"Right there!" retorted Drake. "The Confederacy pays its servants in death and ruin, which, as you say, are the just wages of a traitor. As for me, I want no more of Georgia soil than will make me a grave. That is as much as a man can own here now and be honest."
It was then, from some occult connection of ideas too subtile for searching out, that he imagined, first, a history of the Stockade Prison. He secured a number of long, thin boards, and planed them smooth, for foolscap, pointed bits of wood for pens, manufactured his ink from the rust of some old nails, and made himself a knife by grinding two pieces of iron hoop one upon the other, and, his work on the cook-house at an end, set bravely about his history, when Fate nipped it, as she has done many a more promising one before it; for even when on the final flourish of his title, he heard a sound between a groan and a sigh, and, turning, saw Corny Keegan, a strapping Irishman, and sergeant in his regiment, lying near him. Drake put the tail on his n, and then some uneasy consciousness would have him look again over the edge of his board at the sergeant; for, though there were scores of men lying within view on the ground, there was something in the "give" and laxity of Corny's posture that augured ill for him in Drake's experienced eyes, and, laying the history aside, he went over and kneeled down beside him. The man's eyes were closed, and a dull, yellowish pallor had taken the place of the usual brick tint of his face. Drake essayed to lift his heavy head and shoulders; but Corny settled back again with a groan.
"Och! wurra! Musther Talcott, lave me alone. It's dead I am, kilt intirely, wid the wakeness. Divil's the bit of wood I've had these two days, and not a cint or a frind to the fore, and I'm jist afther mixin' the male here with wather, thinkin' to ate it that way, but it stuck in me throat, and I'm all on a thrimble, and it's a gone man is Corny Keegan; though it's not fur meself that I'd make moan, sence it's aisier dyin' than livin', only the ould mother and Mary that'll fret and——Holy Mother! there comes the sickness, bad scran to it!"
You see now how it happened unto the History of the Stockade Prison to vanish in smoke; for Drake, having neither wood nor the money to buy it, made a fire with his precious boards, and baked Corny's raw meal in a cake, which the poor fellow devoured with a half-starved avidity that made Drake ashamed of the reluctance with which he had offered up his sacrifice. A little corner of his cake Corny left untouched, saying,—
"That's fur the poor crathur over beyant."
"What poor creature?" asked Drake; but Corny's eyes were fixed on the pens and ink, and the sorry remains of his foolscap,—a half-strip of board.
"Och! murther! Musther Talcott, and wuz it thim bits of board ye's writin' on? and ye's burned thim fur me, afther all the throuble ye took wid thim? and to think of the thick head of me, to ate up all that illigant histhry, when I'd heerd the boys talkin' on it, by the same token, and bad scran to me! The Lord be good to ye fur your kindness, Musther Talcott, and make your bed as soft as your heart is, and give ye a line in the Book of Life fur the one I've ate, and"——
"But the poor creature, Corny."
"Thrue for you; and I'm a baste fur forgettin' him, and him starvin' the while. It's jist Cap'n Ireland, if ye chance to mind him. He was the illigant officer and the kind-hearted man; and to see him now! If ye'll come away, Musther Talcott, I'm quite done wid the wakeness, and it's jist over here beyant that he's lyin', poor jontleman, that'll not be long lyin' anywhere out of his grave."
Corny pointed, as he spoke, to a man, or, rather, a bundle of rags having some faint outlines of humanity, on the ground before them,—limbs out helplessly, face set and ghastly, hardly a stir among his tatters to assure them that he yet breathed; and Drake recognized with a thrill of horror, though more wan, more woful, more shadow-like, if possible, the man who had so moved his compassion on the night of his arrival. Keegan knelt beside him, and put his corner of cake to the sufferer's mouth, saying, "Ate a bit, Cap'n dear; thry now"; and then, seeing that the food rested on white and quiet lips,—"Cap'n, don't ye hear me? It's Corny, that spoke wid ye a while back. Saints be merciful to us, he's gone!"