[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

A week later, Fergus returning from “the front” with a companion, brought
him to Bonniemeer, and into Neria's presence.

“This is Reuben Brume,” said he, introducing him. “He was close beside
my uncle when he fell, and he will tell you all.”

Neria raised her dim eyes to the sergeant's agitated face. “Please tell me
everything you can remember of him,” said she, simply.

“Well'm, the kunnel seemed as chirk that morning as ever I see him. I
took particular notice, as we come in sight of the enemy, and he turned round to
cheer us on, how bright his eyes was, and how his mouth shet together as if
there wouldn't be no two ways of settling with him that day. He didn't say
much, only told us to remember any one of us might be the man to save his
country, and he told us to fight for them we loved at home, who was a praying for
our success, and then he sung out “Charge!” and we went in. What come next
I couldn't say particuler. The blood sort of got into my head like it does in a wild
creter's, and I just let drive right and left on my own hook 'thout noticing the rest
on 'em, till I found myself right cheek by jowl with the kunnel. Lord! how he did
fight! He slashing away at a big fellow, a captain, I guess it was, any way, an
officer, who was slashing away again at him, and the two mated so equal there's
no knowing who'd have had the best of it, when up come a big brute behind the
officer and with a yell and a cuss druv his bay'net square through the kunnel's
breast, through the very heart of him, I reckon, for he just throwed up his arms
and staggered back with one mortial cry, and was dead 'fore he reached the
ground. No one heerd that cry but me; but I did—it was your name, ma'am.”

Reuben Brume stopped and turned his face away; but though tears rained
down his bronzed cheeks, and Fergus was fain to hide his face, Neria's eyes
glittered cold and bright as winter stars, and her voice was unshaken while she
asked: “And his body?”

“It had to be left there, ma'am. It wasn't a minute, hardly, just time for me
to smash in that rascal's skull with the breech of my gun, which my bayonet
was lost; when the order came to fall back behind the batteries. Before night
we'd fell back five mile, and though we beat 'em in the end, the place where the
kunnel fell was fur within their lines. The gineral asked leave to send in and
bury our dead, but they refused; they said they buried 'em themselves, but—”

“Colonel Vaughn was dead when he fell?” interposed Fergus, hurriedly.

“Yes, I'm sartain sure he was,” asserted he, stoutly. “The bay'net went in
just about here, and that's right over the heart, and he wouldn't have fell as he
did unless it had been a mortial wound. It touched the life for sartain, ma'am,
and he never suffered no more after that. His eyes was shut, and his face turning
white, in the last glimp I caught, just as we was falling back, and the enemy
piling along after us.”

“Over the bodies of the fallen?” asked Neria again, in that icy voice.

“Well'm, I guess they didn't stop to pick their way much, that's a fact,”
assented Reuben, reluctantly; and Neria turned her stony face toward the window
and seemed to gaze at the far-off sea, smiling and dimpling in the gorgeous
hues of sunset.

At a sign from Fergus the soldier followed him silently from the room, and
from the house, and a few days later shipped on board a whaler for a long voyage,
so careful was Fergus to remove from Neria's path all that might remind
her of her loss.

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

It was the depth of an autumnal night. Driven before the hurrying wind the
bewildered clouds drifted hither and thither, now huddling in massive groups,
now breaking and fleeing to the four quarters of the heavens only to gather
again, again to flee. The late moon rising through one of these cloud-banks
looked out upon the scene, tipped with silver the crested ocean waves, flaunted
her banner across the combat of wind and forest, and fell like a benediction
upon the golden harvest fields already ripe for the reaper. But from one field
the blessed moonlight shrank affrighted, upon one harvest fell no benediction,
but rather a curse; for when climbing the mountain behind it, the moon hung
where she might view it well, she hid her face and all earth remained in darkness.
It was a bloody battle-field, it was the harvest of a violent and cruel death.

And yet the dying and the dead were not sole possessors of the field, for as
the moon hurrying from the refuge of one cloud to that of another, shot a wild
flood of light upon the scene, a human figure stole from the covert of the wood
and crossed rapidly to the centre of the field, where, sheltered behind a rampart
of lifeless bodies, lay the tall and stalwart figure of a man still grasping a broken
sword, while on his breast lay congealed the blood that had flowed from wellnigh
a mortal wound. He was alive, for in a death-pale face shone two resolute
dark eyes, moving slowly from side to side as if to recall the scene or speculate
upon the chances of help.

Between these wistful glances and the sky, came the dark figure of a man
stooping to peer into the face of the wounded officer, who in seeing it involuntarily
closed his eyes and shrank a little, brave soldier though he was, in thinking
that the knife of an assassin and a thief was to end the life just creeping
back to his frozen heart. But it was no assassin's hand raising that fallen head
to a fairer position, no assassin's voice muttering,

“It's he, sure enough, but be he dead or not is more than I can say. Master,
be you alive?”

Colonel Vaughn's eyes opened wearily, and his white lips whispered, “James!
Is it you?”

“Yes, sir, and main glad to find you alive,” replied the faithful servant, who
having followed his master to the battle-field as he would upon any other expedition,
made the cause in which he fought quite subsidiary to the service that
had led him into it.

“How came you here?” whispered the white lips again.

“Why, sir, I saw you go down, and then our men fell back, as they called it,
I should say ran, and the others after them; but my lookout was to keep near
you, sir, to help you if you was alive, and to bury you if you was dead. So,
passing through a wood back here about a mile, I just swarmed up a thick tree
and waited till they'd gone by, both lots of 'em. Then I waited a spell longer
till it was dark, and then made my way back here. When the moon rose I took
a squint over the field and made out pretty nigh where you lay, and so come
across, and here I be.”

“Faithful fellow. But I will die here,” murmured Vaughn.

“No, sir, you won't, if I may be so bold. I'm a bit of a surgeon myself,'
specially since I was in hospital last month, and I'm going to bind up your
wound and then carry you on my back to a shanty up on the mountain yonder.
There's an old black fellow lives there who's got the name of a wizard among
the country folks. I heard all about it from one of our contrabands, but if he's
the old boy himself he shall take you in and do for you, and when you can move
we'll make a push for camp.”

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

“Wait. You shall not stir me from this place, James, until you promise to
obey my orders.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“You are not to tell this negro my name. Tear off my shoulder-straps, that
he may not know my rank. If I die, bury me here, and go home to tell my wife.
If I recover I shall volunteer as a private under another name. Meantime call
me John Brown, and say I am your brother. You will do all this?”

“Yes, sir, if you say so, of course,” assented the groom, somewhat reluctantly,
but too well trained to express surprise or ask an explanation of what
seemed an unaccountable whim upon his master's part.

“Support me, and I think I can walk. Have you a little brandy?”

“Here is your own flask, sir; it is filled with better stuff than they give us,”
said James; and after swallowing the cordial, Vaughn rose to his feet, and,
leaning heavily upon the shoulders of his faithful servant, slowly crossed the
field of death, and was presently lost in the rustling shadows of the wood.