Mohun uttered these words with his old reckless satire. A sort of grim and biting humor was plain in his accents.
“A poniard—a tragedy—tell me about it, Mohun,” I said.
He hesitated a moment. “Well, I will do so,” he said, at length. “It will amuse you, my guest, while dinner is getting ready.”
“I am listening.”
“Well, to go back. You remember my fight with Colonel Darke near Buckland?”
“Certainly; and I was sure that you had killed each other.”
“You were mistaken. He is not dead, and you see I am not. He was wounded in the throat, but my sabre missed the artery, and he was taken to a house near at hand, and thence to hospital, where he recovered. My own wound was a bullet through the chest; and this gave me so much agony that I could not be carried in my ambulance farther than Warrenton, where I was left with some friends who took good care of me. Meanwhile, General Meade had again advanced and occupied the place—I was discovered, and removed as soon as possible to the Federal hospital, where they could have me under guard. Faith! they are smart people—our friends the Yankees! They are convinced that ‘every little helps,’ and they had no idea of allowing that tremendous Southern paladin, Colonel Mohun, to escape! So I was sent to hospital. The removal caused a return of fever—I was within an inch of the grave—and this brings me to the circumstance that I wish to relate for your amusement.
“For some days after my removal to the Federal hospital, I was delirious, but am now convinced that much which I then took for the wanderings of a fevered brain, was real.
“I used to lie awake a great deal, and one gloomy night I saw, or dreamed I saw, as I then supposed, that woman enter my ward, in company with the surgeon. She bent over me, glared upon me with those dark eyes, which you no doubt remember, and then drawing back said to the surgeon:—
“‘Will he live?’