THE NIGHT RIDE
By five o'clock we were safe at Colchester, and while our horses rested
and refreshed themselves on some confiscated grain, the two of us lay
lazily back on a grassy knoll, well within the shadow of a ruined wall,
and watched the round, red sun drop slowly down behind those western
hills we had to climb.
We scarcely spoke regarding the work we knew was ahead, except to
discuss briefly the better route to be selected for our hard night's
ride. We were both old campaigners, inured by years of discipline to
danger and obedience. This special duty, however arduous and desperate
it might prove to be, was silently accepted as part of the service we
owed the State. Reckless and hardened as I know Craig to have been, I
have no doubt he reflected upon Lee and his kindly words and was touched
and softened by their memory, as he lay there stretched at full length
on the grass, his pipe glowing cheerily between his lips. But if so, his
thoughts remained unuttered, nor did I feel inclined to dwell upon
the theme; and so, in the strength of a simple comradeship which could
remain silent, we waited patiently for the night to close us in.
As early as we deemed it safe to venture, we were again in saddle,
riding now straight to the westward, along the smooth-beaten pike, until
we caught sight of the black shadow of Colton Church in our front; then
we swerved to the left, and still moving rapidly but with considerate
care for the horses, headed directly across the more broken country
toward the foot-hills.
It proved to be a hard, toilsome climb up those long, steep slopes
rising before us; for we were extremely careful now to keep well away
from every known route of travel, and our horses, although selected
from among the best mounts of the cavalry brigade, had already been
thoroughly winded by their smart trot up the valley. The short grass
under foot, crisp from the hot sun of the long afternoon, caused many a
slip of the poorly shod hoofs, while the darkness had grown so close and
dense about us that we could barely creep through it, with only faith
and a doubtful memory as guides. Every road, we well knew, would be
patrolled by Federal pickets; only the broken country between could
yield us the faintest prospect of success. But at best it must largely
be guesswork,--Providence, luck, what you will,--and the slightest swing
of the pendulum could easily frustrate our best laid plans.
An hour of this work passed. Whether or not we were yet within the
enemy's lines was largely conjecture, for no human eye could pierce
the enveloping gloom, and no sound, either of warning or encouragement,
reached us as we strained our ears. The Sergeant rode slightly in
advance as we toiled up the higher terrace, for our sole dependence
as to direction and distance was upon his memory, and even that could
scarcely serve for much on such a night as this. I traced his passage
upward as best I might, and pressed close after him, guided not so much
by sight as by sound,--the occasional rolling of a loosened stone, the
rustling of leaves as he touched a bush in passage, the faint clinking
of his sabre, and the heavy breathing of his horse,--until at last his
long, slender figure rose sufficiently above the dark hill surface to be
faintly silhouetted in deeper shadow against the dim reflection of the
upper sky. Almost coincidently with this my horse ranged up beside his,
where he had drawn rein in evident perplexity.
“What is it, Dan?” I questioned cautiously; for all I could feel
reasonably assured of just then was that behind any rock or tree in our
front there might be crouching a Federal picket.
“It's nothing Cap,” he answered quietly, turning his face toward me as
he spoke. “I'm just tryin' ter 'member some landmark yereabout ter guide
from. Blamed if ever I see such a dark night; it's like bein' inside a
pocket, sir, an' I reckon as how it must be nigh onter ten year since
I run loose in this yere country as a kid. Thet thar cut-off we took a
while back has sort o' confused me, that's a fac', and I don't just
know whar I am; but I reckon as how the main ridge road we 're a huntin'
after oughter run somewhar out yonder.” He pointed forward into the
night.
“I supposed from the map it would be found farther back and considerably
to the right of us,” I ventured doubtfully.
“Never saw no map, Cap,” he returned, with the easy familiarity of a
scout on service. “But if I recollect clear, it sure used ter run mighty
close ter the east edge. I reckon it ain't changed none to speak of, an'
so it'll have ter be somewhere just along thar.”
He spoke with such an air of certainty that I felt any controversy
useless.
“Very well; hand me your rein, and see what you can discover out there
on foot. Sitting here isn't apt to mend matters, and we surely cannot
afford to cripple our horses among those rocks.”
The Sergeant, a gaunt, tireless mountaineer, slipped silently from his
saddle, swung his light cavalry carbine from his back to the hollow
of his arm, and in another moment was lost to sight in the darkness.
A snake could not have slipped away more stealthily. I heard a stone
rattle under his foot, a half-suppressed oath, and then the night had
completely swallowed him.
How utterly alone I seemed; how intensely, painfully still everything
was! The silence felt almost like a weight, so greatly it oppressed me.
Even the accustomed voices of nature were hushed, as if war, with
its unspeakable cruelty, had cast a spell over all things animate and
inanimate. It was weird, uncanny. With every nerve strained I leaned
forward across the pommel of my saddle, listening for the slightest
sound out in that black void. My head burned and throbbed as with fever,
and I felt that strange, unnatural stillness as though it had been a
physical thing; surely others besides us were upon this hilltop! For I
knew well--my every soldier instinct told me--that somewhere out in that
impenetrable mystery were blazing the camp-fires of an enemy. Vigilant
eyes were peering everywhere in search for such as we. How far away they
might lurk I could not even conjecture,--perhaps merely around some near
projecting wall of rock,--and we might even now be within the range of
their ready rifles. I could hear the quickened throbbing of my heart,
and my hand fell heavily on a pistol butt in nervous expectancy.
The soft night wind, heavy with pine odors, began suddenly to play amid
the leaves of a low tree beside me, and the pleasant rustling mingled
like strains of music with the slow breathing of the horses, but no
other sound broke a silence that had become a positive pain. Man at his
best is largely a creature of impulse, and I confess to a feeling almost
of terror as I sat there in utter loneliness. I glanced behind, hoping
that there at least I might discover some object on which my gaze might
settle, something that would relieve the intense nerve-strain of the
black nothingness. I swept with staring eyes the half circle where I
knew must lie the deep wide valley far beneath, but no welcome gleam of
light greeted me. Far out yonder, as I well knew, was the cheery glow
where our ragged, tired comrades rested around their night fires, but
the bend of the land between shut it all off as completely as if I were
already in another world, a denizen of those cold and silent stars so
far away.
I recall it now as one of the loneliest moments of my life, one of those
almost unaccountable conditions of mind and body when it seemed to me
that the thin, sinewy fingers of an inexorable fate were closing down
with a pressure which no strength of man might resist. I was worn with
fatigue in the saddle, but did not dream of sleep; my mind, in a firm
endeavor to cast aside the uncanny influences of the hour, recalled in
swift panorama those three years of civil strife which had run their
course since I, a slender, white-faced lad, had stolen forth into
the moonlight from the portals of the old home, to ride away into
the northward where the throbbing drums called me. In those days I
understood but little of the cause for which I was so eager to fight
and suffer. Possibly I cared even less; yet I had ever since blindly
followed the faded, tattered flag of my native State with the same
passionate devotion that possessed thousands of others, and with no
clearer thought than to remain beside it to the bitter end.
What strange, exciting years those had been; how filled with adventure!
Like pictures painted on a screen there flashed across my memory in
vivid colors the camps and marches, the long night vigils, the swift
sweep of the charging squadrons, the deadly shock of battle, the
scouting across unknown country, the hours of pain while the soft moon
smiled down upon a stricken field, the weary weeks in the low-roofed
hospital at Richmond. It seemed hardly possible that I could be that
same slender, untried lad who stole forth with quaking heart, fearful
of the very shadows of the oaks about the old home. What centuries of
experience lay between! The same boy, yet moulded now into a man; into
the leader of a troop of fighting men, hardened to steel by service,
trusted by one whom the South most revered and loved,--a veteran soldier
in the ranks of the hardest fighting legions our world has ever known.
Yet such had been the magic touch of war. So deeply had my every thought
become merged in these musings that Craig, slipping silently as a ghost
from out the engulfing darkness, laid hand upon my bridle-rein before I
became aware of his approach.
“I got 'er all right now, Cap,” he announced quietly, peering up into
my face. “We uns are not more nor a hundred yards ter the right of the
road, but I reckon you'll find ther way a bit rough.”
He led both horses forward, moving slowly and with that silent caution
so characteristic of his class. With scarcely the scraping of a hoof on
the flinty rocks we came forth in safety upon the defined, hard-beaten
track.
“The south is over yonder ter the left,” he whispered, as he swung up
into saddle, “an' the trend of the road is mighty nigh due west.”
“But in which direction does their main camp lie, Sergeant?”
He shook his head gravely.
“Durn it; thet's just what I can't quite figure out, sir--whether we uns
be to ther north or south of ther white church. Then, somehow or other,
it seems like to me as if this yere road lay a bit too close ter the
edge of ther plateau ter ever be the main pike what the Feds marched
over. I reckon from ther direction it runs that maybe it might be a
branch like, or a wood-road leadin' inter the other. If thet's the way
it is, then them fellers we uns is tryin' ter dodge ought ter be down
yonder ter the left somewhar.”
I gazed vaguely out into the black vacancy to which he pointed.
“Well, if we should chance to run up against one of their picket posts
we shall be soon enlightened,” I returned, urging my horse carefully
forward. “But we shall have to take the chances, for it would not prove
healthy for either of us to be caught here by daylight.”
I heard Craig chuckle grimly to himself, as if he found humor in the
thought, but without other attempt to give utterance to his feelings he
ranged up close to my side.
Not daring to venture on any gait faster than a walk along this unknown
and ill-defined mountain trail, we slowly and cautiously worked our way
forward for more than an hour, meeting with no human obstacle to our
progress, yet feeling that each step forward was surrounded by imminent
peril. That we were now well within the guarded lines of the enemy we
were both assured, although where or how we had succeeded in penetrating
the cordon of picket posts unobserved we could only conjecture. The
darkness about us seemed intensified by the high, overhanging bank of
rock at our left; on the other side, and but dimly revealed against the
sky-line, I could perceive Craig's gaunt figure as he leaned far over
the high pommel of his cavalry saddle, his short carbine well advanced,
his trained eyes seeking vainly to pierce the mystery in our front.