“Ah! if you fall, poor Haidee will be bowed into the dust. I have been so happy since you have been here. To be near you, to see your face, compensates me for the many years of bitterness I have known.” Then, after a pause, “But come; these repinings are foolish. We are not going out to meet our troubles; let them come to us. It is a soldier’s duty to fight for his country when called upon, and he should not be unmanned by a woman’s useless wailing. Your heart is bold, and your arm is strong. Glory and victory will be yours.”
“God bless you, Haidee! You give me the inspiration of courage and hope. You are a noble woman, and your devotion is worthy of the highest honours that could be bestowed upon you. You liberated me from the city we are now going to attack; and when I was wounded and senseless outside Cawnpore, your arms, strengthened by love, bore me to a place of safety. Twice, then, have you saved my life; and, if it is preserved through the conflict that is now about to commence, I will henceforth devote it to you. But in the event of my falling, I have taken steps that will ensure your heroic deeds being known to my country, and you will meet with a well-merited reward.”
“Talk not of reward from your country. The only reward I ask for is yourself—if one so humble as I dare ask for so much; and if I get not that, I am content to sink into oblivion, and wait for the end.”
“You are not humble, Haidee. You are noble, generous, true, and devoted; and if I am spared, I shall feel proud of the honour of being able to call you wife.”
“Wife,” she murmured, “wife to you; ah! what happiness!”
Shrilly on the morning air rose the bugle call. Its warning notes told the lovers that they must speak their last words of farewell.
“That is the signal for me to go,” Harper said, as he drew the beautiful form of Haidee to his breast. “On your lips I seal my respect, my thanks, my love. In the struggle my arm will be strengthened as I think of you; my eye will be quickened as it remembers your beautiful face, and let us hope that our love will be a charm to shield me from the enemy’s bullets.”
“Take this,” she answered, as she handed him a little packet, which, on opening, he found contained a card, upon which was worked, in her own hair, a beautiful device; it was a true lover’s knot, surrounded with a laurel wreath, and underneath were the words, “Duty, Honour, Love.” “Let that be your charm, my well beloved, for in those three words there is magic to a good soldier.”
A warm embrace, a passionate kiss, a faltering adieu, and the lovers parted. In a few minutes Harper had placed himself at the head of his company, amongst whom was his friend Walter Gordon, who had volunteered for the day.
The watch-fires were burning low. It was the dark hour before the dawn, and the sky was inky black. Softly the bugles sounded. How many a soul did they call to death! But no one thought of that. There was the hurrying tread of thousands of feet. There was the rumbling of guns as they were moved down into position to cover the advance of the troops. There were the clanking of arms and the fervently uttered “God speeds!” by those who, through sickness or other cause, were unable to leave.