CHAPTER XXXIV.POOR ARTHUR.
He had kept his word, and piloted safely across the mountains the prisoner left in Hetty’s cabin. His arrival at Paul Haverill’s burning home had preceded that of the Federal troops by twenty minutes or more, and when he heard of Maude’s danger, he followed our soldiers up the hillside to where Maude held the entrance to the cave. He saw her, and tried to make his voice heard, but it was lost amid the strife and noise of the conflict, and she only knew of his presence, when Charlie, with chattering teeth, and a face as white as ashes, clutched her dress frantically, and said:
“Come, sister, come this way to Arthur,—somebody—shot him. Do you think he will die?”
Quick as lightning the remembrance of the thought, which had yet scarcely been a thought, of just such acontingency as this, flashed over Maude, sweeping away all the pain, the terror, the shrinking she had felt when she contemplated the fulfillment of her promise to Arthur Tunbridge. He was lying there at her feet, and the grass beneath him was all a pool of blood, while his dim eyes showed that the objects around him were now but faintly discerned. He saw Maude, though, and when her loud cry met his ear he smiled a glad, grateful smile, and said to her, as she knelt beside him and took his head in her lap—
“You are sorry, Maude. It was a mistake. You did love me some.”
She pressed her quivering lips to his, and said again,
“Oh Arthur! Arthur! how came you here?”
Arthur knew he was dying, but, shaking off all thought of his own pain, he explained to Maude how he came there.
“The man,—you remember. I got him through, and I am not sorry, for he told me of a blind mother and six little children dependent upon him away off somewhere among the Ohio hills. Think if they had been left with out support. I am glad I saved him even if it cost my life. And still it is hard to die, Maude, just as you are beginning to love me, for you are, and if I had lived you would have kept your promise to me.
“Yes, Arthur, I would,” and Maude’s white fingers threaded the bloody hair and moved softly over the ghastly face. “Who did it, Arthur?” she asked, and Arthur’s face flushed to a purple hue as with a moan he said:
“Don’t ask me,—there was amistake. I had taken no part in the fray, except to knock down the ruffian who firedat you. I was standing right behind him. Yes, there was a mistake. Oh Maude, itwasa mistake.”
He kept repeating the words, while Maude tried to stop the blood flowing so freely from the wound in his temple. The ball had entered there, but had not penetrated to the brain, and he retained his consciousness to the last, smiling once kindly on Charlie, who, half frantic, bent over him, and said:
“Yes, Arthur, itwasa mistake, oh Arthur, oh Maude, and you two were engaged. I did not know it before.”
Then a bright flush crept into Maude’s white face, for she knew the tall shadow on the grass beside her belonged to Capt. Carleton, and he, she guessed, was thinking of last night in the cave. He did think of it, but only for a moment, and then his thoughts were merged in his great anxiety for Lieutenant Arthur, who he saw was dying. Arthur knew he was there, and smiled when he asked if he felt much pain.
“None with Maude beside me. She was to have been my wife, wern’t you, Maude?”
“Yes, Arthur. I was to have been your wife.”
She spoke it openly, frankly, as if by so doing she was seeking to atone for an error, and the eyes lifted to Tom’s face had in them something defiant, as if she would say “I mean it. I would have been his wife.”
But she met only pity in Tom’s looks—pity for her, and pity for the young man dying among the mountains on that soft, summer morning, when the whole world seemed so at variance with a death like that. It was a strange scene, and one which those who witnessed it never could forget. The broad, level plat on the mountain side, the mounted horsemen, the group of prisoners, the beautiful, queenly girl, whose lap pillowed the head of the dying soldier, while her brilliant eyes wept floods of tearswhich, with quick, nervous movements of her fingers, she swept away. Beside her was Charlie, his face whiter than that of the dying man, and his muscles working painfully as if he was forcing back some terrible pang or cry of agony. Tom Carleton, too, and Paul Haverill, who had later joined the group and stood looking sadly on, while toward the south the smoke and flame of his own house was ascending, and in the east the early morning was bright and fresh with the summer’s golden sunshine. And there on the mountain side they waited and watched, while the young lieutenant talked faintly of his distant home where the news would carry so much sorrow.
“Tell father I died believing in our cause, and were I to live my life over I should join the Southern army; but it’s wrong about the prisoners. We ought not to abuse those who fall into our hands. I’ve loved you Maude, so long. Remember me when I am gone, not for anything brilliant there was about me, but because I loved you so well, and died in carrying out the work you gave me to do.”
“Oh, Arthur! Arthur! speak some word of comfort to me or I shall surely die. Itwasa mistake,” Charlie whispered, as he crept close to Arthur’s side.
The dying man’s eyes rested inquiringly for a moment in Charlie’s face, then lighted up with a sudden joy.
“Charlie! Charlie! come close,” he whispered. “Bend your ear to my lips. Maude must not hear me.”
His head was still lying on Maude’s lap, but he spoke so low to Charlie that she did not hear the question asked. She only knew that Charlie started quickly, and throwing one arm across her neck as if to save her from some evil, said, promptly, energetically:
“No, no, Arthur; no!”
Then the quivering lips went down again to Arthur’s ear, and Maude caught the word “mistake,” and that was all. She did not know or think what it really meant. It wasalla mistake, the terrible war which had brought her so much pain and suffering.
“I die easier now. It was so horrible before. Poor Charlie! Don’t let it trouble you. Care for Maude. She would have been my wife. Stick to our cause. You never forsook it,” came faintly from Arthur, and his eyes, when again they rested on Maude’s face, had lost the strange, frightened look which she had observed when she first came to his side. He was dying very fast, and his mind seemed groping for some form of prayer with which to meet the last great foe.
“Pray, somebody,” he moaned, and Paul Haverill, who, wholly overcome with all he had passed through during the last few hours, had stood dumb and motionless, replied in a choking voice:
“I am not a praying man, but God be with you, my boy, and land you safely on t’other side, where there’s no more fighting.”
“Yes, but that isn’t ‘Our Father.’ I used to say it at home,” came feebly from the white lips, and then Tom Carleton knelt beside the youth whose path had crossed his own so often and so strangely, and with deep reverence and earnest entreaty commended the departing spirit to the God who deals more gently, and mercifully, and lovingly with his children than they dealt with each other.
Tom thought of Isaac Simms, and the noisome, filthy room in Libby where he had first learned to pray, and the thought gave fervor to his prayer, to which Arthur listened intently, his lips motioning the amen he could not speak, for he had no power of utterance. Once again they moved with a pleading kind ofmotion, and Maude stooped over to kiss them, her long hair falling across the pallid brow, where the blood stains were, and when she lifted her head up, and pushed back her heavy locks, there was the seal of death on Arthur’s face.