“I forgot to tell you one thing. The surgeon almost persuaded me that I had been the victim of nightmare. Unfortunately, however, for the theory of the worthy, I found a deep hole in my pillow, where the poniard had entered.
“So you see it was madam, and not her ghost, who had done me the honor of a visit, Surry.”
XXIII. — THE GRAVE OF ACHMED.
An hour afterward I had dined with Mohun at his head-quarters, in the woods; mounted our horses; and were making our way toward the Rapidan to inspect the pickets.
This consumed two hours. We found nothing stirring. As sunset approached, we retraced our steps toward Chancellorsville. I had accepted Mohun’s invitation to spend the night with him.
As I rode on, the country seemed strangely familiar. All at once I recognized here a tree, there a stump—we were passing over the road which I had followed first in April, 1861, and again in August, 1862, when I came so unexpectedly upon Fenwick, and heard his singular revelation.
We had been speaking of Mordaunt, to whose brigade Mohun’s regiment belonged, and the young officer had grown enthusiastic, extolling Mordaunt as ‘one of the greatest soldiers of the army, under whom it was an honor to serve.’
“Well,” I said, “there is a spot near here which he knows well, and where a strange scene passed on a night of May, 1863.”