The lives of sixty million people had become suddenly full of drill, organization, uniforms, military music, flags, hatred, love, and self-sacrifice, and the nations of the Old World stood about, note-book in hand, like so many medical students at a clinic: could a heart, cut in two, continue to supply a body with blood after the soul had been withdrawn? And the nations of the Old World hoped that there would be enough fresh meat left on the carcass for them to feed on, when the experiment should be at an end. Mother England was particularly hungry, and dearly hoped to have the sucking of the eggs which she herself had laid.
It was a great time for young men, and Margaret shed secret tears on behalf of five of them. It had fallen upon her to tell the old man that his three sons had enlisted, and that task had tortured her for an hour before she had dared go and accomplish it.
“Papa,” she said, “Ham has enlisted, and so has Bul.”
The senator had not moved a muscle.
“It was only a question of time,” he said. “I wish that I had begotten a dozen others.”
He had borrowed her well-marked Bible from old Mrs. Blankinship and read Isaiah at a gulp. Then he had sought out his boys and bantered them on their new clothes.
Margaret sat very still for a long time after the interview with her father. She knew that Bul, whom she loved best of her brothers, was going to be killed. She had never before seen his face so serenely happy as when he came to tell her that he had sworn in, nor had she ever before seen that unexplainable phenomenon, known variously as fate, doom, numbered, Nemesis, written upon a face. And there were others who might be taken.
Aladdin came in for a moment to give her the news. He was nervous with enthusiasm, and had been working like a horse. His regiment was to leave Friday for the front; he could stay but a minute; he had only dashed in on his way to drill. Would she care to come? Quite right; there was nothing much to look at. He talked as cheerfully and as rapidly as a mountain brook runs. And then he gave his best piece of news, and looked almost handsome as he gave it.
“Peter’s here,” he said. “He’s outside talking to the senator. He looks simply stunning, and he’s a whole lot of things on a staff—assistant adjutant-general with the rank of a colonel; and he’s floated up here on a dash against time to say good-by to us.”
Aladdin’s face puckered.
“You and Peter and I, Margaret,” he said, “Lord, what a muddle!”
“I’m terribly blue, old man,” said Margaret, “and it hurts to have you say things like that.”
Instantly Aladdin was all concern.
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you purposely,” he said, “but I’m terribly blue, too, dear, and one tries to keep up and says asinine things, and”—he smiled, and his smile was very winning—“is at once forgiven by an old dear.”
She held out her hand and gave his a friendly squeeze.
“You old darling!” he said, and ran out.
She followed him into the hall, and met Manners, who had just parted from the senator at the front door. His uniform was wonderfully becoming.
“Is it Peter?”
They shook hands.
“Never,” she said, “have I seen anything so beautiful!”
Peter blushed (looking even more beautiful, for he hated to be talked about).
“Where was ‘Laddin going?” he said. “He went by me like a shot out of a gun, and had only time to pull my hat over my eyes and squeal Peeeter.”
“He’s very important now,” said Margaret, “and wonders how anybody can want to write things and be a poet or a musician when there are real things to do in the world.”
Peter looked at his watch.
“Isn’t that the least bit rude?” said Margaret.
“No,” said Peter; “my train back leaves in one hour, and I could better afford to lose my chances of heaven. I had no business to come, as it was. But I had to come.”
Margaret sighed. She had hoped that it would not happen so soon. He followed her into the parlor and closed the door behind him.
“First, Margaret,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you a little. It did me; it was so sudden. My sister Ellen is going to be married.”
“Ellen!” exclaimed Margaret. “Why, she always said—” “It’s only been arranged in the last few days,” said Peter, “by many telegrams. I was told to tell you.”
“Is he nice?”
“Yes. He’s a good chap.”
“Rich?”
“Well—rather rising than rich.”
“Who is it?”
“Your brother John.”
“My dear Peter—”
“No—I never did, either!”
“Isn’t that splendid!”
Peter pulled a grave face.
“Yes—and no,” he said.
“I hope you’re not going to be insolent,” said Margaret.
“It depends on what you call insolent. My father, you see, objects very much to having Ellen go out of the family, but he says that he can learn to bear that if the only other girl in the world will come into the family.”
Manners’ voice had become husky toward the last of the sentence, and perhaps not husky so much as hungry. Margaret knew better than to say anything of the kind, but she couldn’t help looking as innocent as a child and saying:
“Won’t she?”
“How do I know?” said Peter. “I have come to ask her.”
He looked so very strong and manly and frank that Margaret, whose world had been terribly blue recently, was half tempted to throw herself into his arms and cry.
“O Peter!” she said pitifully.
He came and sat beside her on the sofa, and drew her close to him.
“My darling,” he said brokenly.
A great sense of trust and security stole over Margaret, but she knew that it was not love. Yet for a moment she hesitated, for she knew that if she took this man, his arm would always be about her, and he would always—always—always be good to her. As she sat there, not trusting herself to speak, she had her first doubt of Aladdin, and she wondered if he loved her as much—as much as he loved Aladdin. Then she felt like a traitor.
For a little neither could find any words to say. So still they sat that Margaret could hear the muffled ticking of Peter’s watch. At length Peter spoke.
“What shall I tell my father?” he said.
“Tell him—” said Margaret, and her voice broke.
“Aren’t you sure, darling—is that it?”
She nodded with tears in her eyes.
He took his arm from round her waist, and she felt very lonely.
“But I’m always going to love you,” he said.
She felt still more alone.
“Peter,” she said, “I can’t explain things very well, but I—I—don’t want you to go away feeling as if—”
Manners’ eyes lifted up.
“As if it was all over?” he asked eagerly.
“Almost that, Peter,” she said. “I—I can’t say yes now—but God knows, Peter, perhaps sometime—I—I can.”
She was thinking of the flighty and moody Aladdin, who had loved her so long, and whom (she suddenly realized in spite of the words just spoken) she loved back with all her heart and soul.
Honor rose hot in her to give Peter a final answer now and forever—no. But she looked into his eyes and could not. He looked at his watch.
“Margaret dear,” he said, “I’ve got to go. Thanks for everything, and for the hope and all, and—and I may never see you again, but if I do, will you give me my answer then?”
“I will,” said Margaret, “when I see you again.”
They rose.
“May I kiss you, Margaret?” he said.
“Certainly, Peter.”
He kissed her on the cheek, and went away with her tears on his lips.
A newly organized fife-and-drum corps marched by struggling with “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
In those days the most strangled rendering of that tune would bring lumps into the throats of those that heard.
Hannible and Hamilton were privates in the nth regiment, Aladdin was major, and John was colonel. If any of them had the slightest military knowledge, it was Aladdin. Not in vain had he mastered the encyclopedia from Safety-lamps to Stranglers. He could explain with strange words and in long, balanced sentences everything about the British army that began with an S, except only those things whose second letter stood farther down in the alphabet than T. But the elements of knowledge kept dropping in, at first on perfunctory calls, visitors that disappeared when you turned to speak with them, but that later came to stay. The four young men were like children with a “roll-the-seven-number-eight-shot-into-the middle” puzzle. They could make a great rattling with the shot, and control their tempers; that was about all. Later they were to form units in the most efficient and intelligent large body of men that the world ever saw, with the possible exception of the armies it was to be pitted against; but those, it must be owned, were usually smaller, though, in the ability of their commanders to form concentration, often of three times the size. They learned that it is cheaper to let a company sleep in tents upon hard ground of a rainy night than to lodge them in a neighboring hotel at one’s own expense, and that going the rounds in pitch-darkness grows less thrilling in exact ratio to the number of times you do it, and finally, even in sight of the enemy’s lines, becomes as boring as waltzing with a girl you don’t like. They began to learn that cleanliness is next to godliness only in times of peace, and that food is the one god, and the stomach his only prophet. They learned that the most difficult of all duties is to keep the face straight when the horse of a brother officer who mounts for the first time is surprised to vehemence by its first experience with a brass band.
Aladdin was absolutely equal to the occasion, and developed an astonishing talent for play-acting, and, it is to be feared, strutted a little, both in the bosom of his soul and on the parade-ground. It was only when he looked at two of the “tall men on the right,” Hamilton and Hannibal St. John, who had chosen humble parts that they might serve under their brother, that he felt properly small and resented himself. Sometimes, too, he searched his past life and could find in it only one brave deed, his swim down the river, and he wondered with an awful wonder what he would do when the firing began. He need not have troubled: he was of too curious and inquiring a disposition to be afraid of most things. And he was yet to see proved on many Southern fields that a coward is, if anything, a rarer bird than a white quail. Only once in action did Aladdin see a man really show the white feather. The man had gone into the army from a grocery-store, and was a very thin, small specimen with a very big, bulbous head; and, like many others of his class, proved to be a perfect fire-eater in battle, and a regular buzzard to escape fever and find food. But during the famous seven days before Richmond a retreat was ordered of a part of the line which the Buzzard helped compose, and he was confronted by the necessity, for his friends were hastening him from behind, of crossing a gully by means of a somewhat slender fallen tree. It was then that Aladdin saw him show fear. Bullets tore up the bark of the tree, and pine needles, clipped from the trees overhead, fell in showers. But he did not mind that. It was the slenderness and instability of the fallen tree that froze the marrow in his bones: would it bear his one hundred and twenty-four pounds, or would it precipitate him, an awful drop of ten feet, into the softest of muds at the bottom of the gully, where a sickeningly striped but in reality harmless water-snake lay coiled?
Finally, pale and shaking, he ventured on the log, got half-way across, turned giddy, and fell with such a howl of terror that it was only equaled in vehemence by the efforts of the snake to get out of the way. After which the Buzzard picked himself up, scrambled out, and continued his retreat, scraping his muddied boots among the fallen leaves as he went. “Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules,” but it may be that an exceedingly giddy elevation coupled with a serpent would have made shivering children of both those heroes. To each his own fear. Margaret’s and Aladdin’s was the same they both feared Aladdin.
That afternoon the regiment was to leave for the front, and Aladdin went to bid Margaret good-by. She and her father were still staying with the Blankinships.
They had a very satisfactory talk, beginning with the beginning of things, and going over their long friendship, laughing, remembering, and regretting. Jack was to live with the St. Johns, and they talked much of him, and of old Mrs. Brackett, and of affairs at home. Jack about this time was in the seventh hell of despair, for his extreme youth had prevented him from bringing to its triumphant conclusion a pleasant little surprise, consisting of a blue uniform, which he had planned for himself and others. No love of country stirred the bosom of the guileless Jack; only hatred of certain books out of which he was obliged to learn many useless things, such as reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. Besides, word had come to him that persimmons were to be had for the picking and chickens for the broiling in that country toward which the troops were heading. And much also had he heard concerning the beauty of Southern maidens, and of the striped watermelons in the watermelon-patch. And so he was to be left behind, and God was not good.
Toward the end their talk got very serious.
“I’m going to turn over a new leaf,” said Aladdin, “and be better things, Margaret, and you must save up a lot of pride to have in me if I do, and perhaps it will all come right in the end.”
“You know how fond I am of you,” said Margaret, “and because I am, and because you’re all the big things that are hard to be, I want you to be all the little things that ought to be so easy to be. That doesn’t seem very plain, but I mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Aladdin. “Don’t you suppose I know myself pretty well by this time, and how far I’ve got to climb before I have a ghost of a right to tell you what I tell you every time I look at you?”
Aladdin rose.
“Margaret,” he said, “this time I’m going like an old friend. If I make good and live steady, as I mean to do, I shall come back like a lover. Meanwhile you shall think all things over, and if you think that you can care for me, you shall tell me so when I come back. And if you conclude that you can’t, you shall tell me. I’m not going to ask you to marry me now, because in no way am I in a position to. But if I come back and say to you, ‘Margaret, I have turned into a man at last,’ you will know that I am telling the truth and am in a position to ask anything I please. For I shall come back without a cent, but with a character, and that’s everything. I shall not drink any more, and every night I shall pray to God to help me believe in Him. But, Margaret, I may not come back at all. If I don’t it will be for one of two reasons. Either I shall fail in becoming worthy to kiss the dust under your blessed feet, or I shall be killed. In the first case, I beg that you will pray for me; but in the second I pray that you will forget all that was bad in me and only remember what was good. And so, darling—” his voice broke, “because I am a little afraid of death and terribly afraid of myself—”
She came obediently into his arms, and knew what it was to be kissed by the man she loved.
“Aladdin,” she said, “promise that nothing except—”
“Death?” said Aladdin.
“—that nothing, nothing except death—shall keep you from coming back.”
“If I live,” said Aladdin, “I will come back.”
Everybody of education knows that Lucy Locket lost her pocket and that Betty Pringle found it without a penny “in it” (to rhyme with “found it”), but everybody does not know that the aforementioned Lucy Locket had a tune composed for her benefit that has thrilled the hearts of more sons of the young republic when stepping to battle than any other tune, past, present, or to come. There is a martial vigor and a tear in “The Girl I Left Behind Me”; some feet cannot help falling into rhythm when they hear the “British Grenadiers”; North and South alike are possessed with a do-or-die madness when the wild notes of “Dixie” rush from the brass; and “John Brown’s Body” will cause the dumb to sing. But it is the farcical little quickstep known by the ridiculous name of “Yankee Doodle” which the nations would do well to consider when straining the patience of the peace-loving and United States.
And so they marched down the street to the station, and the tall men walked on the right and the little men on the left, and the small boys trotted alongside, and the brand-new flags flung out, and bouquets were thrown, and there were cheers from the heart up all along the line. But ever the saucy fifes sang, and the drums gaily beat
Yankee Doodle came to townRiding on a pony,Stuck a feather in his Hat,And called it macaroni.
At the station the emotions attendant on departure found but one voice. The mother said to the son what the sweetheart said to the lover, and the sister to the brother. Nor was this in any manner different from what the brother, lover, and son said to the sister, sweetheart, and mother. It was the last sentence which bleeding hearts supply to lips at moments of farewell:
“Write to me.”
And the supercilious little quickstep went on:
Yankee Doodle came to townRiding on a pony,Stuck a feather in his Hat,And called it macaroni.
A tongue of land with Richmond (built, like another capital beginning with R, on many hills) for its major root, and a fortification vulgarly supposed to be of the gentler sex for its tip, is formed by the yellow flow of the James and York rivers. To land an army upon the tip of this tongue, march the length of it and extract the root, after reducing it to a reminiscence, was the wise plan of the powers early in the year 1862. To march an army of preponderous strength through level and fertile country, flanked by friendly war-ships and backed by unassailable credit; to meet and overcome a much smaller and far less rich army, intrenched behind earthworks of doubtful formidableness, and finally to besiege and capture an isolated city of more historic than strategic advantages, seemed on the face of it as easy as rolling a barrel downhill or eating when hungry. But the level, fertile country was discovered to be very muddy, its supply of rain from heaven unparalleled in nature, its streams as deadly as arsenic, and its topography utterly different from that assigned to it in any known geography. Furthermore, in its woods, and it was nearly all woods, dwelt far more mosquitos than there are lost souls in Hades, and each mosquito had a hollow spike in his head through which he not only could but would squirt, with or without provocation, the triple compound essence of malaria into veins brought up on oxygen, and on water through which you could see the pebbles at the bottom. A bosom friend of the mosquito, and some say his paramour, was little Miss Tick. Of the two she was considerably the more hellish, and forsook her dwelling-places in the woods for the warm flesh of soldiers where it is rosiest, next the skin. The body, arms, and legs of Miss Tick could be scratched to nothing by poisonous finger-nails, but her detached head was eternal, and through eternity she bit and gnawed and sometimes laughed in the hollow of her black soul. For the horses, mules, and cattle there were shrubs which disagreed with them, and gigantic horse-flies. And for the general at the head of the vast body of irritation there was an opposing army whose numbers he overrated, and whose whereabouts he kept discovering suddenly. It is said that during the Peninsular campaign the buzzards were so well nourished that they raised a second brood.
While the army was still in the vicinity of Fort Monroe, numbers of officers secured leave to ride over to Newport News and view the traces of the recent and celebrated naval fight, which was to relegate wooden battle-ships to the fireplace. Aladdin was among those to go. At this time he was in great spirits, for it had been brought home to him that he was one of the elect, one of those infinitely rare and godlike creatures whom mosquitos do not bite nor ticks molest. His nights were as peaceful as the grave, and the poisonous drinking-waters glanced from his rubber constitution. Besides, he had forsaken his regimental duties to enjoy a life of constant variety upon the staff of a general, and had begun to feel at home on horseback. It was one of those radiant, smiling days, which later on were to become rarer than charity, and the woods were positively festive with sunshine. And the temperature was precisely that which brings to a young man’s fancy thoughts of love. So that it was in the nature of a shock to come suddenly upon the shore and behold for the first time the finality of war. There was no visible glory about it. What had happened to the Cumberland and the Congress was disappointingly like what would happen to two ships destroyed in shallow water. The masts of the Cumberland, slightly off the vertical and still rigged, projected for half their length from the yellow surface of the river. That was all. Some distance to the left and half submerged was a blackened and charred mass that bore some resemblance to a ship that had once been proud and tall, and known by the name of Congress. That was all. Aladdin had hoped that war would be a little more like the pictures.
As he rode back, pondering, toward the encampment, however, he came upon something which was truly an earnest of what was to come. There were so many buzzards perched in the trees of a certain wood that he turned in to see what they had. He came upon it suddenly, just beyond a cheerful bush of holly, and the buzzards stepped reluctantly back until he had looked. It was only a horse. Some of the buzzards, heavy with food, raised their eyelids heavily and looked at Aladdin, and then lapsed back into filthy sleep. Others, not yet satiated, looked upon him querulously, and suggested as much as looks can suggest that he go, and trouble them no more. Others, the newly arrived and ravenous, swooped above the trees, so that dark circles were drawn over the fallen sunlight. Now a buzzard opened and closed its wings, and now one looked from the horse to Aladdin, and back, fretfully, to the horse. There seemed to be hundreds of them, dark and dirty, with raw heads and eyelids. Aladdin sat solemn and motionless upon his horse, but he could feel the cold sweat of horror running down his sides from under his arms, and the bristling of his hair. He wanted to make a great noise, to shout, to do anything, but he did not dare. It would have been breaking the rules. In that assembly no sound was allowed, for the meeting was unholy and wicked and worked with hurried stealth, so that the attention of God should not be drawn. Aladdin knew that he had no right to be there, that without knocking he had entered the bedroom of horror and found her naked in the arms of lust. He turned and rode away shivering and without looking back. He had not ridden the distance between two forest trees before the carcass was again black with the descending birds, and the blood streamed to their bills.
The Peninsular campaign developed four kinds of men: the survivors, the wounded, the dead, and the missing. When the campaign was over Aladdin sometimes woke starting in the night to think of those missing and of what he had seen in the woods.
The tedious locomotion of an army and the incessant reluctance of the battle to be met will try a sinner; but a scarcity of tobacco and constantly wet feet will try a saint. Aladdin was somewhat of both. But in the fidgety gloom which presently settled upon man and beast, his, great Irish gift of cheerfulness shone like a star. He even gave up longing for promotion, and strained his mind to the cracking-point for humorous verses and catching tunes. He went singing up the Peninsula, and thumped the gay banjo by the camp-fire, and was greatly beloved by the foot-sore and sick. He had given up worrying about what he would do in battle, for there were much more important things to think about.
Battles are to soldiers what Christmas trees are to children: you must wait, wait, and wait for them, and forever wait; and when they do come the presents are apt to be a little tawdry. And you are only envied by the other little children who didn’t really see what you really got. The most comforting man in the army was one minister of the gospel, and the most annoying was another. The first had the divine gift of story-telling and laughter, and the second thanked God because the soldiers had run out of their best friend, tobacco, which he described through his nose as “filthy weed,” “vile narcotic,” or “pernicious hell-plant.” And they both served the Lord as hard as they could—and they both suffered from dysentery.
As the days passed and the temperature of the army rose, and its digestion became permanently impaired, Aladdin, by giving out, and constantly, all that was best in himself, became gradually exhausted. He found himself telling stories as many as three times to the same man, and he began to steal from the poets and musicians that he knew in order to keep abreast of his own original powers of production. He even went so far as to draw inspiration from men of uneven heights stood in line: he would hum the intervals as scored by their heads on an imaginary staff and fashion his tune accordingly, but this tended to a somewhat compressed range and was not always happy in its results. His efforts, however, were appreciated, and the emaciated young Irishman became a most exceptional prophet, and received honor in his own land.
For the rest, being a staff-officer, he was kept busy and rode hundreds of extra miles through the rain. It was a large army, as inexperienced as it was large, and it stood in great need of being kept in contact with itself. If you lived at one end of it and wanted to know what was going on at the other end, you had to travel about as far as from New York to New Haven. The army proper, marching by fours, stretched away through the wet lands for forty miles. A fly-bitten tail of ambulances and wagons, with six miserable horses or six perfectly happy mules attached to each, added another twenty miles. At the not always attained rate of fifteen miles a day the army could pass a given point in four days. To the gods in Olympus it would have appeared to have all the characteristic color and shape of an angleworm, without, however, enjoying that reptile’s excellent good health. If the armies of Washington, Cornwallis, Clive, Pizarro, Cortes, and Christian de Wet had been added to it, they would have passed unnoticed in the crowd. And the recurring fear of the general in command of this army was that the army he sought would prove to be twice as big. So speculation was active between the York and James rivers.
In the minds of the soldiers a thousand years passed, and then there was a little fight, and they learned that they were soldiers. And so did the other army. Another thousand years passed, and it seemed tactful to change bases. Accordingly, that which had been arduously established on a muddy river called the Chickahominy (and it was very far from either of those two good things) was forsaken, and the host began to be moved toward the James. This move would have been more smoothly accomplished if the enemy had not interfered. They, however, insisted upon making history, turning a change of base into a nominal retreat, and begetting in themselves a brass-bound and untamable spirit which it took vast wealth and several years to humble. From Gaines’s Mill to the awful brow of Malvern Hill there were thunder and death. Forty thousand men were somewhat needlessly killed, wounded, or (as one paradoxical account has it) “found missing.”
Aladdin missed the fight at Malvern Hill and became wounded in a non-bellicose fashion. His general desired to make a remark to another general, and writing it on a piece of thin yellow paper, gave it to him to deliver. He rode off to the tune of axes,—for a Maine regiment was putting in an hour in undoing the stately work of a hundred years,—trotted fifteen miles peacefully enough, delivered his general’s remark, and started back. Then came night and a sticky mist. Then the impossibility of finding the way. Aladdin rode on and on, courageously if not wisely, and came in time to the dimly discernible outbuildings of a Virginia mansion. They stood huddled dark and wet in the mist, which was turning to rain, and there was no sign of life in or about them. Aladdin passed them and turned into an alley of great trees. By looking skyward he could keep to the road they bounded. As he drew near the mansion itself a great smell of box and roses filled his nostrils with fragrance. But to him, standing under the pillared portico and knocking upon the door, came no word of welcome and no stir of lights. He gave it up in disgust, mounted, and rode back through the rich mud to the stables. Had he looked over his shoulder he might have seen a face at one of the windows of the house.
He found a door of one of the stables unlocked, and went in, leading his horse. Within there was a smell of hay. He closed the door behind him, unsaddled, and fell to groping about in the dark. He wanted several armfuls of that hay, and he couldn’t find them. The hay kept calling to his nose, “Here I am, here I am”; but when he got there, it was hiding somewhere else. It was like a game of blindman’s-buff. Then he heard the munching of his horse and knew that the sought was found. He moved toward the horse, stepped on a rotten planking, and fell through the floor. Something caught his chin violently as he went through, and in a pool of filthy water, one leg doubled and broken under him, he passed the night as tranquilly as if he had been dosed with laudanum.
Aladdin came to consciousness in the early morning. He was about as sick as a man can be this side of actual dissolution, and the pain in his broken leg was as sharp as a scream. He lay groaning and doubled in the filthy half-inch of water into which he had fallen. About him was darkness, but overhead a glimmer of light showed a jagged and cruel hole in the planking of the stable floor. Very slowly, for his agony was unspeakable, he came to a realization of what had happened. He called for help, and his voice was thick and unresonant, like the voice of a drunken man. His horse heard him and neighed. Now and again he lapsed into semi-unconsciousness, and time passed without track. Hours passed, when suddenly the glimmer above him brightened, and he heard light footsteps and the cackling of hens. He called for help. Instantly there was silence. It continued a long time. Then he heard a voice like soft music, and the voice said, “Who’s there?”
A shadow came between him and the light, and a fair face that was darkened looked down upon him.
“For God’s sake take care,” he said. “Those boards are rotten.”
“You ‘re a Yankee, aren’t you?” said the voice, sweetly.
“Yes,” said Aladdin, “and I’m badly hurt.”
The voice laughed.
“Hurt, are you?” it said.
“I think I’ve broken my leg,” said Aladdin. “Can you get some one to help me out of this?”
“Reckon you’re all right down there,” said the voice.
Aladdin revolved the brutality of it in his mind.
“Do you mean to say that you’re not going to help me?” he said.
“Help you? Why should I?”
Aladdin groaned, and could have killed himself for groaning.
“If you don’t help me,” he said, and his voice broke, for he was suffering tortures, “I’ll die before long.”
A perfectly cool and cruel “Well?” came back to him.
“You won’t help me?”
“No.”
Anger surged in his heart, but he spoke with measured sarcasm.
“Then,” he said, “will you at least do me the favor of getting from between me and God’s light? If I die, I may go to hell, but I prefer not to see devils this side of it, thank you.”
The girl went away, but presently came back. She lowered something to him on a string. “I got it out of one of your holsters,” she said.
Aladdin’s fingers closed on the butt of a revolver.
“It may save you a certain amount of hunger and pain,” she said. “When you are dead, we will give it to one of our men, and your horse too. He’s a beauty.”
“I hope to God he may—” began Aladdin.
“Pretty!” said the girl.
She went away, and he heard her clucking to the chickens. After a time she came back. Aladdin was waiting with a plan.
“Don’t move,” he said, “or you’ll be shot.”
“Rubbish!” said the girl. She leaned casually back from the hole, and he could hear her moving away and clucking to the chickens. Again she returned.
“Thank you for not shooting,” she said.
There was no answer.
“Are you dead?” she said.
When he came to, there was a bright light in Aladdin’s eyes, for a lantern swung just to the left of his head.
“I thought you were dead,” said the girl, still from her point of advantage. The lantern’s light was in her face, too, and Aladdin saw that it was beautiful.
“Won’t you help me?” he said plaintively.
“Were you ever told that you had nice eyes?” said the girl.
Aladdin groaned.
“It bores you to be told that?”
“My dear young lady,” said Aladdin, “if you were as kind as you are beautiful—”
“How about your horse kicking me to a certain place? That was what you started to say, you know.”
“Lady—lady,” said Aladdin, “if you only knew how I’m suffering, and I’m just an ordinary young man with a sweetheart at home, and I don’t want to die in this hole. And now that I look at you,” he said, “I see that you’re not so much a girl as an armful of roses.”
“Are you by any chance—Irish?” said the girl, with a laugh.
“Faith and of ahm that,” said Aladdin, lapsing into full brogue; “oi’m a hireling sojer, mahm, and no inimy av yours, mahm.”
“What will you do for me if I help you?” said the girl.
“Anything,” said Aladdin.
“Will you say ‘God save Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America,’ and sing ‘Dixie’—that is, if you can keep a tune. ‘Dixie’s rather hard.”
“I’ll ‘God bless Jefferson Davis and every future President of the Confederate States, if there are any,’ ten million times, if you’ll help me out, and—”
“Will you promise not to fight any more?”
A long silence.
“No.”
“You needn’t do the other things either,” said the girl, presently. Her voice, oddly enough, was husky.
“I thought it would be good to see a Yankee suffer,” she said after a while, “but it isn’t.”
“If you could let a ladder down,” said Aladdin, “I might be able to get up it.”
“I’ll get one,” said the girl. Then she appeared to reflect. “No,” she said; “we must wait till dark. There are people about, and they’d kill you. Can you live in that hole till dark?”
“If you could throw down a lot of hay,” said Aladdin. “It’s very wet down here and hard.”
The girl went, and came with a bundle of hay.
“Look out for the lantern,” she called, and threw the hay down to him. She brought, in all, seven large bundles and was starting for the eighth, when, by a special act of Providence, the flooring gave again, and she made an excellent imitation of Aladdin’s shute on the previous evening. By good fortune, however, she landed on the soft hay and was not hurt beyond a few scratches.
“Did you notice,” she said, with a little gasp, “that I didn’t scream?”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” said Aladdin.
“No,” she said; “but—do you realize that we can’t get out, now?”
She made a bed of the hay.
“You crawl over on that,” she said.
Aladdin bit his lips and groaned as he moved.
“It’s really broken, isn’t it?” said the girl. Aladdin lay back gasping.
“You poor boy,” she said.
The girl borrowed Aladdin’s pocket-knife and began whittling at a fragment of board. Then she tore several yards of ruffle from her white petticoat, cut his trouser leg off below the knee, cut the lacings of his boot, and bandaged his broken leg to the splint she had made. All that was against a series of most courteous protests, made in a tearful voice.
When she had done, Aladdin took her hand in his and kissed the fingers.
“They’re the smallest sisters of mercy I ever saw,” said he. She made no attempt to withdraw her hand.
“It was stupid of me to fall through,” she said.
“Isn’t there any possible way of getting out?”
“No; the walls are stone.”
“O Lord!” said Aladdin.
“I’m glad I repented before I fell through,” said the girl.
“So am I,” said Aladdin.
“What were you doing in our stable?” said the girl.
“I got lost, and came in for shelter.”
“You came to the house first. I heard you knocking, and saw you from the window. But I wouldn’t let you in, because my father and brother were away, and besides, I knew you were a Yankee.”
“It was too dark to see my uniform.”
“I could tell by the way you rode.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
“No—but it’s different.”
The girl laid her hand on Aladdin’s forehead.
“You’ve got fever,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Aladdin, politely.
“Does your leg hurt awfully?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Did any one ever tell you that you were very civil for a Yankee?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Aladdin.
She looked at him shrewdly, and saw that the light of reason had gone out of his eyes. She wetted her handkerchief with the cold, filthy water spread over the cellar floor and laid it on his forehead. Aladdin spoke ramblingly or kept silence. Every now and then the girl freshened the handkerchief, and presently Aladdin fell into a troubled sleep.
When he awoke his mind was quite clear. The lantern still burned, but faintly, for the air in the cellar was becoming heavy. Beside him on the straw the girl lay sleeping. And overhead footsteps sounded on the stable floor. He remembered what the girl had said about the people who would kill him if they found him, and blew out the lantern. Then, his hand over her mouth, he waked the girl.
“Don’t make a noise,” he said. “Listen.”
The girl sat up on the straw.
“I’ll call,” she whispered presently, “and pretend you’re not here.”
“But the horse?”
“I’ll lie about him.”
She raised her voice.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s I—Calvert. Where are you?”
“Listen,” she answered; “I’ve fallen through the floor into the cellar. Don’t you see where it’s broken?”
The footsteps approached.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No; but don’t come too close, don’t try to look down; the floor’s frightfully rickety. Isn’t there a ladder there somewhere?”
A man laughed.
“Wait,” he said. They heard his footsteps and laughter receding. Presently the bottom of a ladder appeared through the hole in the floor.
“Look out for your head,” said the man.
The girl rose and guided the ladder clear of Aladdin’s head.
“What have you done with the Yankee’s horse?” she called.
“He’s here.”
“Where’s the Yankee, do you suppose?”
“We think he must have run off into the woods.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The girl began to mount the ladder.
“I’m coming up,” she said.
She disappeared, and the ladder was withdrawn.
She came back after a long time, and there were men with her.
“It’s all right, Yankee,” she called down the hole. “They’re your own men, and I’m the prisoner now.”
The ladder reappeared, and two friendly men in blue came down into the cellar.
“Good God!” they said. “It’s Aladdin O’Brien!”
Hannibal St. John and Beau Larch lifted Aladdin tenderly and took him out of his prison.
Outside, tents were being pitched in the dark, and there was a sound of axes. Fires glowed here and there through the woods and over the fields, and troops kept pouring into the plantation. They laid Aladdin on a heap of hay and went to bring a stretcher. The girl sat down beside him.
“You’ll be all right now,” she said.
“Yes,” said Aladdin.
“And go home to your sweetheart.”
“Yes,” said Aladdin, and he thought of the tall violets on the banks of the Maine brooks, and the freshness of the sea.
“What is her name?” said the girl.
“Margaret,” said Aladdin.
“Mine’s Ellen,” said the girl, and it seemed as if she sighed.
Aladdin took her hand.
“You ‘ve been very good to me,” he said, and his voice grew tender, for she was very beautiful, “and I’ll never forget you,” he said.
“Oh, me!” said the girl, and there was a silence between them.
“I tried to help you,” said the girl, faintly, “but I wasn’t very good at it.”
“You were an angel,” said Aladdin.
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever see each other again, will we?” said the girl.
“I don’t know,” said Aladdin. “Perhaps I’ll come back some day.”
“It’s very silly of me—” said the girl.
“What?” said Aladdin.
“Nothing.”
He closed his eyes, for he was very weak. It seemed as if a great sweetness came close to his face, and he could have sworn that something wet and hot fell lightly on his forehead; but when he opened his eyes, the girl was sitting aloof, her face in the shadow.
“I dreamed just then,” said Aladdin, “that something wonderful happened to me. Did it?”
“What would you consider wonderful?”
Aladdin laid a finger on his forehead; he drew it away and saw that the tip was wet.
“I couldn’t very well say,” he said.
The girl bent over him.
“It nearly happened,” she said.
“You are very wonderful and beautiful,” said Aladdin.
Her eyes were like stars, and she leaned closer.
“Are you going to go on fighting against my people?” she said.
Roses lay for a moment on his lips.
“Are you?”
He made no sign. If she had kissed him again he would have renounced his birthright and his love.
“God bless and keep you, Yankee,” she said.
Tears rushed out of Aladdin’s eyes.
“They’re coming to take you away,” she said. “Good-by.”
“Kiss me again,” said Aladdin, hoarsely.
She looked at him quietly for some moments.
“And your sweetheart?” she said.
Aladdin covered his face with his arm.
“Poor little traitor,” said the girl, sadly. She rose and, without looking back, moved slowly up the road toward the house.
Nor did Aladdin ever see her again, but in after years the smell of box or roses would bring into his mind the wonderful face of her, and the music of her voice.
In the delirium which was upon him all that night, he harped to the surgeon of Ellen, and in the morning fell asleep.
“Haec olim meminisse juvabit,” said the surgeon, as rain-clouded dawn rose whitely in the east.