The Last Rebel

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Refreshed and strengthened, I put the emptied tray on the floor, and drew my stool to the window, where I took a seat, hoping that the lady of the castle, for so in my fancy I had named her, would appear again. But the lady did not condescend, nor did any other human being. Perhaps they did not know that I was waiting. Instead, I saw the coming of the night.

Since that night I have felt pity for every prisoner in his cell who watches the approach of darkness. There is so much friendliness, so much good cheer and encouragement about the sun that even the felon must look to him, through bars though it be, as a friend. Even I, who was conscious of no crime and had just eaten a good warm supper, the best of all tonics, felt my spirits decline with the day.

My window looked to the southwest, right into the eye of the setting sun. It was a very big sun and a very red sun, turning all the mountains into red, its blazing scarlet dyes rubbing out the more modest yellows and browns, and even touching the withered grass with flame. The red lances of light fell across the river, and the water foaming around the mound seemed to break in bubbles of fire.

Lower sank the sun. One edge of the flaming globe disappeared behind the mountains, and a line of dusk began to creep up under the rim of the red horizon. It looked like a battle between night and day, with day losing despite all the power of its ally, the sun. Broader grew the band of dusk, and narrower became the red segment of the sun. Only the crest of the mountains, long and sharp like a sword-blade, was in the light now. There every shrub, every rock, stood out magnified by the last but most brilliant light of the sinking orb. Beneath this luminous ribbon, trees, rocks, earth, all were gone. The mountain crests seemed to swim in the air.

I had seen many sunsets in the mountains, but never before in such a peculiar situation, and I own that I felt awed. The sun became but a red fragment; the red leaves and the fiery bubbles on the river were gone. I could hear the rush of the water, but I could not see the torrent. I looked up again: the sun, yielding to the night, had disappeared, leaving but a faint gleam to mark where he had retreated behind the mountains, to come up again in another place, victorious in his turn, the next morning. Save for this remembering gleam, the mountains and the valley were in complete darkness.

It was dark in my room, too, and it was only through accustoming my eyes to the coming of the night that I was able to see the outlines of the scanty furniture. My spirits were heavy. I knew nothing of the nature of the man into whose hands I had fallen, and in these secluded mountains there was nobody to help me. You can credit, if you will, much of this feeling to the darkness, which often is a wet blanket upon the feelings not alone of children, but of grown and experienced men as well.

It was then with a sensation of relief that I heard some one fumbling at the door. Any company would be better than none. The door opened, and the colonel entered, followed by the man who had brought my supper and a third whom I had not seen before. This new man was of better dress and presence than Crothers, and the colonel introduced him briefly.

"Dr. Ambrose, my military surgeon, sir, and a very good one too, I can assure you."