I knew when I saw him there, as well as I knew by detail long after, that he had offered his life for Stuart Lane's, and that it had been accepted; the Virginian, ignorant of the sacrifice made for him, had been sent to the Southern lines during the night, told by the Northerners that he was pardoned on his parole to return in his stead a distinguished Federal officer lately captured by him. He knew nothing, dreamt nothing, of the exchange by which his life was given back to the woman who loved him, when his English Leader died in his place as the sun rose over the fresh summer world, never again to rise for those whose death-shot rang sullen and shrill through its silence.
So Deadly Dash died, and his grave is nameless and unknown there under the shadow of the great Virginian forests. He was outlawed, condemned, exiled, and the world would see no good in him; sins were on him heavily, and vices lay darkly at his door; but when I think of that grave in the South where the grass grows so rankly now, and only the wild deer pauses, I doubt if there was not that in him which may well shame the best amongst us. We never knew him justly till he perished there.
And my friend who told me this said no more, but took up his brûle-gueule regretfully. The story is given as he gave it, and the States could whisper from the depths of their silent woods many tales of sacrifice as generous, of fortitude as great. That when he had related it he was something ashamed of having felt it so much, is true; and you must refer the unusual weakness, as he did, to the fact that he told it on the off-day of the Derby, after having put a cracker on Wild Charley. A sufficient apology for any number of frailties!
