The occurrence startled him from his lethargy. He suddenly realized that his son's few remaining hours on earth were slipping by, and the boy had not been comforted. When this came to him, his self-reproach cut him sharply, and he resolved to make amends at once. He obtained permission from the officer of the day, and that evening, after retreat, went to see Buff.
He found the general plucked of his plumage. The prospect of death so close to him had narrowed the black boy's perspective. "The worldly hope men set their hearts upon" had turned ashes, and it were hard to find "a man who looked so wistfully on the day" as this doomed soldier. He wanted to live. Every atom of animal strength in his perfect body was charged with a desire to exist. This living, day after day, in close proximity to the grave had tended to a simplification of ideas. He had harked back to childhood, and when his father came, the prisoner, in his clanking irons, turned to him as a pickaninny might have done for protection from some bugaboo.
Old Jeremiah sat on the cot, while Buff occupied a small stool directly in front of him. They talked in low tones, of ordinary subjects, at first; then gradually went back through the years. The white-haired old negro and the young soldier both smiled as they recalled childish escapades of the latter, 'way back in "God's country." They lost themselves in reminiscence, and forgot the present, until the wan moon, coming up, cast the shadows of the bars in the window across them. Then with a shiver they remembered.
Suddenly the private began to talk of his death, and as he spoke the terror of it grew on him. This man, known to have killed more than one American soldier and to be absolutely fearless in battle, quaked with abject fright. He would contend gladly in a contest against hopeless odds; but at the thought of his end creeping on him thus, slowly, inexorably his soul writhed in terror. He leaned forward and pressed his face on his father's knees.
"Oh, paw, ain't yer gwine ter help me? Won't you do somethin' fer me? Ah doan' wanter die yit. Tain't my time ter die. Ah nevah meant no hahm, paw. Ef they'll just give me one moah chanst, ah'll do anything they say. Honest, ah will. Gawd! paw, yer ain't gwine ter let 'em kill me, is yer?"
The soldier raised his head and looked into the sergeant's black face as though the latter were omnipotent, and only had to say the word to make him free. Then, with a shivering sigh, he laid his head on his father's knees again.
"Sh—sh," the old sergeant said softly, "Sh—sh"; and that was all he could do; but his wrinkled hand wandered tenderly over the prisoner's black, kinky hair, and tears rolled down his seamed face.
When Buff's panic wore off a bit, he was made to lie down, and Jeremiah, sitting beside him, crooned softly, as the old black mammies do to the little children. By the time call to quarters sounded, the condemned man's quiet breathing told that his earthly troubles were forgotten, for a time at least.
After this visit, Sergeant Wilson's apparent neglect of his duties became more pronounced than ever. The simplest orders and directions received from his troop's commander, he either forgot to perform or executed in such a bunglesome manner as to drive Lieutenant Perkins' irritable nature to the verge of hysteria. The latter, with his narrow sympathies, could make no allowance for the old negro's state of mind, and his "roasts" became more frequent and rougher with each repetition. The sergeant took it all with apparent resignation; but within him the troubled spirit was surging to and fro. How could he be expected to copy troop returns and muster rolls, with that cry—"Gawd, paw, yer ain't gwine ter let 'em kill me, is yer?" ringing in his ears, hour by hour? It was the unfairness of it that aroused his resentment.
If the "ole Cap'n" were only here, all would be well. It was another cruel stroke that he should be absent on detached service just when Jeremiah needed him most.