“But why sin?” said Stonewall Jackson.
“I will tell you why,” said Ned. “I have only one person in the world to care for: I have no family, no relatives, only this one friend. He was all the world to me, and I was something to him. When the war broke out, I enlisted, and he went with me. We have been side by side through everything. He saved my life in battle at the risk of his own; and a few weeks ago, when I was taken sick by fever, and he had a leave of absence, he gave up his home, he sacrificed everything, to watch by me. Last night he was taken sick while with the party at the bridge, when in another day he would have been with his mother at Washington. You paroled me. I was left there with him, and he raved and groaned until I could bear it no longer. Every word he said seemed to stab me to the heart. Then I saw the river and the boat; the men were scattered, and the means of escape were at hand. I hesitated. I thought of my parole; and then I thought of him a prisoner, an invalid, a corpse perhaps, if he waited here, while back of us his mother was hastening to meet her only son. He had given up so much for me, and what had I done for him? It seemed as if I must get him away; and then he cried out again, ‘Ned, Ned, won’t you help me?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ And I knew that yes was death to me. Oh! you see I am prepared. I have not tried to arouse your sympathy or your compassion, I have only told you the bare facts. Do you think, if I hoped for life, if I cared for pardon from you, that I could not say more, that I could not pour out words of fire and blood to show you what our friendship is, and what last night’s temptation was? I ask no mercy; and you could give me none if you wished it: my act must bring its consequences. Only I wished you to see that I was neither liar nor coward; that, having forfeited my life, I did not evade the payment of my debt; in a word, that I was enough of a gentleman to be worthy of the great privilege of serving in my country’s cause.”
“Sir,” said Jackson, “you are not only a gentleman, but a soldier. I love war for itself, I glory in it; but it saddens me when it brings with it the useless sacrifice of such a life as yours.”
“I am not a soldier,” said Ned, quietly. “I hate war; I hate to have to long for the death of such a man as you are. But I am ready for all that, when there is a cause at stake.”
“A cause at stake!” said Stonewall Jackson. “Well, God be with the right!”
“God is with the right,” said Ned; “and time will show us which is the right. Ah! if I could live to see that time!”
“Be thankful rather,” said Jackson, “that you are going to die before you find you are in the wrong. I wish you had been with me in this campaign.”
“If it had been possible,” said Ned, and then he stopped.
“I should like,” said Stonewall Jackson, slowly, “though doubtless you consider me a rebel and a traitor, to have you shake hands with me.”
“Not with a rebel or a traitor,” said Ned, “but with a sincere and honest man whom I respect and honor;” and with this grasp of hands, these two great souls gazed in each other’s eyes.