Forward!
They were moving.
Steadyright dress! taken up in turn by the company officerssteadyright dress!
The bandmaster swung his sabre forward; the mounted band followed.
Far away across the level fields something was stirring; the colonel saw it and turned in his saddle, scanning the column that moved forward on a walk.
Half a mile, and, passing a hill, an infantry regiment rose in the shallow trenches to cheer them. Instantly the mounted band burst out into The Girl I Left Behind Me; an electric thrill passed along the column.
Steady! Steady! Right dress! rang the calm orders as a wood, almost behind them, was suddenly fringed with white smoke and a long, rolling crackle broke out.
By foursright-aboutwheel!
The band swung out to the right; the squadrons passed on; andSteady! Trot! Steadyright dressgallop! came the orders.
The wild music of Garryowen set the horses franticand the men, too. The band, still advancing at a walk, was dropping rapidly behind. A bullet hit kettle-drummer Pillsbury, and he fell with a grunt, doubling up across his nigh kettle-drum. A moment later Peters struck his cymbals wildly together and fell clean out of his saddle, crashing to the sod. Schwarz, his trombone pierced by a ball, swore aloud and dragged his frantic horse into line.
Right dress! said the bandmaster blandly, mastering his own splendid mount as a bullet grazed its shoulder.
They were in the smoke now, they heard the yelling charge ahead, the rifle fire raging, swelling to a terrific roar; and they marched forward, playing Garryowennot very well, for Connors jaw was half gone, and Bradleys horse was down; and the bandmaster, reeling in the saddle, parried blow on blow from a clubbed rifle, until a stunning crack alongside of the head laid him flat across his horses neck. And there he clung till he tumbled off, a limp, loose-limbed mass, lying in the trampled grass under the heavy pall of smoke.
Long before sunset the echoing thunder in the hills had ceased; the edge of the great battle that had skirted Sandy River, with a volley or two and an obscure cavalry charge, was ended. Beyond the hills, far away on the horizon, the men of the North were tramping forward through the Confederacy. The immense exodus had begun again; the invasion was developing; and as the tremendous red spectre receded, the hem of its smoky robe brushed Sandy River and was gone, leaving a scorched regiment or two along the railroad, and a hospital at Oxley Court House overcrowded.
In the sunset light the cavalry returned passing the white mansion on the hill. They brought in their dead and wounded on hay wagons; and the boy, pale as a spectre, looked on, while the creaking wagons passed by under the trees.
But it was his sister whose eyes caught the glitter of a gilt and yellow sleeve lying across the hay; and she dropped her brothers hand and ran out into the road.
Is he dead? she asked the trooper who was driving.
No, miss. Will you take him in?
Yes, she said. Bring him.
The driver drew rein, wheeled his team, and drove into the great gateway. Hospitals plum full, maam, he said. Wait; Ill carry him up. Heads bust a leetlethats all. A days nussin will bring him into camp again.
The trooper staggered upstairs with his burden, leaving a trail of dark, wet spots along the stairs, even up to the girls bed, where he placed the wounded man.
The bandmaster became conscious when they laid him on the bed, but the concussion troubled his eyes so that he was not certain that she was there until she bent close over him, looking down at him in silence.
I thought of youwhen I was falling, he explained vaguelyonly of you.
The color came into her face; but her eyes were steady. She set the flaring dip on the bureau and came back to the bed. We thought of you, too, she said.
His restless hand, fumbling the quilt, closed on hers; his eyes were shut, but his lips moved, and she bent nearer to catch his words:
We noncombatants get into heaps of troubledont we?
Yes, she whispered, smiling; but the worst is over now.
There is worse coming.
What?
We marchto-morrow. I shall never see you again.
After a silence she strove gently to release her hand; but his held it; and after a long while, as he seemed to be asleep, she sat down on the beds edge, moving very softly lest he awaken. All the tenderness of innocence was in her gaze, as she laid her other hand over his and left it there, even after he stirred and his unclosing eyes met hers.
Celia! called the boy, from the darkened stairway, theres a medical officer here.
Bring him, she said. She rose, her lingering fingers still in his, looking down at him all the while; their hands parted, and she moved backward slowly, her young eyes always on his.
The medical officer passed her, stepping quickly to the bedside, stopped short, hesitated, and bending, opened the clotted shirt, placing a steady hand over the heart.
The next moment he straightened up, pulled the sheet over the bandmasters face, and turned on his heel, nodding curtly to the girl as he passed out.
When he had gone, she walked slowly to the bed and drew the sheet from the bandmasters face.
And as she stood there, dry-eyed, mute, from the dusky garden came the whispering cry of the widow bird, calling, calling to the dead that answer never more.
PART TWO
WHAT SHE BECAME
II
SPECIAL MESSENGER
On the third day the pursuit had become so hot, so unerring, that she dared no longer follow the rutty cart road. Toward sundown she wheeled her big bony roan into a cow path which twisted through alders for a mile or two, emerging at length on a vast stretch of rolling country, where rounded hills glimmered golden in the rays of the declining sun. Tall underbrush flanked the slopes; little streams ran darkling through the thickets; the ground was moist, even on the ridges; and she could not hope to cover the deep imprint of her horses feet.
She drew bridle, listening, her dark eyes fixed on the setting sun. There was no sound save the breathing of her horse, the far sweet trailing song of a spotted sparrow, the undertones of some hidden rill welling up through matted tangles of vine and fern and long wild grasses.
Sitting her worn saddle, sensitive face partly turned, she listened, her eyes sweeping the bit of open ground behind her. Nothing moved there.
Presently she slipped off one gauntlet, fumbled in her corsage, drew out a crumpled paper, and spread it flat. It was a map. With one finger she traced her road, bending in her saddle, eyebrows gathering in perplexity. Back and forth moved the finger, now hovering here and there in hesitation, now lifted to her lips in silent uncertainty. Twice she turned her head, intensely alert, but there was no sound save the cawing of crows winging across the deepening crimson in the west.
At last she folded the map and thrust it into the bosom of her mud-splashed habit; then, looping up the skirt of her kirtle, she dismounted, leading her horse straight into the oak scrub and on through a dim mile of woodland, always descending, until the clear rushing music of a stream warned her, and she came out along the thickets edge into a grassy vale among the hills.
A cabin stood there, blue smoke lazily rising from the chimney; a hen or two sat huddled on the shafts of an ancient buckboard standing by the door. In the clear, saffron-tinted evening light some ducks sailed and steered about the surface of a muddy puddle by the barn, sousing their heads, wriggling their tails contentedly.