It was all over in a minute. The axe was seized and wrenched violently away. Toby lay senseless on the rocks without. Lysander was leaning dizzily, clutching at the ledge, a ghastly whiteness settling about the gay mustache, and a strange glassiness dimming his eyes. The soldiers had possession. Virginia was a prisoner, and her father; but not Salina. There was the body which had been hers, transfixed by the bayonet, and fallen upon the ground: that was palpable: but who shall capture the escaping soul?
When Penn and his companions arrived, not a living person was there; but alone, stretched upon the cold stone floor, where the gray light from the entrance fell,—pulseless, pallid, with pale hands crossed peacefully on her breast, hiding the wound, and features faintly smiling in their stony calm,—lay the corpse of her that was Salina. The fair cup that had brimmed with the bitterness of life was shattered. The soul that drank thereat had fled away in haughtiness and scorn.
Toby, groaning on the stones outside, felt somebody shaking him, and heard the voice of Carl asking how he was.
"Dunno'; sort o' common," said the old negro, trying to rise.
He knew nothing of what had happened, except that he had been fallen upon and beaten down: for the rest, it was useless to question him: not even Penn's agonies of doubt and fear could rouse his recollection.
Lieutenant-colonel Bythewood had committed the error of an officer green in his profession. The cave surprised, and the prisoners taken, the men retired in all haste, simply because they had received no orders to the contrary. Thus no advantage whatever was taken of the very important position which had been gained.
Leaving the dead behind, and carrying off the wounded and the prisoners, the sergeant, upon whom the command devolved after his captain was disabled, lost no time in reporting to the lieutenant-colonel.
Augustus stood up to receive the report and the prisoners,—extremely pale, but appearing preternaturally courteous and composed. He bowed very low to the old clergyman (who, he forgot, could not witness and appreciate that graceful act of homage), and expressed infinite regret that "his duty had rendered it necessary," and so forth. Then turning to Virginia, whose look was scarcely less stony than that of her dead sister in the cave, he bowed low to her also, but without speaking, and without raising his eyes to her face.
"Have this old gentleman carried to his own house, and see that every attention is paid to him."