Just then the corporal was relieved from guard duty, and, asking permission, went at once to Eddie's assistance. He started down the hill, through the thick underbrush, and upon reaching the bottom of the ravine, he followed the sound of the drum, and soon found the lad seated upon the ground, his back leaning against a fallen tree, while his drum hung upon a bush in front of him.
As soon as the boy saw his rescuer he dropped his drumsticks, and exclaimed:—
“O Corporal! I am so glad to see you! Give me a drink.”
The soldier took his empty canteen, and immediately turned to bring some water from the brook that he could hear rippling through the bushes near by, when, Eddie, thinking that he was about to leave him, cried out:—
“Don't leave me, Corporal, I can't walk.”
The corporal was soon back with the water, when he discovered that both the lad's feet had been shot away by a cannon-ball.
After satisfying his thirst, Eddie looked up into the corporal's face and said:—
“You don't think I shall die, do you? This man said I should not,—he said the surgeon could cure my feet.”
The corporal now looked about him and discovered a man lying in the grass near by. By his dress he knew him to belong to the Confederate army. It appeared that he had been shot and had fallen near Eddie. Knowing that he could not live, and seeing the condition of the drummer-boy, he had crawled to him, taken off his buckskin suspenders, and had corded the little fellow's legs below the knees, and then he had laid himself down and died.
While Eddie was telling the corporal these particulars, they heard the tramp of cavalry coming down the ravine, and in a moment a scout of the enemy was upon them, and took them both prisoners.