“Yes, sir, the New York boat. She’s just in.”
“Yes—yes; I heard the whistle. Well?”
“That having come by the boat, he thought—he thought—”
“Confound it! my good fellow; don’t stay to tell me his thoughts secondhand. Where is he? Show him up here, and let him speak them for himself.”
“From New York?” continued Maynard, after the porter had disappeared. “Who of the Knickerbockers can it be? And what business of such importance as to startle a fellow from his sleep at half-past four in the morning—supposing me to have been asleep—which luckily I’m not Is the Empire city ablaze, and Fernando Wood, like a second Nero, fiddling in ruthless glee over its ruins? Ha! Roseveldt?”
“Maynard!”
The tone of the exchanged salutation told of a meeting unexpected, and after a period of separation. It was followed by a mutual embrace. Theirs was a friendship too fervent to be satisfied with the shaking of hands. Fellow campaigners—as friends—they had stood side by side under the hissing hailstorm of battle. Side by side had they charged up the difficult steep of Chapultepec, in the face of howitzers belching forth their deadly shower of shot—side by side fallen on the crest of the counterscarp, their blood streaming unitedly into the ditch.
They had not seen each other since. No wonder they should meet with emotions corresponding to the scenes through which they had passed.
Some minutes passed before either could find coherent speech. They only exchanged ejaculations. Maynard was the first to become calm.
“God bless you, my dear Count?” he said; “my grand instructor in the science of war. How glad I am to see you!”