Part 28 (1/2)
”After you pa.s.s the bridge you will be perfectly safe on that score,”
he said heartily. ”Anything more I can do for any of you?”
”How many of us are there?” asked some one faintly from out the darkness.
”Oh, yes,” returned Mosby, with a laugh, ”I forgot; you will want to know each other. There are three of you--Colonel Colby of North Carolina, Major Wilkins of Thome's Battery, and Captain Wayne, ----th Virginia. Let that answer for an introduction, gentlemen, and now good- night. We shall guard you as long as necessary, and then must leave you to the kindly ministrations of the driver.”
He reached in, leaning down from his saddle to do so, drew the blanket somewhat closer about me, and was gone. I caught the words of a sharp, short order, and the heavy wagon lurched forward, its wheels b.u.mping over the irregularities in the road, each jolt sending a fresh spasm of pain through my tortured body.
May the merciful G.o.d ever protect me from such a ride again! It seemed interminable, while each long mile we travelled brought with it new and greater agony of mind and body. That I did not suffer alone was early evident from the low moans borne to me from out the darkness. Once a weak, trembling voice prayed for release,--a short, fervent prayer, which so impressed me in the weakness of my own anguish that I added to it ”Amen,” spoken unconsciously aloud.
”Who spoke?” asked the same voice, faintly.
”I am Captain Wayne,” I answered, almost glad to break the terrible silence by speech of any kind; ”and I merely echoed your prayer. Death would indeed prove a welcome relief from such intensity of suffering.”
”Yes,” he acquiesced gently. ”I fear I have not sufficient strength to bear mine for long; yet I am a Christian, and there are wife and child waiting for me at home. G.o.d knows I am ready when He calls, but my duty is to live, if possible, for their sake. They will have nothing left if I pa.s.s on.”
”The road must grow smoother as we come down into the valley. Are your wounds serious?”
”I was struck by fragments of a sh.e.l.l,” he answered, and I could tell he spoke the words through his clinched teeth, ”and am wounded in the head as well as the body--oh, my G.o.d!” The cry was wrung from him by a sudden tilting of the wagon, and for a moment my own pain prevented utterance.
”I hear nothing from the other man,” I managed to say at last. ”Colonel Mosby said there were three of us; surely the third man cannot be already dead?”
”Mercifully unconscious, I think; at least he has made no sound since I was placed in here.”
”No, friends,” spoke another and deeper voice from farther back within the jolting wagon, ”I am not unconscious, but less noticeably in pain.
I have lost a leg, yet the stump seems seared and dead, hurting me little unless I touch it.”
We lapsed into solemn silence, it was such an effort to talk, and we had so little to say. Each man, no doubt, was struggling, as I know I was, to withhold expression of his agony for the sake of the others. I lay racked in every nerve, my teeth tightly clinched, my temples beaded with perspiration. I could hear the troopers riding without, the jingling of their accoutrements, and the steady beat of their horses'
feet being easily distinguishable above the deeper rumble of the wheels. Then there came a quick order in Mosby's familiar voice, a calling aloud of some further directions to the driver, and afterwards nothing was distinguishable excepting the noise of our own rapid progress.
Jake drove, it seemed to me, most recklessly. I could hear the almost constant crack of his lash and the rough words of goading hurled at the straining mules. The road appeared to be filled with roots, while occasionally the wheels would strike a stone, coming down again with a jar that nearly drove me frantic. The chill night air swept in through the open front of the hood, and made me feel as if my veins were filled with ice, even while the inflammation of my wounds burned and throbbed as with fire. The pitiful moaning of the man who lay next me grew gradually fainter, and finally ceased altogether. Tortured as I was, yet I could not but think of the wife and child far away praying for his safe return. For their sake I forced back the intensity of my own sufferings and spoke into the darkness.
”The man who prayed,” I said, not knowing which of my two companions it might be. ”Are you suffering less, that you have ceased to moan?”
There was no answer. Then the loose hay rustled, as though some one was slowly dragging his helpless body through it. A moment later the deep voice spoke:
”He is dead,” solemnly. ”G.o.d has answered his prayer. His hand already begins to feel cold.”
”Dead?” I echoed, inexpressibly shocked. ”Do you know his name?”
”As I am Major Wilkins, it must be Colonel Colby who has died. May G.o.d be merciful to the widow and the orphan.”
The hours that followed were all but endless. I knew we had reached the lower valley, for the road became more level, yet the slightest jolting now was sufficient to render me crazed with pain, and I had lost all power of restraint. My tortured nerves throbbed; the fever gripped me, and my mind began to wander. Visions of delirium came, and I dreamed dreams too terrible for record: demons danced on the drifting clouds before me, while whirling savages chanting in horrid discord stuck my frenzied body full of blazing brands. At times I was awake, calling in vain for water to quench a thirst which grew maddening, then I lapsed into a semi-consciousness that drove me wild with its delirious fancies. I knew vaguely that the Major had crept back through the darkness and pa.s.sed his strong arm gently beneath my head. I heard him shouting in his deep voice to the driver for something to drink, but was unaware of any response. All became blurred, confused, bewildering.
I thought it was my mother comforting me. The faint gray daylight stole in at last through the cracks of the wagon cover; I could dimly distinguish a dark face bending over me, framed by a heavy gray beard, and then, merciful unconsciousness came, and I rested as one dead beside the corpse of the Colonel.
CHAPTER XXV