“I am so afraid for you,” she said; “and it has been so good to see you.... I don’t know whether we’ll ever meet again——”
Her voice was obliterated in the noisy outburst of bugles sounding the noon sick-call.
They went out together, where the Messenger’s horse was tied under the trees. Beyond, through the pines, glimmered the tents of an emergency hospital. And now, in the open air not very far away, they could hear picket firing.
“Do be careful,” said the blue-eyed Nurse. “They say you do such audacious things; and every day somebody says you have been taken, or hanged, or shot. Dear, you are so young and so pretty——”
“So are you. Don’t catch fever or smallpox or die from a scratch from a poisoned knife.... Good-by once more.”
They kissed each other. A hospital orderly, passing hurriedly, stopped to hold her stirrup; she mounted, thanked the orderly, waved a smiling adieu to her old schoolmate, and, swinging her powerful horse westward, trotted off through the woods, passing the camp sentinels with a nod and a low-spoken word.
Farther out in the woods she encountered the first line of pickets; showed her credentials, then urged her horse forward at a gallop.
“Not that way!” shouted an officer, starting to run after her; “the Johnnies are out there!”
She turned in her saddle and nodded reassuringly, then spurred on again, expecting to jump the Union advance-guard every moment.
There seemed to be no firing anywhere in the vicinity; nothing to be seen but dusky pine woods; and after she had advanced almost to the edge of a little clearing, and not encountering the outer line of Union pickets, she drew bridle and sat stock still in her saddle, searching in every direction with alert eyes.