As Jonah exclaimed, he was carried on by a sudden rush from behind; he looked back, and he thought he saw George leap forward and fall. It was a sudden rally—a desperate push—men fell right and left. The Colonel, too, was down a few paces off, and then came a blinding crash. Jonah himself was knocked over a second time by a spent shell. When he came to himself, he was being carried to the rear, and the tide of battle had swept on.
That night, while Dolly was at home watching in the mourning house, two men were searching along a slope beyond a vineyard, where a fierce encounter had taken place. A village not far off had been burned to the ground; there were shreds and wrecks of the encounter lying all about. Some sailors came up with lanterns and asked the men what they were doing.
'They were looking for a man of their own corps. The Colonel had been making inquiry,' said the two soldiers. A reward had been offered—it was to be doubled if they brought him in alive.
'A gentleman run away from his friends,' said one of the men. 'There is an officer in the Guards has offered the money; he's wounded himself, and been carried to the shore.'
'Do you take money for it?' said one of the sailors, turning away, and then he knelt down and raised some one in his arms, and turned his lantern upon the face.
It was that of a young fellow, who might have seemed asleep at first. He had been shot through the temple in some close encounter. There was no mark except a dull red spot where the bullet had entered. He had been lying on his back on the slope, with his feet towards the sea; his brows were knit, but his mouth was smiling.
'Why, that's him, poor fellow!' said Corporal Smith, kneeling down and speaking below his breath. 'So he's dead: so much the worse for him, and for us too—twenty pound is twenty pound.'
'Here is a letter to his sweetheart,' said one of the sailors, laying the head gently down, and holding out a letter that had fallen from the dead man's belt.
'Miss Vanbur—Vanborough; that's the name,' said Smith.
The sailors had moved on with their lanterns: they had but little time to give to the dead in their search for the living; and then the soldiers, too, trudged back to the camp.