Chapter XXV: After the Battle

Oh, womanly she prayed in tent,
When none beside did wake!
Oh, womanly she paled in fight
For one beloved’s sake!
And her little hand defiled with blood,
Her tender tears of womanhood
Most woman-pure did make.—E. B. BROWNING.

Adjutant Wing knelt down beside the dead and took two fresh white pocket-handkerchiefs from his bosom—Adjutant Wing was rather dainty for a soldier, in some of his habits, and constantly exposed himself to the raillery of his companions by his weakness for clean linen. He now covered with the handkerchiefs the poor dead faces, and, still kneeling, gazed upon the two bodies, while great tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.

“You are weeping, Wing,” said Colonel Rosenthal, kindly.

“I cannot—cannot help it,” said the boy, sobbing aloud. “When I look at these two, and remember that they were kind to me, and that I betrayed them to this death, I cannot help it. Oh, my Colonel, I have shed some bitter tears in my life. But these are the bitterest that ever fell from my eyes!”

“Wing, what you did was done as a sacred duty in the service of your country.”

“Yes, I know; but the duty was very revolting to me. Once I said that nothing on earth could ever induce me to become a spy; but that was before the war, and I was in no condition to judge of the matter.”

As Wing sobbed forth these words Colonel Rosenthal started and looked at him wistfully for a minute; then, seemingly satisfied by the scrutiny, he said:

“Our military duties are often revolting to us, my boy; but still they are _duties_—_sacred duties_—and must be performed. I suppose the judge who pronounces a sentence of death, and the sheriff who executes it, both feel their duty to be a painful one; but they do it. I am sorry for these people, Wing—very, very sorry for them; but—they were traitors.”

“Oh, call them no hard names over their still, cold bodies, my Colonel. Their lips are mute and cannot reply. _They thought they were right_, and so thinking, they were true to themselves, and true, oh heaven, how true to each other! Theirs was a rare love, my Colonel; stronger than life and death!” wept Wing.

“Perhaps the fate that they have just met was, under all the circumstances, the best for them,” said Justin.

“Oh! how much the best! Poor lady!” said Wing, uncovering the face of Alberta and gazing tenderly upon it. “Poor, poor lady! She had but one great dread in all her dreadful life—to be separated from her beloved. She had but one earnest prayer—to be with him always, forever and ever. Her prayer is granted. As she clung to him through all his desperate life, so he would not desert her even in death! no, not even to save himself from certain capture and from the shameful scaffold. Call them traitors, if you must; but they were true as truth to each other—true in life and in death! And they are inseparable for all eternity. Poor girl! I remember her words once when speaking of Dante’s story of Francesca and Paulo in Hell:—‘It might have been worse,’ she said. ‘_One might have been in Heaven!_’ And I knew that she was thinking of herself and her ‘Free Sword.’”

As Wing spoke, he reverently covered the faces of the dead and arose from his knees.

“Oh, my Colonel,” he next said, “after all, I think that those who have fallen in this war may be happier than those who survive, burdened with the memory of its horrors!”

At that moment the sound of many horses’ feet was heard approaching, and presently a squad of Union cavalry rode up, having Albert Goldsborough, Abershaw, Haddycraff, and other guerrilla officers as prisoners.

“We cut off their retreat, sir,” reported the officer in command of the party.

Colonel Rosenthal advanced to receive the sword of the guerrilla leader.

Goldsborough handed it over in perfect silence. There was not a word spoken between the two.

Then Colonel Rosenthal ordered the prisoners taken to the rear and guarded.

Next he beckoned an officer, and directed him to take charge of the remains of the Free Sword and his unfortunate wife, and to see to their removal, and their preparation for decent interment.

Finally, he called Wing and Hay (who had succeeded in making his escape from Monck’s camp) to attend him, and rode off to inspect in person a certain locality in the neighborhood, where he proposed that his regiment should bivouac for the night.

They followed the old turnpike road down the hill, until they came to the open plain, across which Goldsborough’s men had marched that day.

Straight before them, under the dark eastern horizon, was dimly seen a grove, or piece of woods.

“There is the place where we shall halt to-night, Wing. As we have no tents, the trees must give us shelter. And I am told that there is a fine spring of water. Our tired and hungry men will be comfortable there,” said Colonel Rosenthal, pointing to the grove.

“And the wounded, my Colonel?” inquired Wing, gently.

“You always remember the wounded, my boy. Well, they will be taken care of. Captain Hopkins and Surgeon Sharpe are in charge of the wounded. And lest you should also think the dead may be neglected, I will inform you that Lieutenant Barnwell and Chaplain Jones are entrusted with the arrangements for their Christian burial. Are you satisfied now, Wing?”

“Thanks, my Colonel, for your information, and also for your kind indulgence of what might be called impertinence in me,” said Wing, respectfully raising his cap.

Colonel Rosenthal smiled wistfully, but did not reply.

The sun had long set, and the moon had not yet risen. But it was a clear, bright, starlight night, and they continued their way across the plain, strangely soothed by the sweet stillness and peacefulness of the scene.

They rode along, drawing nearer and nearer to the grove, until at length, when they were within a few hundred yards of it, they were startled by screams issuing from its shadows, a woman’s piercing screams, mingled with cries of—

“Murder! Murder! Help! Help!”