“My brave defender!” cried she, in a fervor of patriotic exaltation, lifting her eyes to his; and then she sprang back with a shiver, and stood breathless before him, her head bowed upon her breast, her face ashy pale.
A scene within a scene.
Without, the roar of cannon, the incessant rattle of musketry, the bursting of shells, the panic-stricken rush of riderless horses, the tramp of hurrying men, the Rebel Yell sweeping by like a tornado, shouts of victory, moans of the dying.
Within, four people for a moment oblivious of all this mad hurly-burly that billowed around them.
The convalescent soldier, rising upon his elbow, looked with silent amazement upon the crouching figure of his fair cousin; while the dying Union soldier forgot, for a moment, his gaping wound as he gazed upon the man who had inflicted it. Tall, broad-shouldered, gaunt of flank, supple, straight as an Indian, he held in his right hand the gory sword, from which the prostrate officer saw his own life-blood trickling, drop by drop, upon the floor. In his left he held his cap uplifted.
Attila and Monsieur Deux-pas in one!
With cap uplifted; but head thrown back and eyes averted. His right shoulder and breast were soaked with blood, which was streaming down his brown beard upon his coat, from a bullet-hole in his bronzed cheek. But it was his eyes which riveted the attention of his fallen enemy. He had been appalled by their fierce glare, when, angered by the pistol-shot, he had sprung upon him in the hall. But that look had been soft compared with the cold, steady, pitiless gleam they poured forth now. That man, thought he, would not give a cup of water to a dying enemy.
Captain Smith made two steps towards the door, and turning, bowed.
Feeling that he was going (for she had not dared to raise her eyes), Mary Rolfe quivered for a moment from head to foot; then springing forward, with passionate entreaty in every gesture and a cry of anguish upon her lips:
“And you will leave me without a word? Listen! How frightfully the battle is raging! And you are so cruel, cruel, as to go forth, and die, perhaps, without ever— I know you will be killed, I know it, I know it! And you won’t say you forgive me! Won’t you say just that one little word? You loved me once,—and dearly, for you pressed me against your heart and told me so; and can that heart, once so tender, be so hard now? Oh, say you forgive me; for the sake of that dear, dead love, say you forgive your little Mary!”