“Major de Banyan, as sure as you was born!” exclaimed the servant.
“I’m glad to see you, Alick,” returned the major. “Your master is sick, and we must look out for him.”
“Yes, sar,” replied the faithful fellow, who proceeded at once to saddle the extra horse.
As yet nothing had been or could be learned of the result of the battle; and the little party moved off in search of accommodations for the sick officer. De Banyan declared that he must get away from the terrible scenes of death and mutilation in the neighborhood of the battle-field. He was physician enough to understand that the nerves of his patient were much shattered, and that he needed absolute quiet.
“I know a house, which I think must be deserted,” said Somers; “but it is eight or ten miles off.”
“So much the better, if you can manage to get there,” replied De Banyan, who was mounted on Somers’s spare horse, while Alick walked in the rear.
“I should not be very welcome there.”
“No matter for that. I will take possession of the place in the name of the United States of America. After the battle of Magenta—there was a quiet time, I suppose,” laughed the major. “Where is the place you speak of?”
“It is the Hasbrouk mansion.” And as they rode slowly along, Somers told his companion of the exciting events which had occurred there, and of those which had followed it since his arrival in Maryland.
In return De Banyan related the incidents which had happened in the —th Massachusetts, of which Somers was still an officer; of its march from the Peninsula, and its terrible baptism of blood at Groveton, where Captain Benson had fallen mortally wounded; and other red fields in which the regiments had been reduced to a mere skeleton. There were a thousand things for each to tell, and Somers almost forgot his weakness in the interest he felt in the history of his company and his regiment.