"Come in here, Brennus. Let's see your letter," called the sergeant, stepping warily forward, his gun, too, at the charge. And presently out from under the stars steps a tall negro boy, lithe, active, and alert. He is trembling a bit and uncertain of his whereabouts. He needs to know something before he can impart anything, and presently it comes.
"Is you gen'lemen—Yankees?"
"Yankees from the general down," answers the sergeant. "Half a dozen right here ready to hear your story." And the negro seems to recognize alien accent in the Western twang of the speaker, and to take heart at once.
"Dey done gimme a paper," he whispers, and the general interrupts.
"Bring him back to the reserve, where there's a fire. We'll examine him there, sergeant." And, turning his horse, the general leads the way.
It is nearly eleven o'clock when, a little later, half a dozen officers are grouped about the slender, tattered, weary negro, a lad barely twenty years of age, if that. To the general he has handed a roll of tin-foil, on which, as it is unfolded by the gleam of the camp-lanterns, the word "Solace" is stamped, and the thin tissue-paper it encloses bears some writing, over which the general strains his eyes and studies eagerly; bends closer to the light and studies again. Then, straightening up suddenly, he turns upon the young negro.
"Where'd you leave them? How far out?"
"'Bout two miles, suh; p'r'aps not dat much."
"Are you sure about the troops,—about the number? There are none others?"
"Ye-as, suh. Dey ain't any udder companies near."