“Promise me to write to my mother and tell her how I died, and that you sat beside me. Leave out one thing. It would break her heart to hear that of me. You will? God bless you. Her address is in my pocket. Write to her. You promise? Oh, how good of you to hold the very hand that—”
“Hush! Don’t talk of that now.”
“You won’t have to hold it long. I feel it coming, coming. Press my hand hard, harder! You have forgiven me! Tell her, that as I lay—dying—far away from home—an angel—of light—”
| [1] | He fell with a crash, and his arms rattled upon him. (The Homeric formula when a warrior falls.) |
CHAPTER LXXIV.
If only night would come!
They were pouring down upon us and around us in overwhelming masses. They had turned our left, and were raking Gordon’s flank and rear. It was a question of a few minutes only.
In our front was a narrow field. Beyond that, a wood. Through this the enemy were driving our skirmishers back upon the main line. One by one these brave men emerged from the wood and trotted briskly across the field, targets, every one of them, for a dozen rifles.
There come two more! They are the last. But they do not trot, as the rest did and as skirmishers should.