ridden up in time to hear the order — " the general's meaning is clear, is it not? "

" Perfectly."

The lieutenant passed on to his post. For a moment General Cameron and the com- mander of the battery sat in their saddles, looking at each other in silence. There was no more to say; apparently too much had already been said. Then the superior officer nodded coldly and turned his horse to ride away. The artillerist saluted slowly, gravely, and with

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extreme formality. One acquainted with the niceties of military etiquette would have said that by his manner he attested a sense of the rebuke that he had incurred. It is one of the important uses of civility to signify resent- ment.

When the general had joined his staff and escort, awaiting him at a little distance, the whole cavalcade moved off toward the right of the guns and vanished in the fog. Captain Ransome was alone, silent, motionless as an equestrian statue. The gray fog, thickening every moment, closed in about him like a visi- ble doom.

II

UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES MEN DO NOT WISH TO BE SHOT

The fighting of the day before had been desultory and indecisive. At the points of collision the smoke of battle had hung in blue sheets among the branches of the trees till beaten into nothing by the falling rain. In the softened earth the wheels of cannon and ammunition wagons cut deep, ragged furrows, and movements of infantry seemed impeded by the mud that clung to the soldiers' feet as.

h

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with soaken garments and rifles imperfectly protected by capes of overcoats they went dragging in sinuous lines hither and thither through dripping forest and flooded field. Mounted officers, their heads protruding from rubber ponchos that glittered like black armor, picked their way, singly and in loose groups, among the men, coming and going with apparent aimlessness and commanding attention from nobody but one another. Here and there a dead man, his clothing defiled with earth, his face covered with a blanket or showing yellow and claylike in the rain, added his dispiriting influence to that of the other dismal features of the scene