Sherman. Simple as any other phase of life. A storm at night. A handsome cavalier, unjustly condemned, awaiting execution. A lovely maiden hovers near. She drugs the guard, and sets the prisoner free. Bewildered by the ecstasy of love in such a moment of excitement, both are lost in its wild delirium. They wake to an utter incomprehensibility of all that has passed.
Halcom. General, I am content if such chafing pleases you. But I am weighted with an anxiety that will drive me mad. When I can know the heroic girl is safe, who perhaps has sacrificed her life to save mine, I can forget that I am a coward, and unfit to live! (Crosses over to L.)
Sherman. Ah! I am getting interested in this case. Who is this woman? What do you fear? Where is she? I can hardly imagine a situation in this country or in either army, that can be dangerous to a woman!
Halcom. No danger to a woman? They killed my mother when she was helpless, and, with my sister, burned her in her own home.
Sherman. Such men are devils!
Halcom. And so am I! Can you trace the maniac through Nashville, Chickamauga, and over Lookout Mountain, to the banks of this river, and not guess at the origin of the hell that is so fast consuming my life?
Sherman. Treat it calmly, Halcom. It is something that can never be mended. Leave the past to take care of itself.
Halcom. There are fires that refuse to be quenched. No one has struggled more manfully than myself to forget this. When I would forget, memory conjures up the scene in the old home! My mother’s helpless struggles with the devils who crushed her innocent life! Of my sister burned alive! My God! How can I forget this?
Sherman. Tell me of your capture and escape.
Halcom. (Hesitating.) My division was overwhelmed by the whole rebel army. In the desperate struggle, I was left wounded and senseless on the field of battle. I was discovered by my old enemy and conveyed to an old hut on the banks of the Chattahoochee. After a parley with Hood and others, I was tried by a drum-head court-martial for treason to my native state, and sentenced to die fifteen minutes later. I was remanded to the hut to await the preparations for my execution. I could see no chance for escape, for Brightly had the details of my execution at his own command. The rifles were already loading that were to send me to eternity. I had sunk on my knees for the last prayer, when a tapping on the logs outside, in rear of the hut, attracted my attention. I hastened to listen. It was too dark to see. But through the crevices between the logs, I learned that the little rebel owl who had escaped your bullet, because she was not a man, had come to effect my escape.