“I am—done for,” exclaimed Darke, a bloody foam rushing to his lips, “but—I have told him—that I was the murderer—that you were innocent. Give me your hand, father!”
General Davenant leaped to the ground, and with a piteous groan received the dying man in his arms.
“I am a wretch—I know that—but I was a Davenant once”—came in low murmurs. “Tell Will, he can marry now, for I will be dead—kiss me once, Charley!”
The weeping boy threw himself upon his knees, and pressed his lips to those of his brother.
As he did so, the wounded man fell back in his father’s arms, and expired.
XXI. — FIVE FORKS.
On the day after these events, Lee’s extreme right at Five Forks, was furiously attacked, and in spite of heroic resistance, the little force under Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee was completely routed and dispersed.
Do you regard that term “heroic,” as merely rhetorical, reader?