"BEAR A MESSAGE AND A TOKEN"
Late in the night Gholson came to the Union captain's bedside for Miss
Harper. Charlotte had sent him; the doctor had left word what to do if a
certain patient's wound should re-open, and this had happened. The three
had succeeded in stanching it, but Charlotte had prevailed upon Miss
Harper to lie down, and the weary lady had, against all her intentions,
fallen asleep. I was alone with the wounded captain. He did not really
sleep, but under the weight of his narcotics drowsed, muttered, stirred,
moaned, and now and then spoke out.
Sitting in the open window, I marked the few red points of dying
firelight grow fewer in the bivouac under the grove. Out there by the
gate Ned Ferry slept. Fireflies blinked, and beyond the hazy fields rose
the wasted moon, by the regal slowness of whose march I measured the
passage of time as I had done two nights before. My vigil was a sad one,
but, in health, in love, in the last of my teens and in the silent
company of such a moon, my straying thoughts lingered most about the
maiden who had "prayed for me." My hopes grew mightily. Yet with them
grew my sense of need to redouble a lover's diligence. I resolved never
again to leave great gaps in my line of circumvallation about the city
of my siege, as I had done in the past--two days. I should move to the
final assault, now, at the earliest favorable moment, and the next
should see the rose-red flag of surrender rise on her temples; in war it
is white, but in love it is red.
First favorable moment; ah! but when would that be? Who was to convey
the Harpers to Hazlehurst? Well, thank Heaven! not Harry. Scott Gholson?
Gholson was due at headquarters. Poor Gholson! much rest for racked
nerves had he found here; what with Ferry, and Harry, and the fight, and
Quinn, I wondered he did not lie down and die under the pure suffocation
of his "tchagrin." Even a crocodile, I believed, could suffer from
chagrin, give him as many good causes as Gholson had accumulated. But
no, the heaven of "Charlie Tolliver's" presence and commands--she seemed
to have taken entire possession of him--lifted and sustained him above
the clouds of all unkinder things.
A faint stir at the threshold caught my ear and I discerned in the hall
a young negro woman. The light of an unseen candle made her known at a
glance; she had been here since the previous evening, as I knew, though
it chanced that I had not seen her; Oliver's best wedding-gift, the
slave maid whom I had seen with Charlotte in the curtained wagon at
Gallatin. I stole out to her; she courtesied. "Miss Charlotte say ef you
want he'p you fine me a-sett'n' on de step o' de stairs hafe-ways down."
I inquired if she was leaving us. "She a-gitt'n' ready, suh; Misteh
Goshen done gone to de sta-able to git de hosses." The girl suddenly
seemed pleased with herself. "Mis' Charlotte would 'a' been done gone
when de yethehs went--dem-ah two scouts what was sent ayfteh _him_--ef I
hadn' spoke' up when I did."
"Indeed! how was that?"
"Why, I says, s' I, 'Mis' Charlotte, how we know he ain' gwine fo' to
double on his huntehs? Betteh wait a spell, and den ef no word come back
dat he a-doublin', you kin be sho' he done lit out fo' to jine de
Yankees roun' Pote Hudsom.'"
"Why did you tell her that? You want him caught; so do I; but you know
she doesn't want to catch him, and you don't want her to. Neither do I.
Nor neither do we want Lieutenant Ferry to catch him."
"No, suh, dass so. But same time, while she no notion o' gitt'n' him
cotch, she believe she dess djuty-bound to head-off his devilment. 'Tis
dess like I heah' Mr. Goshen say to Miss Hahpeh, 'Dis ain't ow own
li'l pri'--'"
I waved her away and went back into the room; the Captain had called. He
asked the time of night; I said it was well after two; he murmured, was
quiet, and after a moment spoke my name. I answered, and he whispered
"Coralie Rothvelt--she's here; I--recognized her voice--when they were
singing. Did you know I knew her?"
"Yes, Captain."
"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 God, 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 Ship 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 compassionate, in the dark dress and limp hat of two nights
before. The dying man's eyes were lustrous with gratitude.
"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-fashioned sort--for whose beliefs our fathers--used to kill one
another; God 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.