“'Wat dat you got on yo' haid, Big Abel?' he sez.”
“Big Abel's a hero, there's no mistake,” put in Dan, delighted. “Do you know he lifted me as if I were a baby and toted me out of that God-forsaken corn field in the hottest fire I ever felt—and I tipped the scales at a hundred and fifty pounds before I went to Romney.”
“Go way, Marse Dan, you ain' nuttin' but a rail,” protested Big Abel, and continued his story. “Atter I done tote him outer de cawn fiel' en thoo de bresh, den I begin ter peer roun' fer one er dese yer ambushes, but dere warn' nairy one un um dat warn' a-bulgin' a'ready. I d'clar dey des bulged twel dey sides 'mos' split. I seed a hack drive long by wid two gemmen a-settin' up in hit, en one un em des es well es I is,—but w'en I helt Marse Dan up right high, he shake his haid en pint ter de udder like he kinder skeered. 'Dis yer's my young brudder,' he sez, speakin' sof'; 'en dis yer's my young Marster,' I holler back, but he shake his haid agin en drive right on. Lawd, Lawd, my time's 'mos' up, I 'low den—yes, suh, I do—but w'en I tu'n roun' squintin' my eyes caze de sun so hot—de sun he wuz kinder shinin' thoo his back like he do w'en he hu't yo' eyes en you cyan' see 'im—dar came a dump cyart a-joltin' up de road wid a speckled mule hitch ter it. A lot er yuther w'ite folks made a bee line fer dat ar dump cyart, but dey warn' 'fo' me, caze w'en dey git dar, dar I wuz a-settin' wid Marse Dan laid out across my knees. Well, dey lemme go—dey bleeged ter caze I 'uz gwine anyway—en de speckled mule she des laid back 'er years en let fly fer Richmon'. Yes, suh, I ain' never seed sech a mule es dat. She 'uz des es full er sperit es a colt, en her name wuz Sally.”
“The worst of it was after getting here,” finished Dan, who had lain regarding Big Abel with a proud paternal eye, “they kept us trundling round in that cart for three mortal hours, because they couldn't find a hole to put us into. An uncovered wagon was just in front of us, filled with poor fellows who had been half the day in the sweltering heat, and we made the procession up and down the city, until at last some women rushed up with their servants and cleared out this warehouse. One was not over sixteen and as pretty as a picture. 'Don't talk to me about the proper authorities,' she said, stamping her foot, 'I'll hang the proper authorities when they turn up—and in the meantime we'll go to work!' By Jove, she was a trump, that girl! If she didn't save my life, she did still better and saved my leg.”
“Well, I'll try to get you moved by to-morrow,” said Jack reassuringly. “Every home in the city is filled with the wounded, they tell me, but I know a little woman who had two funerals from her house to-day, so she may be able to find room for you. This heat is something awful, isn't it?”
“Damnable. I hope, by the way, that Virginia is out of it by now.”
Jack flinched as if the words struck him between the eyes. For a moment he stood staring at the straw pallets along the wall; then he spoke in a queer voice.
“Yes, Virginia's out of it by now; Virginia's dead, you know.”
“Dead!” cried Dan, and raised himself upon his cushion. The room went black before him, and he steadied himself by clutching at Big Abel's arm. At the instant the horrors of the battle-field, where he had seen men fall like grass before the scythe, became as nothing to the death of this one young girl. He thought of her living beauty, of the bright glow of her flesh, and it seemed to him that the earth could not hide a thing so fair.
“I left her in Richmond in the spring,” explained Jack, gripping himself hard. “I was off with Stuart, you know, and I thought her mother would get to her, but she couldn't pass the lines and then the fight came—the one at Seven Pines and—well, she died and the child with her.”