"First blood of the war!" said Hilary.
"Yez! But"--the flashing warrior tapped his sword--"nod the last!" and was off at a gallop, while Kincaid turned hurriedly to find that Charlie, struck by the floundering horse, had twice fainted away.
In the balconies the press grew dangerous. An urchin intercepted Kincaid to show him the Callenders, who, with distressed eyes, pointed him to their carriage hurrying across Canal Street.
"For Charlie and Flora!" called Anna. They could not stir "themselves" for the crush; but yonder, on Moody's side, the same kind citizen noticed before had taken matters in hand:
"Keep back, ladies! Make room! Let these two ladies out!" He squeezed through the pack, holding aloft the furled colors, which all this time had been lying at Flora's feet. Her anxious eyes were on them at every second step as she pressed after him with the grandmother dangling from her elbow.
The open carriage spun round the battery's right and up its front to where a knot of comrades hid the prostrate Charlie; the surgeon, Kincaid, and Flora crouching at his side, the citizen from the balcony still protecting grandmamma, and the gilded eagle of the unpresented standard hovering over all. With tender ease Hilary lifted the sufferer and laid him on the carriage's front seat, the surgeon passed Madame in and sat next to her, but to Kincaid Flora exclaimed with a glow of heroic distress:
"Let me go later--with Anna!" Her eyes overflowed--she bit her lip--"I must present the flag!"
A note of applause started, a protest hushed it, and the overbending Callenders and the distracted Victorine heard Hilary admiringly say:
"Come! Go! You belong with your brother!"
He pressed her in. For an instant she stood while the carriage turned, a hand outstretched toward the standard, saying to Hilary something that was drowned by huzzas; then despairingly she sank into her seat and was gone down Royal Street.