________________________________________________
_ A month later Dan heard of Virginia's death when, at the end of the Seven
Days, he was brought wounded into Richmond. As he lay upon church cushions
on the floor of an old warehouse on Main Street, with Big Abel shaking a
tattered palm-leaf fan at his side, a cavalryman came up to him and held
out a hand that trembled slightly from fatigue.
"I heard you were here. Can I do anything for you, Beau?" he asked.
For an instant Dan hesitated; then the other smiled, and he recognized Jack
Morson.
"My God! You've been ill!" he exclaimed in horror. Jack laughed and let his
hand fall. The boyish colour was gone from his face, and he wore an
untrimmed beard which made him look twice his age.
"Never better in my life," he answered shortly. "Some men are made of
india-rubber, Montjoy, and I'm one of them. I've managed to get into most
of these blessed fights about Richmond, and yet I haven't so much as a pin
prick to show for it. But what's wrong with you? Not much, I hope. I've
just seen Bland, and he told me he thought you were left at Malvern Hill
during that hard rain on Tuesday night. How did you get knocked over,
anyway?"
"A rifle ball went through my leg," replied Dan impatiently. "I say, Big
Abel, can't you flirt that fan a little faster? These confounded flies
stick like molasses." Then he held up his left hand and looked at it with a
grim smile. "A nasty fragment of a shell took off a couple of my fingers,"
he added. "At first I thought they had begun throwing hornets' nests from
their guns--it felt just like it. Yes, that's the worst with me so far;
I've still got a bone to my leg, and I'll be on the field again before
long, thank God."
"Well, the worst thing about getting wounded is being stuffed into a hole
like this," returned Jack, glancing about contemptuously. "Whoever has had
the charge of our hospital arrangements may congratulate himself that he
has made a ghastly mess of them. Why, I found a man over there in the
corner whose leg had mortified from sheer neglect, and he told me that the
supplies for the sick had given out, and they'd offered him cornbread and
bacon for breakfast."
Dan began to toss restlessly, grumbling beneath his breath. "If you ever
see a ball making in your direction," he advised, "dodge it clean or take
it square in the mouth; don't go in for any compromises with a gun, they
aren't worth it." He lay silent for a moment, and then spoke proudly. "Big
Abel hauled me off the field after I went down. How he found me, God only
knows, but find me he did, and under fire, too."
"'Twuz des like pepper," remarked Big Abel, fanning briskly, "but soon es I
heah dat Marse Dan wuz right flat on de groun', I know dat dar warn' nobody
ter go atter 'im 'cep'n' me. Marse Bland he come crawlin' out er de bresh,
wuckin' 'long on his stomick same es er mole, wid his face like a rabbit
w'en de dawgs are 'mos' upon 'im, en he sez hard es flint, 'Beau he's down
over yonder, en I tried ter pull 'im out, Big Abel, 'fo' de Lawd I did!'
Den he drap right ter de yerth, en I des stop long enough ter put a tin
bucket on my haid 'fo' I began ter crawl atter Marse Dan. Whew! dat ar
bucket hit sutney wuz a he'p, dat 'twuz, case I des hyeard de cawn
a-poppin' all aroun' hit, en dey ain' never come thoo yit.
"Well, suh, w'en I h'ist dat bucket ter git a good look out dar dey wuz
a-fittin' twel dey bus', a-dodgin' in en out er de shucks er wheat dat dey
done pile 'mos' up ter de haids. I ain' teck but one good look, suh, den I
drap de bucket down agin en keep a-crawlin' like Marse Bland tole me twel I
git 'mos' ter de cawn fiel' dat run right spang up de hill whar de big guns
wuz a-spittin' fire en smoke. En sho' 'nough dar wuz Marse Dan lyin' unner
a pine log dat Marse Bland hed roll up ter 'im ter keep de Yankees f'om
hittin' 'im; en w'en he ketch sight er me he des blink his eyes fur a
minute en laugh right peart.
"'Wat dat you got on yo' haid, Big Abel?' he sez."
"Big Abel's a hero, there's no mistake," put in Dan, delighted. "Do you
know he lifted me as if I were a baby and toted me out of that God-forsaken
corn field in the hottest fire I ever felt--and I tipped the scales at a
hundred and fifty pounds before I went to Romney."
"Go way, Marse Dan, you ain' nuttin' but a rail," protested Big Abel, and
continued his story. "Atter I done tote him outer de cawn fiel' en thoo de
bresh, den I begin ter peer roun' fer one er dese yer ambushes, but dere
warn' nairy one un um dat warn' a-bulgin' a'ready. I d'clar dey des bulged
twel dey sides 'mos' split. I seed a hack drive long by wid two gemmen
a-settin' up in hit, en one un em des es well es I is,--but w'en I helt
Marse Dan up right high, he shake his haid en pint ter de udder like he
kinder skeered. 'Dis yer's my young brudder,' he sez, speakin' sof'; 'en
dis yer's my young Marster,' I holler back, but he shake his haid agin en
drive right on. Lawd, Lawd, my time's 'mos' up, I 'low den--yes, suh, I
do--but w'en I tu'n roun' squintin' my eyes caze de sun so hot--de sun he
wuz kinder shinin' thoo his back like he do w'en he hu't yo' eyes en you
cyan' see 'im--dar came a dump cyart a-joltin' up de road wid a speckled
mule hitch ter it. A lot er yuther w'ite folks made a bee line fer dat ar
dump cyart, but dey warn' 'fo' me, caze w'en dey git dar, dar I wuz
a-settin' wid Marse Dan laid out across my knees. Well, dey lemme go--dey
bleeged ter caze I 'uz gwine anyway--en de speckled mule she des laid back
'er years en let fly fer Richmon'. Yes, suh, I ain' never seed sech a mule
es dat. She 'uz des es full er sperit es a colt, en her name wuz Sally."
"The worst of it was after getting here," finished Dan, who had lain
regarding Big Abel with a proud paternal eye, "they kept us trundling round
in that cart for three mortal hours, because they couldn't find a hole to
put us into. An uncovered wagon was just in front of us, filled with poor
fellows who had been half the day in the sweltering heat, and we made the
procession up and down the city, until at last some women rushed up with
their servants and cleared out this warehouse. One was not over sixteen and
as pretty as a picture. 'Don't talk to me about the proper authorities,'
she said, stamping her foot, 'I'll hang the proper authorities when they
turn up--and in the meantime we'll go to work!' By Jove, she was a trump,
that girl! If she didn't save my life, she did still better and saved my
leg."
"Well, I'll try to get you moved by to-morrow," said Jack reassuringly.
"Every home in the city is filled with the wounded, they tell me, but I
know a little woman who had two funerals from her house to-day, so she may
be able to find room for you. This heat is something awful, isn't it?"
"Damnable. I hope, by the way, that Virginia is out of it by now."
Jack flinched as if the words struck him between the eyes. For a moment he
stood staring at the straw pallets along the wall; then he spoke in a queer
voice.
"Yes, Virginia's out of it by now; Virginia's dead, you know."
"Dead!" cried Dan, and raised himself upon his cushion. The room went black
before him, and he steadied himself by clutching at Big Abel's arm. At the
instant the horrors of the battle-field, where he had seen men fall like
grass before the scythe, became as nothing to the death of this one young
girl. He thought of her living beauty, of the bright glow of her flesh, and
it seemed to him that the earth could not hide a thing so fair.
"I left her in Richmond in the spring," explained Jack, gripping himself
hard. "I was off with Stuart, you know, and I thought her mother would get
to her, but she couldn't pass the lines and then the fight came--the one at
Seven Pines and--well, she died and the child with her."
Dan's eyes grew very tender; a look crept into them which only Betty and
his mother had seen there before.
"I would have died for her if I could, Jack, you know that," he said
slowly.
Jack walked off a few paces and then came back again. "I remember the
Governor's telling me once," he went on in the same hard voice, "that if a
man only rode boldly enough at death it would always get out of the way. I
didn't believe it at the time, but, by God, it's true. Why, I've gone
straight into the enemy's lines and heard the bullets whistling in my ears,
but I've always come out whole. When I rode with Stuart round McClellan's
army, I was side by side with poor Latane when he fell in the skirmish at
Old Church, and I sat stock still on my horse and waited for a fellow to
club me with his sabre, but he wouldn't; he looked at me as if he thought I
had gone crazy, and actually shook his head. Some men can't die, confound
it, and I'm one of them."
He went out, his spurs striking the stone steps as he passed into the
street, and Dan fell back upon the narrow cushions to toss with fever and
the memory of Virginia--of Virginia in the days when she wore her rose-pink
gown and he believed he loved her.
At the door an ambulance drew up and a stretcher was brought into the
building, and let down in one corner. The man on it was lying very still,
and when he was lifted off and placed upon the blood-soaked top of the long
pine table, he made no sound, either of fear or of pain. The close odours
of the place suddenly sickened Dan and he asked Big Abel to draw him nearer
the open window, where he might catch the least breeze from the river; but
outside the July sunlight lay white and hot upon the bricks, and when he
struggled up the reflected heat struck him down again. On the sidewalk he
saw several prisoners going by amid a hooting crowd, and with his old
instinct to fight upon the weaker side, he hurled an oath at the tormenters
of his enemies.
"Go to the field, you crows, and be damned!" he called.
One of the prisoners, a ruddy-cheeked young fellow in private's clothes,
looked up and touched his cap.
"Thank you, sir, I hope we'll meet at the front," he said, in a rich Irish
brogue. Then he passed on to Libby prison, while Dan turned from the window
and lay watching the surgeon's faces as they probed for bullets.
It was a long unceiled building, filled with bright daylight and the
buzzing of countless flies. Women, who had volunteered for the service,
passed swiftly over the creaking boards, or knelt beside the pallets as
they bathed the shattered limbs with steady fingers. Here and there a child
held a glass of water to a man who could not raise himself, or sat fanning
the flies from a pallid face. None was too old nor too young where there
was work for all.
A stir passed through the group about the long pine table, and one of the
surgeons, wiping the sweat from his brow, came over to where Dan lay, and
stopped to take breath beside the window.
"By Jove, that man died game," he said, shaking his handkerchief at the
flies. "We took both his legs off at the knee, and he just gripped the
table hard and never winked an eyelash. I told him it would kill him, but
he said he'd be hanged if he didn't take his chance--and he took it and
died. Talk to me about nerve, that fellow had the cleanest grit I ever
saw."
Dan's pulses fluttered, as they always did at an example of pure pluck.
"What's his regiment?" he asked, watching the two slaves who, followed by
their mistresses, were bringing the body back to the stretcher.
"Oh, he was a scout, I believe, serving with Stuart when he was wounded.
His name is--by the way, his name is Montjoy. Any relative of yours, I
wonder?"
Raising himself upon his elbow, Dan turned to look at the dead man beside
him. A heavy beard covered the mouth and chin, but he knew the sunken black
eyes and the hair that was like his own.
"Yes," he answered after a long pause, "he is a relative of mine, I think;"
and then, while the man lay waiting for his coffin, he propped himself upon
his arm and followed curiously the changes made by death.
At his first recognition there had come only a wave of repulsion--the old
disgust that had always dogged the memory of his father; then, with the
dead face before his eyes, he was aware of an unreasoning pride in the
blood he bore--in the fact that the soldier there had died pure game to the
last. It was as a braggart and a bully that he had always thought of him;
now he knew that at least he was not a craven--that he could take blows as
he dealt them, from the shoulder out. He had hated his father, he told
himself unflinchingly, and he did not love him now. Had the dead man opened
his eyes he could have struck him back again with his mother's memory for a
weapon. There had been war between them to the grave, and yet, despite
himself, he knew that he had lost his old boyish shame of the Montjoy
blood. With the instinct of his race to glorify physical courage, he had
seen the shadow of his boyhood loom from the petty into the gigantic. Jack
Montjoy may have been a scoundrel,--doubtless he was one,--but, with all
his misdeeds on his shoulders, he had lived pure game to the end.
A fresh bleeding of Dan's wound brought on a sudden faintness, and he fell
heavily upon Big Abel's arm. With the pain a groan hovered an instant on
his lips, but, closing his eyes, he bit it back and lay silent. For the
first time in his life there had come to him, like an impulse, the
knowledge that he must not lower his father's name. _
Read next: BOOK FOURTH - THE RETURN OF THE VANQUISHED: Chapter I - The Ragged Army
Read previous: BOOK THIRD - THE SCHOOL OF WAR: Chapter VIII - The Altar of the War God
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