A Hero of the Pen

by E. Werner

"Walter! Are you out of your senses?" cried Doctor Behrend, in consternation.

The major too had started back, and all the officers with a sort of horrified surprise, gazed upon their comrade. Walter was the general favorite; the pride of his equals, and the darling of his superiors. Despite his silence and modesty, he possessed that boundless influence over those around him, which is peculiar to genial natures. They had often enough seen him rush first to the conflict, they had shared danger with him; but to fall in open combat at the side of one's comrades, with weapons in one's hand, is quite a different thing from being laid low solitary and defenceless, by a ball from some ambush, or being reserved perhaps for a yet more mournful destiny. It requires more than the usual courage to look forward to such a fate, and they would sooner have sacrificed any other than Walter Fernow.

"You--you, Lieutenant Fernow?" said the major deliberately. "That will not do! I must sacrifice no officer in such an undertaking; we lost enough of them in our last battle, and need all we have left for the next. Such an errand is the business of a common soldier, and I must let some private perform it."

Walter advanced a step nearer the table; the light of the candles fell full upon his face; it was white as marble.

"I am at this moment the only one who knows the way," he said, "the only one who can go in it. The path cannot be described; to confide the mission to another, would be to imperil its success at the outset."

"But," returned the major, in a voice full of repressed emotion; "I can now do without you least of all, and I repeat it to you, the possibility of finding the path open is too small; the probability is you would all be shot down!"

"Perhaps, and perhaps not! In any event, this possibility shall not hold me back from a venture, that you would entrust to a common soldier."

The major stepped hastily to him and reached him his hand. "You are right!" he said simply. "Well, then, go in God's name! If you succeed, you rescue some hundreds of my brave boys, if not--well, he who dies from a stray bullet, meets none the less a hero's death.--How many men will you take with you?"

"Not any! If we are attacked we must yield to numbers, and where one falls, the others are not likely to escape. It would be to sacrifice men uselessly, as a single one will suffice to carry the message. Besides, a number might greatly enhance the danger; a single person would be more likely to escape discovery."

The old superior officer, with undisguised admiration, gazed upon the young poet and dreamer, as Walter was often enough jestingly called, but who, once aroused from his reverie, had shown such a cool, energetic, practical good sense, in even the minutest details of the service. He indeed divined nothing of the storm which had just been raging in this man's soul, or the source of the calmness with which he rushed into danger.