Part 40 (1/2)
”It's not that bad,” laughed Harry. ”We had parched corn yesterday.”
”Well, parched corn is none too filling, and we're going to prepare the banquet at once. A certain Sergeant Whitley will arrive presently with a basket of food, such as you rebels haven't tasted since you raided our wagon trains at the Second Mana.s.sas, and with him will come one William Shepard, whom you have met often, Mr. Kenton.”
”Yes,” said Harry, ”we've met often and under varying circ.u.mstances, but we're going to be friends now.”
”Will you tell me, Captain St. Clair,” said d.i.c.k, ”what has become of the two colonels of your regiment, which I believe you call the Invincibles?”
St. Clair led them silently to a little wood, and there, sitting on logs, Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire were bent intently over the chess board that lay between them.
”Now that the war is over we'll have a chance to finish our game, eh, Hector?” said Colonel Talbot.
”A just observation, Leonidas. It's a difficult task to pursue a game to a perfect conclusion amid the distractions of war, but soon I shall checkmate you in the brilliant fas.h.i.+on in which General Lee always snares and destroys his enemy.”
”But General Lee has yielded, Hector.”
”Pshaw, Leonidas! General Lee would never yield to anybody. He has merely quit!”
”Ahem!” said Harry loudly, and, as the colonels glanced up, they saw the little group looking down at them.
”Our friends, the enemy, have come to pay you their respects,” said Harry.
The two colonels rose and bowed profoundly.
”And to invite you to a banquet that is now being prepared not far from here,” continued Harry. ”It's very tempting, ham, cheese, and other solids, surrounded by many delicacies.”
The two colonels looked at each other, and then nodded approval.
”You are to be the personal guests of our army,” said d.i.c.k, ”and we act as the proxies of General Grant.”
”I shall always speak most highly of General Grant,” said Colonel Leonidas Talbot. ”His conduct has been marked by the greatest humanity, and is a credit to our common country, which has been reunited so suddenly.”
”But reunited with our consent, Leonidas,” said Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire. ”Don't forget that I, for one, am tired of this war, and so is our whole army. It was a perfect waste of life to prolong it, and with the North reannexed, the Union will soon be stronger and more prosperous than ever.”
”Well spoken, Hector! Well spoken. It is perhaps better that North and South should remain together. I thought otherwise for four years, but now I seem to have another point of view. Come, lads, we shall dine with these good Yankee boys and we'll make them drink toasts of their own excellent coffee to the health and safety of our common country.”
The group returned to a little hollow, in which Sergeant Whitley and Shepard had built a fire, and where they were already frying strips of bacon and slices of ham over the coals. Shepard and Harry shook hands.
”I may as well tell you now, Mr. Kenton,” said Shepard, ”that Miss Henrietta Carden, whom you met in Richmond, is my sister, and that it was she who hid in the court at the Curtis house and took the map. Then it was I who gave you the blow.”
”It was done in war,” said Harry, ”and I have no right to complain. It was clever and I hope that I shall be able to give your sister my compliments some day. Now, if you don't mind, I'll take a strip of that wonderful bacon. It is bacon, isn't it? It's so long since I've seen any that I'm not sure of its ident.i.ty, but whatever it is its odor is enticing.”
”Bacon it surely is, Mr. Kenton. Here are three pieces that I broiled myself and a broad slice of bread for them. Go ahead, there's plenty more. And see this dark brown liquid foaming in this stout tin pot! Smell it! Isn't it wonderful! Well, that's coffee! You've heard of coffee, and maybe you remember it.”
”I do remember tasting it some years ago and finding it good. I'd like to try it again. Yes, thank you. It's fine.”
”Here's another cup, and try the ham also.”
Harry tried it, not once but several times. Langdon sat on the ground before the fire, and his delight was unalloyed and unashamed.
”We have raided a Yankee wagon train again,” he said, ”and the looting is splendid. Arthur, I thought yesterday that I should never eat again. Food and I were such strangers that I believed we should never know each other, any more, or if knowing, we could never a.s.similate. And yet we seem to get on good terms at once.”
While they talked a tall thin youth of clear dark complexion, carrying a long bundle under his arm, approached the fire and Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire welcomed him with joy.