I pressed my dry lips together and said nothing. In an hour three more officers came, and one by one bidding us farewell went out again. Their gloomy manner depressed us still further.
"Curse it!" exclaimed Marcel. "I wish they wouldn't come here with their solemn faces, and their parting sermons! They make me afraid of death!"
He expressed my state of mind exactly, but there were more farewells. It was about midnight when the last of them came, a major who had been a minister once, and was never known to laugh. He talked to us so dolefully about the future, and the duty of all men to be prepared for the worst, that my nerves were jumping, and I could scarce restrain myself from insulting him. We were glad to see him go, and if ever I was thoroughly unprepared for death it was when the major left us.
The long night dragged wearily on, every minute an hour. Once I laughed aloud in my bitterness, when I thought of Mary Desmond hearing the news of my death.
We slept by snatches, a few minutes at a time; but we were wide-eyed when the day came. I saw black lines under Marcel's eyes, and I knew that my own face was haggard too. The sentinel brought us breakfast; but did not retire as we ate, and when I looked at him inquiringly, he said,—
"Your escort is waiting outside."
The food choked me, and I could eat no more. "Come," I said to Marcel, "let's get it over."
We arose, and, walking out at the door, met soldiers who fell in before and behind us. The camp, or at least nearly all of it, was yet slumbering. Only a few fires were burning. Over the forests and fields the new-risen sun shone with a clear light.
They marched us to a little grove, and there General Washington and a half-dozen officers, our colonel among them, met us.
"I think that he might have stayed away," said Marcel, when he saw the commander-in-chief.