* * * * *
I must cease to follow these horrible thoughts. I must try another line.
So far as I know, I have never given the Confederates the information
gained from the Yankees: why? Because I could not. My wound had caused
me to forget. Now, had the Doctor been able to read the future? If he
had such power, his course in regard to me could be understood. He knew
that I should become unable to reveal anything to injure his cause,
therefore he was willing to help me return to the Confederate army.
There, at last, was a third alternative, but a bare possibility only.
Was it even that?
To assume that the Doctor, even with all his wonderful insight, knew
what would become of me, was nonsense. To suppose he could read the
future was hardly less violent than to suppose he could control the
future. Mind is powerful, but there are limits. What are the limits? Had
not the Doctor spoken to me of this very subject? He had reasoned
against there being limits to the power of the mind ... notwithstanding
my resistance to the thought I still think it; I am still thinking of
the possibility that the Doctor controlled me, and caused me to lose the
past in order that thus he might not be accessory to a betrayal of his
own cause.
This view explains--but how can I grant the impossible? Yet how can I
place a limit to the power of mind? God is mind ... and if there is a
man on earth who can do such miracles, that man is Dr. Khayme.
But, another thought--why should the Doctor have been willing for me to
suffer so? If he knew that I should be hurt--and that I should endure
mortification--and be without friends--and long hopeless of all
good--why should he do me such injury? Would it not have been better for
me to remain in the Union army? I could not see any reason for his
subjecting me to so bitter an experience--but wait--did he not contend
that every human being must go through an infinity of experience? That
being true--or true to his thought--he might be just in causing me to
endure what I have endured.
Now the whole course of events, at least all since Bull Run, seems clear
if I can but know--or even believe--that any man has such superhuman
power. Can I believe it?
Again it is my time for vedette duty. I relieve Butler. Not long till
dawn, I think. Far to my left I hear sounds, as if an army is stirring.
My time will be short on post. Where was I? Yes; the supernatural power
of the Doctor.
What would the possession of such power imply? To see future events and
control them! Divine power? Yes, in degree, at least. But the mind, is
it not divine? I have seen the Doctor do marvellous things. That letter
of my father's was a mystery.... What! My father!
The sounds increase; the army is moving; the day is near.