Part 22 (1/2)
”Daring game that was you fellows let her put up on us night before last, my boy,--and it hung by a thread. If our officers had only asked the old man his name--it would have been--a flash of light. If I had dreamed, when I saw--you and Ned Ferry--yesterday,--that Coralie Rothvelt was--Charlotte Oliver,--and could have known her then--as I've--learned to know her--to-day--from her--worst enemy,--you know,--”
”Yes, Captain.”
”I should--have turned back, my boy.” After a silence the hero said more to himself than to me ”Ah, if my brother were here to-night--I might live!”
Many days afterward I thought myself dull not to have guessed what that speech meant, but now I was too distressed by the change I saw coming over him to do any surmising. He began to say things entirely to himself. ”Home!” he murmured; ”sweet, sweet home!--my home! my country!--My G.o.d, my country, my home!--Smith,--you know what that is you're--wiping off my brow,--don't you?”
”Yes, Captain.”
”I--I didn't want you to be--taken too unpleasantly by surprise--just at the--end. You know what's--happening,--don't you?”
”Yes, Captain.” As I wiped the brow again I heard the tread of two horses down in front of the house; they were Gholson's, and Ned Ferry's for Charlotte. ”Captain, may I go and bring her--tell her what you say, and bring her?”
”Do you think she'd come? She'd have gone to s.h.i.+p Island if I had caught her.”
”I know she'll come.”
”I wish she would; she could 'bear a message and a token,' as the song says.”
She came. I met her outside the door, and for a moment I feared she would come no farther. ”How can I, Richard! Oh, how can I?” she whispered; ”this is my doing!” But presently she stood at the bedside calm and compa.s.sionate, in the dark dress and limp hat of two nights before. The dying man's eyes were l.u.s.trous with grat.i.tude.
”I have one or two things,” he said, after a few words of greeting, ”that I'd like to send home--to my mother--and my wife; some trifles--and a message or two; if I--if--if I--”
”Will you let me take them?” Charlotte asked. I did not see or hear what they were; Gholson beckoned me into the hall. He did not whisper; there are some people, you know, who can never exercise enough self-suppression to whisper; he mumbled. He admitted the dying had some rights, but--he feared the delay might result unfortunately; wanted me to tell Charlotte so, and was sure I was ever so wrong to ask to have Ned Ferry awakened for the common incident of a prisoner's death; he would let him know the moment he awoke.
When I came back into the room the captive had asked Charlotte to pray. ”Tisn't that I'm--the least bit afraid,” he was saying.
”Oh, no,” she responded, wiping his brow, ”why should you be? Dying isn't nearly so fearful a thing as living. I'd rather, now, you'd pray for me; I'm such an unbeliever--in the beliefs, I mean, the beliefs the church people think we can't get on without. My religion is scarcely anything but longings and strivings”--she sadly smiled--”longings and strivings and hopes.”
”Yet you wouldn't--”
”Part with it? Oh, not for the world beside!”
”Neither would I--with mine.” The soldier folded his hands in supplication. ”Neither would I--though mine, O Lord--is only the--old-fas.h.i.+oned sort--for whose beliefs our fathers--used to kill one another; G.o.d have mercy--on them--and us.”
There was a great stillness. Against the bedside Charlotte had sunk to her knees, and under the broad brim of her Leghorn hat leaned her brow upon her folded hands. Thus, presently, she spoke again.
x.x.xIX
CHARLOTTE SINGS
”I know, Captain,” she said, ”that we can't have longings, strivings, or hopes, without beliefs; beliefs are what they live on. I believe in being strong and sweet and true for the pure sake of being so; and yet more for the world's sake; and as much more again for G.o.d's sake as G.o.d is greater than his works. I believe in beauty and in joy. I believe they are the goal of all goodness and of all G.o.d's work and wish. As to resurrection, punishment, and reward, I can't see what my n.o.blest choice has to do with them; they seem to me to be G.o.d's part of the matter; mine is to love perfect beauty and perfect joy, both in and infinitely beyond myself, with the desiring love with which I rejoice to believe G.o.d loves them, and to pity the lack of them with the loving pity with which G.o.d pities it. And above all I believe that no beauty and no joy can be perfect apart from a love that loves the whole world's joy better than any separate joy of any separate soul.”
”Thank you,” was murmured from the pillow. Then, as Charlotte once more wiped the damp brow, the captive said, with much labor, ”After that--war seems--an awful thing. I suppose it isn't half so much a crime--as it is a--penalty--for the crimes that bring it on. But anyhow--you know--being--” The bugle rang out the reveille.
”Being a soldier,” said Charlotte, ”you want to die like one?”
”Yes, oh, yes!--the best I can. I'd like to sit half up--and hold my sword--if there's--no objection. I've loved it so! It would almost be like holding--the hand that's far away. Of course, it isn't really necessary, but--it would be more like--dying--for my country.”
He would not have it in the scabbard, and when I laid it naked in his hand he kissed the hilt. Charlotte sent Gholson for Ned Ferry. Glancing from the window, I noticed that for some better convenience our scouts had left the grove, and the prisoners had been marched in and huddled close to the veranda-steps, under their heavy marching-guard of Louisianians. One of the blue-coats called up to me softly: ”Dying--really?” He turned to his fellows--”Boys, Captain's dying.”