"You believe that you can reach the Union camp in safety?"
"I have no doubt of it," answered the Zouave.
"Then swear to me, with the same uplifted hand you used awhile ago, that you will remove my granddaughter, Marion Hobart, to the North—out of this den of secession. She has money in a Bank in New York, enough to make her comfortable—I put it there three years ago, thinking such a time as this might come. Swear to me that you will find her a home with some honest family, and that you will neither do harm to her yourself nor permit it to approach her if you can shelter her from it. Swear it by the Ever-Living God."
"I swear!" said the young soldier, lifting his hand solemnly.
The old man lay still on his pillow, a strange and awful shadow stealing over his face. His granddaughter had raised her head, and she saw it, though the torch had burned low and there was little but the red light of the fire glimmering into the building. She buried her face once more in the pallet, threw her arms around the old man's form, and sobbed,
"Grandfather! oh, grandfather!"
"Hark! did I not hear cannon again? Are you sure the Union troops have won the victory?" came from the closing lips. "You are a soldier and a gentleman. You said your name was Craw—Crawford. A good old name. Never mind me—take care of Marion. Marion—Ma—." He was silent, and silent forever, except as the dumb lips may be hereafter opened!
Marion Hobart saw the lower jaw fall and the open eyes put on that ghastly appearance which is the seal of the triumph of death: and she knew, without a word from either of her companions, that he was dead. The soldiers saw that she comprehended all that had occurred, and expected that she would shriek again and throw herself wildly on the body. She did not—she merely clasped her hands and looked on the body with such a pitiful gaze of fixed sorrow that Crawford could not bear it and turned away his eyes, while Webster found sudden and unexplained necessity for blowing his long nose.
Suddenly, and before a word had been spoken by either of the soldiers, a new thought came to the young girl and a terrible look of fear and sorrow swept over her face.
"It is night and we cannot bury him!" she said, her voice broken and agonized. "How can I leave him unburied? Gentlemen—gentlemen—how can I leave my poor grandfather unburied?"