"Ah! I know you; you want to ask am I taking that upper fork of the
road. I am; 'tis for that I want you; so go you now to the stable,
saddle our horses and bring them."
When I reached the front steps with them Ferry was at the gallery's
edge, Miss Harper, Cécile and Harry were on three sides of him, and he
was explaining away our astonishing departure. We were going to
Hazlehurst, to issue clothing and shoes to those ragged and barefoot
fellows we had seen that afternoon, and the light of whose tentless camp
was yonder in the sky, now, toward Brookhaven. We were to go that way,
confer with their officers, telegraph from town for authorizations to be
sent to us at Hazlehurst, and then to push on to that place and be ready
to issue the stuff when the trains should come up from Brookhaven
bringing the brigade. While he spoke Camille and Estelle joined us.
"No," he said, "to start any later, 'twould be too late."
To Harry's imploring protest that he, Ferry, was not fit to go to
Hazlehurst horseback, he replied "Well! what we going to do? Those boys
can't go to Big Black swamp bare-foot."
Our dear friends were too well aware of the untold trouble to say a word
about his coming back, but Miss Harper's parting injunction to me was to
write them.
The whole night and the following day were a toilsome time for us, but
by fall of the next night the brigade had come in rags and passed newly
clothed and shod, and in a room of the town tavern we dressed each
other's hurts and sank to sleep on one bed. The night was hot, the pain
of my wounds was like a great stone lying on them, and at the tragic
moment of a frightful dream I awoke. "Captain," I murmured.
"Yes?"
"Did she give no reason?"
"No." A silence followed; then he said, "You know the reason, I think."
"Yes, I think I do; I think--"
"Well? don't be afraid to say it."
I got the words out in some form, that I believed Charlotte loved him
deeply, as deeply, passionately, exaltedly, as ever a true woman loved
a man--
"Ah, me!" he lifted his arms wide and knitted his fingers on his brow.
"And there is the whole trouble," I added. "She will not let you marry
the woman whose--"
"Whose husband I have killed.... Ah, God!... Ah, my God! why was I
chosen to do that?... And you think, Dick, it was not a question of
time; that I did not ask, maybe a little too soon?"
"No, not as between sooner and later; and yet, in another way, possibly,
yes." Without either of us stirring from the pillow I tried to explain.
I pointed out that trait in Charlotte which I called an impulse suddenly
to surrender the key of her situation, the vital point in her
fortunes and fate.
"Yes.... Yes," Ferry kept putting in.
I went on to say that she seemed now to have learned, herself, that it
was on this shoal she grounded at every low water of her physical and
mental powers; as when over-fatigued, for instance; and that I should
not wonder if she had bound herself never again at such a time to let
her judgment follow her impulses. He laid his hand on me: "Stop; stop;
you stab too deep. I thought to take her by surprise at that very point,
and right there she has countermined. My God! can it be that I am served
only right?"
"No," I replied, although it was a thing I would have said Ned Ferry
would not do, "no, no, it is she who has served both you and herself
cruelly wrong. Captain, I believe that when Miss Harper has talked it
over with her she will see her mistake as we all see it, and will call
you back."
"Ah, me! Ah, me! Do you believe that, Dick?"
"I do, Captain; but at the same time--"
"What, what? Speak out, Dick. You blame me some other way?"
"Oh, no, indeed! I am the one to blame, the only one. If you had not,
both of you, been so blameless--so splendidly blameless--I should hardly
have let myself sink so deep into blame; but I knew you would never take
the last glad step until you had seen the last sad proof that you might
take it. Oh, Captain, to-night is the third time that in my dreams I
have seen _that man_ alive."
I do not know how long after that we lay silent, but it seemed an
endless time before he exclaimed at last "My God! Dick, you should
have told me."
"I know it; I know I should! But it was only a dream, and--"
"Ah! 'twas your doubt first and the dream after! But let us think no
more of blame, we must settle the doubt. We shall begin that to-morrow."
On my venturing to say more he interrupted. "Well, we can do nothing
now; at the present, sleep is our first business." However, after a
little, he spoke again, and, I believe, purely in order to soothe me to
slumber, speculated and counselled with me for the better part of an
hour concerning my own poor little love affair.
At breakfast he told me the first step in his further plans would be for
us to take the train for Tangipahoa, with our horses, on our way to our
own camp; but just before the train came the telegraph brought General
Austin's request--which, of course, carried all the weight of an
order--for Ferry to remain here and make ready for further issues of
quartermaster's stores. He turned on his heel and twisted his small
mustache: "That means we are kept here to be kept here, Richard."
It was a mistaken kindness, from our point of view, but it had the merit
that it kept us busy. In two days the post-quartermaster's affairs and
supplies were reduced to perfect order for the first time in their
history. For two days more we ran a construction train and with a swarm
of conscripts repaired two or three miles of road-bed and some
trestle-work in a swamp; and at every respite in our strenuous
activities we discoursed of the girls we'd left behind us; their minds,
their manners, their features, figures, tastes and talents, and their
walk and talk. So came the end of the week, and while the sun was still
above the trees we went on down, inspecting the road beyond our repairs,
on our own hand-car to Brookhaven. With heads bare, jackets in our laps,
and muddy boots dangling over the car's front edge, and with six big
negroes at the levers behind us, we watched the miles glide under our
wheels and grow fewer and fewer between us and the shrine of our hearts.
"Sing, Dick," said Ferry, and we chanted together, as we had done at
every sunset these three days, "O my love is like a red, red rose." We
could not have done it had we known that yonder glorious sun was setting
forever upon the fortunes of our Southern Confederacy. It was the fourth
of July; Lee was in full retreat from Gettysburg, Vicksburg was gone,
Port Hudson was doomed, and all that was left for us now was to
die hard.