"Let it be open," said Blecker, trying nervously to rise on one arm. "It is ten o'clock. I must hear the train come in."
The man turned away, stopping by the bed of the prisoner to gossip awhile before going down to camp. He thought, as they talked in a desultory way, as men do, thrown together in the army, of who and what they had been, that the Yankee doctor listened attentively, starting forward, and throwing off the bed-clothes.
"But he was an uneasy chap always, always," thought Sam, "as my old woman would say,—in a kippage about somethin' or other. But darned ef this a'n't somethin' more 'n usual,"—catching a glimpse of Blecker's face turned toward the prisoner, a curious tigerish look in his half-closed eyes.
The whistle of the train was heard that moment far-off in the gorge. Blecker did not heed it, beckoning silently to the orderly.
"Go for the Colonel, for Sheppard," in a breathless way; "bring some men, stout fellows that can lift. Quick, Sam, for God's sake!"
The man obeyed, glancing at the prisoner, who lay with his eyes closed as though asleep.
"Blecker glowers at him as though he were the Devil,"—stopping outside to light a cigar at the oil-lamp. "That little doctor has murder writ in his face plain as print this minute."
Sam may not have been wrong. Paul Blecker was virulent in hates, loves, or opinions: in this sudden madness of a moment that possessed him, if his feet would have dragged him to that bed yonder, and his wrists been strong enough, he would have wrung the soul out of the man's body, and flung him from his way. Looking at the limbs stretched out under the sheet, the face, an obscene face, even with the eyes closed, as at a deadly something that had suddenly reared itself between him and his chance of heaven. The man was Grey Gurney's husband. She was coming: in a moment, it might be, would be here. She thought that man dead. She always should think him dead. He held back his breath in his clinched teeth: that was all the sign of passion; his brain was never cooler, more alert.
Sheppard, the colonel of the regiment, a thick-set, burly little fellow, with stubbly black whiskers and honest eyes, came stumping down the room.
"What is it, hey? Life and death, Blecker?"