Never did day close more cheerlessly on the hearts of men, than that which succeeded to the occurrences detailed in our last chapter. Yea, it was a terrible blow which had been inflicted upon all. The sun of the existence of each, from the commanding officer to the youngest drummer-boy, had been dimmed; and many a weather-beaten soldier, grown grey in the natural apathy of age, now found himself unable to restrain the rising tear. Not a woman, not a child arrived at the years of consciousness, but missed and mourned over the absence of her who had been, not merely the favorite, but the beloved of the whole garrison.
The young Virginian himself was, for the moment, the only exception to this mental anguish. When taken up from the ground to which he had fallen, and borne to his room, he was in a high fever and delirious from excitement—unconscious of everything around. He did not manifest a sense of the nature and extent of his grief by exclamations of despair, or reference to the past, but lay like one stupified, his cheek highly flushed, his eyes fixed and upturned, his hands clasped across his chest, his breathing scarcely audible, and seemingly without the power of combination of thought, or the exercise of memory.
When Von Voltenberg soon afterwards followed, he at once saw that congestion of the brain was rapidly forming, and immediately prepared to bleed him. The room, which, first filled with sorrowing soldiers and their wives, not only excluded the necessary air, but impeded action, was now urgently requested to be cleared, and none remained but Mrs. Headley, Mrs. Elmsley, Mr. Ronayne's servant Catherine, and Corporal Collins, who, having been relieved from his duty as orderly, had entreated the surgeon to permit him to render what service might be required during the young officer's illness. There was no fastidious or misplaced delicacy here. Mrs. Headley had ever felt as a mother towards the Virginian, Mrs. Elmsley as a sister, and, even had this not been the case, the strong affection they bore to his wife would have led them to attend the sick couch of the husband. One supported his shoulder as he was raised in his bed, the other took his extended hand, while Corporal Collins, looking much paler and more frightened than either of them, held the basin. If Von Voltenberg was not particularly given to fasting, or loved the punch made of the horrid whiskey distilled in those days in the west, he was, nevertheless, a skilful surgeon. With a steady hand he now divided the vein, when forth gushed a stream of blood so dark and discolored that the significant and triumphant shake of the head which he gave clearly indicated what would have been the result had the bleeding been delayed much longer.
Greatly relieved by the removal of the oppressive weight, the unhappy ensign opened his eyes, and became sensible of objects, but it was only that consciousness might render him even more keenly alive to the horror of his position. Each article of furniture and dress around the room brought increased desolation to his heart. There was the harp Maria was wont to touch with such exquisite grace. There was the dress she had thrown off to assume her riding habit—for it will be recollected that the officers of that post had no gilded suites of apartments at their command, but barely a couple of barrack rooms for the married men, and one for the single. Now a shoe caught his eye, now a glove, a hat, a slipper, her dressing-case; even the tiny thimble with which she had worked the linen upon his back; each and all of these, endearing yet painful to the sight from the recollections they brought up, he glanced at alternately, until his feelings were so wrought upon that he was almost frantic.
“Take those things away!” he cried, starting up and pointing to them; “I cannot endure the sight. They will kill me—ay, worse than kill—tear my heart-strings with slow agony. Ah! dear Mrs. Headley—Mrs. Elmsley—both of you, who loved Maria so well—can you not understand the pangs I suffer! Yesterday I could have defied the world in the vain pride of my happiness and strength; to-day I feel that I am more wretched than the slave that tugs at his chain—more feeble than a child. Would to heaven that I could die within this hour! Oh, God! oh, God! oh, God! how shall I endure this!”
He turned on his side, buried his face in the pillow, and sobbed and wept, until every one around had caught the deep infection of his profound suffering. The lips of Corporal Collins, as he stood stiff in his military attitude, were closely compressed, and his brow was contracted. A sympathy, traceable on each quivering muscle, was evidently struggling for mastery, and he turned abruptly round. Had others taken time from their own sorrow to watch his next movement, they might have seen him raise his hand to his lips, and drain deeply from a flask he had taken from the bosom of his uniform. Mrs. Elmsley, with her face buried in her hands, leaned against one of the foot-posts of the bed; and Mrs. Headley—the majestic Mrs. Headley, with more complex feelings at her heart than actuated the others—knelt at the head of the bed, laid her hand upon the shoulder of the patient, and conjured him, in tones that marked her own deep sorrow, to bear the trial like a man, and not destroy himself by unavailing grief. Yet, even as she spoke, the tears fell copiously upon the bed.
“Mrs. Headley,” said Von Voltenberg, who afterwards admitted that, in the whole course of his practice, he had never been similarly touched, “do not check him. Let him give full vent to this emotion, for painful as it now is, both to himself and to us who witness it, this outburst once exhausted, the crisis once past, there will be less fear of a return. See, already the paroxysm is weaker—he is more calm—both mind and body are worn out, and if he can but sleep for a few hours, although he may perhaps awaken to more acute sorrow, no danger to his life need be apprehended.”
Notwithstanding this remark was made in little more than a whisper, it was distinctly heard by the sufferer. Suddenly starting up again in his bed, he turned quickly round to the surgeon, and said, in a tone of reproach—
“And is this all the consolation you have to offer me? What! tell me that I shall awaken to keener pain than that which now racks my being, and drag on a miserable life! Of what value that life to me? But stay, my mind is not yet itself, or how is it that I have not yet questioned you about my wife! Dear Von Voltenberg!” and he threw the hand of the recently-punctured arm upon the shoulder of the surgeon, “what news have you of Maria? Tell me of her safety say that you have rescued her and that I shall see her again, and I will for ever bless the voice that saves me from despair. Oh, Von Voltenberg! speak, speak! surely you could never have had the baseness to desert her. How were you taken? how have you escaped? and why alone?”
“Poor Ronayne! would to God that I could give you consolation; but, alas! I cannot. She fell into the hands of the Indians before I did, and I saw her borne rapidly to the rear of the farm-house; me they took to the road where you saw me. From that moment I never once beheld her; but reassure yourself, all may yet be well. True, she is a prisoner, but I apprehend no violence, for the Indians offered none to myself, and I thought that they showed unaccountable moderation to you, never firing a shot when you had so completely baffled them in the chase. It was that which gave me confidence to attempt my own escape, when I saw them all pressing forward to secure you, leaving me altogether unguarded. But we will speak of this no more to-night. You must sleep, Ronayne, if you would have strength to enter upon action to-morrow. From the appearance of their encampment, not twenty paces in rear of the spot where you beheld me, I have reason to think that it has been established there many days, and that Mrs. Ronayne may yet be rescued, for the party of Indians does not exceed five-and-twenty men. What they want is, doubtless, ransom, a few blankets or guns.”