Part 54 (2/2)

It waned at midday, but by sundown she grew restless, and the surgeon, Weldon, riding forward from the rear, took my place beside her, and I mounted my horse which Elerson led, and rode ahead, a deadly fear in my heart, and Black Care astride the crupper, a grisly shadow in the wilderness, d.o.g.g.i.ng me remorselessly under pallid stars.

And now hours, days, nights, sun, stars, moon, were all one to me--things that I heeded not; nor did I feel aught of heat or cold, sun or storm, nor know whether or not I slept or waked, so terrible grew the fear upon me. Men came and went. I heard some say she was dying, some that she would live if we could get her from the wilderness she raved about; for her cry was ever to be freed of the darkness and the silence, and that they were doing me to death in New York town, whither she must go, for she alone could save me.

Tears seemed ever in my eyes, and I saw nothing clearly, only the black and endless forests swimming in mists; the silent riflemen trudging on, the little withered driver, in his ring-furred cap and caped s.h.i.+rt, too big for him; the stolid horses plodding on and on. Medical officers came from Willett--Weldon and Jermyn--and the surgeon's mate, McLane; and they talked among themselves, glancing at her curiously, so that I grew to hate them and their whispers. A fierce desire a.s.sailed me to put an end to all this torture--to seize her, cradle her to my breast, and gallop day and night to the open air--as though that, and the fierce strength of my pa.s.sion must hold back death!

Then, one day--G.o.d knows when--the sky widened behind the trees, and I saw the blue flank of a hill unchoked by timber. Trees grew thinner as we rode. A brush-field girdled by a fence was pa.s.sed, then a meadow, all golden in the sun. Right and left the forest sheered off and fell away; field on field, hill on hill, the blessed open stretched to a br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, silver and turquoise in the suns.h.i.+ne, and, beyond it, crowning three hills, the haven!--the old Dutch city, high-roofed, red-tiled, glimmering like a jewel in the November haze--Albany!

And now, as we breasted the ascent, far away we heard drums beating. A white cloud shot from the fort, another, another, and after a long while the dull booming of the guns came floating to us, mixed with the noise of bells.

Elsin heard and sat up. I bent from my saddle, pa.s.sing my arm around her.

”Carus!” she cried, ”where have you been through all this dreadful night?”

”Sweetheart, do you know me?”

”Yes. How soft the sunlight falls! There is a city yonder. I hear bells.” She sank down, her eyes on mine.

”The bells of old Albany, dear. Elsin, Elsin, do you truly know me?”

She smiled, the ghost of the old gay smile, and her listless arms moved.

Weldon, riding on the other side, nodded to me in quiet content:

”Now all she lacked she may have, Renault,” he said, smiling. ”All will be well, thank G.o.d! Let her sleep!”

She heard him, watching me as I rode beside her.

”It was only you I lacked, Carus,” she murmured dreamily; and, smiling, fell into a deep, sweet sleep.

Then, as we rode into the first outlying farms, men and women came to their gates, calling out to us in their Low Dutch jargon, and at first I scarce heeded them as I rode, so stunned with joy was I to see her sleeping there in the sunlight, and her white, cool skin and her mouth soft and moist.

Gun on gun shook the air with swift concussion. The pleasant Dutch bells swung aloft in mellow harmony. Suddenly, far behind where our infantry moved in column, I heard cheer on cheer burst forth, and the horns and fifes in joyous fanfare, echoed by the solid outbreak of the drums.

”What are they cheering for, mother?” I asked an old Dutch dame who waved her kerchief at us.

”For Willett and for George the Virginian, sir,” she said, dimpling and dropping me a courtesy.

”George the Virginian?” I asked, wondering. ”Do you mean his Excellency?”

And still she dimpled and nodded and bobbed her white starched cap, and I made nothing of what she said until I heard men shouting, ”Yorktown!”

and ”The war ends! Hurrah!”

”Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted a mounted officer, spurring past us up the hill; ”Butler's dead, and Cornwallis is taken!”

”Taken?” I repeated incredulously.

The booming guns were my answer. High against the blue a jeweled ensign fluttered, silver, azure and blood red, its staff and halyards wrapped in writhing jets of snow-white smoke flying upward from the guns.

I rode toward it, cap in hand, head raised, awed in the presence of G.o.d's own victory! The shouting streets echoed and reechoed as we pa.s.sed between packed ranks of townspeople; cheers, the pealing music of the bells, the thunderous shock of the guns grew to a swimming, dreamy sound, through which the flag fluttered on high, crowned with the golden nimbus of the sun!

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