“My God! my God!” ejaculated the captain of the Myrmidons, with a woman’s tenderness in his voice and the despair of Laocoön in his corrugated brow.
Hearing that cry, the boy turned quickly and smiled in his captain’s face. “It is only a flesh-wound, through the thigh,” said he; “I can walk, I think.”
He was attempting to rise, when his captain, placing his strong arms beneath him, lifted him high in the air. He ran, then; and his face was full of terror, as the thick-flying bullets whistled past him and his burden. The two were within a few paces of where I stood, when again that terrific sound was heard; and they both fell heavily at my very feet.
A bullet, coming from our flank and rear, had struck Captain Smith in the right breast.
It was a wound in front, at any rate.
There was but one ambulance-wagon in sight, and that was retreating. A skirmisher ran to overtake it. Others placed the captain and Edmund on stretchers and hurried after it.
“Jack, old boy; good-by. I am done for; but I particularly desire to get within our lines; so hold them in check as long as you can. Say farewell to Charley.”
A few of his own men held their ground till they saw their captain and Edmund disappear, in the wagon, over the hill, when they fell back, loading and firing as they went. When the wagon reached the bridge beyond Strasburg, it was found broken down; but the men with the stretchers managed to get our two wounded friends across the stream, and to find another wagon; so, the pursuit slackening at this juncture, they were not captured.
Late in the night, I found them by the road-side. Edmund was asleep. The captain lay awake, watched by one of his brave skirmishers. He gave messages to my grandfather, to Charley and Alice, to the Poythresses. “And now, good-night,” said he. “You need rest. Throw yourself down by that fire and go to sleep. Don’t bother about me. I shall set out for Harrisonburg at daybreak.”
“The ride will kill you.”