"Captain Bezan," said the lieutenant, "I need not explain in detail to you the very unpleasant business upon which I have been at this time sent, nor add," continued the officer, in a lower tone of voice, "how much I regret the fate that awaits you."
"Nay, Ferdinand," answered Captain Bezan, calmly, "say nothing of the matter, but give me your hand, my friend, and do your duty."
"Would to God I could in any way avoid it, Lorenzo," said his brother officer, who had long been associated with him, and who had loved him well.
"Regrets are useless, Ferdinand. You know we all have our allotted time, and mine has come. You shall see that I will die like a soldier."
"Ay, Lorenzo; but in such a way; so heartlessly, so needlessly, so in cold blood; alas! why were you so imprudent? I am no woman, comrade. You have fought in the same field, and slept in the same tent with me oftentimes, and you know that I have laid the sod upon my companion's breast without a murmur, without a complaint; but this business is too much for me!"
"Fie, fie, man," said the prisoner, with assumed indifference; "look upon it as a simple duty; you but fulfil an order, and there's the end of it."
"I can't, for the life of me, I can't!"
"Why, my good fellow, come to think of it, you should not complain, of all others, since it gives you promotion and the command of our brave boys."
A look of deep reproach was the only answer he received to this remark.
"Forgive me, Ferdinand, forgive me, I did but jest," he continued, quickly, as he again grasped the hand of his comrade between his own.