Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “My right eye — Ysonde — I can see! — Do you understand? I can see!” I stammered.

  Oh, it was glorious — glorious as the joyous wonder in Ysonde’s eyes! — it was a miracle. I don’t care what Keen says about it having happened before, or about it happening once in ten thousand cases, and I don’t care a brass farthing for his subsequent observations concerning the optic nerve, and partial paralysis, and retinas, and things, — it was and must remain one of God’s miracles, and that is enough for Ysonde and for me.

  “We will go to the glade and repaint my picture which you erased,” said I.

  She understood and forgave me, for I hardly knew what I was saying.

  “Come,” she said — her eyes were wonderfully sweet, and bluer than the flowering flax around us.

  So, with her hand in mine, we walked up the scented path to the Rosebud Inn, Billy lumbering along behind us, twitching his hoary whiskers.

  IN THE NAME OF THE MOST HIGH.

  “Il n’est pas nécessaire qu’il y ait de l’amour dans un livre pour nous charmer, mais il est nécessaire qu’il y ait beaucoup de tendresse.”

  J. JOUBERT.

  IN THE NAME OF THE MOST HIGH.

  I.

  ON the third day toward noon the fire slackened; the smoke from the four batteries on the bluff across the north fork of the river slowly lifted, drifting to the east. The Texas riflemen kept up a pattering fusillade until one o’clock, then their bugles rang “Cease firing,” and the echoes of the last sulky shot died out against the cliffs.

  Keenan, crouching behind one of his hot guns, could see the Texas sharpshooters retiring to the bluff, little grey shadows in the scrub-oak thicket gliding, flitting like wild hedge-birds toward the nest of cannon above.

  “Don’t let ’em get away like that!” shouted Douglas, “give it to them in the name of God!”

  And Keenan smiled, and sent the Texans a messenger in the name of God — a messenger which fell thundering from the sky above them, crushing the face of the iron-stained cliff and the lives of those who had clustered there to breathe a little.

  “Amen,” said Keenan, patting his gun. Douglas crawled out of a hole in the rocks and drew himself up to the edge of the breastworks. Cleymore emerged from a shallow rifle-pit and walked slowly along the intrenchments, motioning his men back into their burrows.

  “Because,” he said, “a hole in the hill is worth two in your head — get into that ditch, Morris! — Cunningham, if you don’t duck that red head of yours, I’ll dock it!”

  “Captain Cleymore,” said Douglas, lowering his field-glass, “two batteries have limbered up, and are trotting toward the cemetery—”

  “May they trot into it, and stay there!” said Keenan, examining the wreck of an ammunition chest in the ditch.

  Cleymore studied the bluff with his marine glasses for a while, then called to Keenan: “How many guns have you now?”

  “Four,” shouted Keenan from the ditch; “all my horses are shot except two mules—” A burst of laughter cut him short — his own tattered artillerymen, to their credit, did not smile, but Douglas and Kellogg laughed and rows of grinning faces emerged from holes and pits along the ditch until Cleymore shouted, “Down!” and his infantry disappeared, chuckling. Keenan, red in the face, turned to his battery-men who were running the guns forward, and put his own ragged shoulder to the wheel. Cleymore sat down on a stone and watched a lank artilleryman splicing the dented staff of the battery guidon.

  “I guess that’ll dew, Capting,” he drawled, holding the staff out to Cleymore, who took it and rubbed the polished wood with his sleeve.

  “It will do, Pillsbury,” he said, “where is O’Halloran?”

  “Shot in the stummick,” said the private, “and unable tew work.”

  “Dead?”

  “I presume likely he’s daid, sir,” returned Pillsbury through his nose.

  “I’ve got a man for the guidon,” called Keenan from the ditch, and a fat freckled cannoneer waddled forward and stood at attention.

  “Look out!” sang out Douglas from his post on the breastworks, and “Down!” cried Cleymore, as a shell rose in the air over them and the boom of a gun rolled across the river from the bluff. The scream of the shell ceased; a white cloud shot with lightning appeared in the air above them, and a storm of shrapnel swept the breastworks. Cleymore sprang to his feet, but the fat cannoneer remained on the ground., “Get up,” said Cleymore, cautiously, “Pillsbury lift him; is he dead?”

  “I guess,” said Pillsbury, “he’s sufferin’ from a hereditary disease.”

  “Eh? What disease?” snapped Cleymore, stepping forward.

  “I guess it’s death,” said Pillsbury, with an expressionless wink.

  Cleymore stared at him through his eyeglasses, then turned on his heel.

  “I wish,” grumbled Keenan, “that the wounded would make less noise. Douglas, send them another bucket of water, will you? Is the surgeon dead?”

  “Dying,” said Kellogg,—” never mind, Douglas, I’ll see to the water; keep your glass on their batteries; what are they doing now?”

  “Nothing,” replied Douglas, “wait a bit — ah! here come their sharpshooters again!”

  “To hell with them!” muttered Keenan savagely, for his battery-men had been cruelly scourged by the sharpshooters, and he almost foamed with rage when he looked over into the ditch at the foot of the mound. The odour from the ditch had become frightful.

  “Look down there, Captain,” he called to Cleymore, his voice trembling with passion, but Cleymore only nodded sadly. He was watching something else. A figure in the uniform of a staff-officer, filthy with grime and sweat, had crawled through what was left of the covered bridge across the South Fork, and was wriggling his way toward the debris of Keenan’s battery. Cleymore watched him with puckered eyes.

  “What do you want, sonny?” he asked, as the staff officer crept past him,— “orders? Give ’em to me — keep to the ground, you fool,” he added, as a flight of bullets swept overhead. The staff-officer lifted a flushed face, scratched and smeared with dust and sweat, and attempted a salute.

  “Colonel Worth’s compliments to Colonel Randal—” he began, but was interrupted by Cleymore: “Colonel Randal’s in the ditch below with most of his regiment piled on top of him. What are your orders? — hold on to the bridge till hell freezes? — I thought so, — I’m Cleymore, Captain in the 10th New York Sharpshooters, yonder’s what’s left of us, and there’s two dozen of Colonel Randal’s Rhode Islanders among ‘em, too. Major Wilcox has got a hole in his face, and can’t speak — you see what’s left of Keenan’s battery — four guns, and few to serve ’em except my riflemen. Isn’t General Hooker in sight?”

  The staff-officer raised his blue eyes to the wreck of the battery, and then looked questioningly at Cleymore. The latter lay moodily twisting and untwisting the stained leather thong whipped about his sword hilt.

  “I’m ranking officer here,” he said, “the rest are dead. My compliments to General Kempner, and tell him his orders shall be obeyed. Both bridges are mined. Murphy is watching for Longstreet — What are you shivering for?”

  “Ague,” said the staff-officer in a low voice. Cleymore spat out a mouthful of dust that a bullet had flung in his face, and wiped his glasses on his sleeve. “Who are you from, anyway? “ he demanded. “I don’t take orders from Colonel Worth.”

  “General Kempner is dead,” said the staff-officer simply.

  Keenan came up chewing a twig and whistling.

  “Captain Cleymore,” said the staff-officer, “my horse has been shot and Colonel Worth is waiting. Will you point out to me the quickest way back?”

  “Back!” broke in Keenan, “you can’t get back, my boy!”

  “I must,” said the youngster, without glancing at the artillery officer.

  “Oh, if it’s a case of must,” said Cleymore indifferently, “come ahead,” and he rose to his knees and peered across the swollen South Fork, no
w a vast torrent of mud.

  Crack! Crack! rang the rifles from the opposite shore, and the little staff-officer’s cap was jerked from his head and rolled down the embankment into the river. Keenan cursed.

  “Come on, sonny,” said Cleymore, scrambling down the embankment to the ditch. The ditch was choked with mangled bodies in blue, flung one over the other amid smashed gun-wheels, caissons, knapsacks, and rifles; and the staff-officer hesitated for an instant at the brink.

  “Jump!” called Cleymore, “here! Get down behind this rock and keep your nose out of sight; those Texas gentlemen waste few bullets; are you hit?”

  “No,” said the little staff-officer.

  “Bull luck; did you see Randal’s men? The shells did it — look there.”

  He pointed the length of the ditch. The staff-officer turned pale. Everywhere corpses, — mere heaps of blue rags, stained yellow by dust and black with stiff blood, everywhere dented canteens, twisted muskets, unsavoury scattered clothing, worn shoes, and shrunken blue caps. A big black horse, bloated and dusty lay with both hind legs stark in the air; under him were dead men, mostly Keenan’s, by the red stripes on the faded trousers.

  Cleymore pulled his short blond moustache and turned to the staff-officer.

  “You see that slaughter pen,” he said; “tell Colonel Worth.”

  The staff-officer felt for his cap, remembered it had been shot off his head, and looked gravely at Cleymore.

  “I have four guns and two hundred and twenty odd men,” said the latter; “if they bring back their batteries, an hour or two will see us all in the ditch below with Randal; if they don’t we can hold on to the South Fork bridge I fancy. Do you know why they withdrew their batteries?”

  “No, — unless it was to shell Colonel Worth’s cavalry. His men are in the woods behind the railroad. If you can hold the bridge until night they will keep the line open. Colonel Worth is waiting. I must go back now, Captain.”

  Cleymore leaned along the edge of the protecting ledge and handed his field-glasses to the boy.

  “Now,” he said, “you can see the bend in the river. There are three pines on the bank above — see?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take the foot-path by those pines until you come to a burnt barn. Follow the river after that and if the iron bridge isn’t blown up yet you can get across; if it is blown up you can’t join Colonel Worth.”

  “But — a — a boat—”

  “A boat in that?”

  They looked at the foaming torrent, thundering among the rocks. After a moment the staff-officer pointed to the shot-torn bridge below them.

  “Oh,” said Cleymore, “you came that way, didn’t you? Well, miracles happen, and that was one of them, but if you try to get back that way, the performance won’t be encored, and you can bet your curly head on that, my son.”

  “It’s the shortest way,” said the little staff-officer.

  “Yes, the shortest way to Kingdom come,” said Cleymore, disgusted; “if you’re not shot, the Texans will catch you.”

  They were crouching on the hot dried grass, side by side. The sweat poured down Cleymore’s forehead washing the powder grime into thick patches over his young face. He threw his blackened jacket open at the throat, rubbed his forehead with his sleeve and said, “Whew!”

  “It’s the shortest way,” repeated the other, rising to his knees.

  “You can’t go,” said Cleymore, sharply, “the bridge is mined and Murphy may blow it up any moment.”

  The youth handed back the field-glass with a smile. For a moment their eyes met, then Cleymore’ s flushed face turned a bright crimson and he caught his breath, murmuring “I’m blest!”

  “Captain Cleymore,” said the staff-officer coolly, “you are detaining me from my duty. Have I your permission to leave?”

  They eyed each other steadily.

  “You must not go,” said Cleymore in a curious, husky voice, “ let me send a man—”

  “Have I your leave?”

  “Come back,” cried Cleymore, “I won’t give it!” — but the youngster sprang to his feet, touched his curly head in quick salute, and started on a run toward the covered bridge, holding his sabre close to his thigh.

  “Drop!” shouted Cleymore, and began to swear under his breath, but the youngster ran on, and to Cleymore’s amazement, the rifles of the fierce Texans on the other side of the river were silent.

  On and still on ran the boy, until, with a sigh of astonishment and relief, Cleymore saw him push in among the handful of blue-clad engineers at the end of the bridge; but he went no further, for they stopped him with levelled bayonets, shaking their heads and gesticulating, and suddenly Cleymore noticed that the bridge was afire at the further end.

  “Murphy’s fired the bridge!” he called out to Kellogg on the plateau above.

  Kellogg’s head appeared over a shattered gun limber. “Then Longstreet’s coming, you bet!”

  “I suppose so, can’t you see anything? Call Douglas.”

  The Texas rifles cracked again. Kellogg did not answer. “Can’t you see any movement near the woods?” demanded Cleymore from his rock. Then he looked carefully at Kellogg’s head, appearing to rest between two bits of sod, and he saw, in the middle of the forehead, a round dark spot from which a darker line crept slowly down over the nose.

  After a second or two he turned from the dead eyes staring fixedly at him, and looked across the river where the rifles were spitting death. The round white blotches of smoke hung along the river bank like shreds of cotton floating. Then he glanced toward the bridge again. There was a commotion there; a group of excited soldiers around a slender figure, bareheaded, gesticulating.

  “What’s that hop o’ my thumb up to now?” he muttered excitedly, and raised his field-glass.

  “By Jingo! Trying to cross the bridge, and it’s afire!”

  For a moment he knelt, his eye glued to the field-glasses, then with an angry exclamation he turned toward the floating rifle-smoke along the opposite bank. The chances were that he’d be hit, and he knew it, but he only muttered pettishly; “Young fool,” and started, stooping low, toward the swaying knot of men at the bridge.

  The chances were ten to one that he’d be hit, and he was, but he only straightened up and ran on. The minié-balls came whining about his head, the blood ran down into his boot, and filled it so that he slopped as he ran. And after all he was too late, for, as he panted up to the bridge, far down the covered way he saw the youngster speeding over the smoking rafters.

  “Stop him!” he gasped.

  A soldier raised his rifle, but Cleymore jerked it down.

  “Not that way,” he said, leaning back on his sword.

  Along the dry timbered tunnel crept the boy, for the fire was all about him now. Once he fell but rose again.

  “Has the mine been fired — the powder trail?” asked Cleymore, in a dull voice.

  A soldier nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but a deafening roar drowned his voice and gave Cleymore his answer.

  “Is that all?” asked Cleymore again, as the smoke rushed skyward, and the ground trembled and cracked beneath them.

  “One more,” said a sergeant curtly, as Captain Murphy hurried up. The whole further section of the bridge had crumbled into the torrent below. The smoke swept through the tunnel, and when it lifted Cleymore caught a glimpse of a figure dragging itself back from the gulf ahead. The soldiers saw it too.

  “He would go,” said one of them, as though speaking to himself.

  Cleymore tore off his jacket and held it before his face.

  “You can’t do it!” cried Murphy, horrified.

  “Let go — I must,” said Cleymore quietly, “cut the match, if you can.”

  “The other mines are on fire! In the name of God, Cleymore!” urged the engineer officer, holding him back by both shoulders.

  “Damn you, Murphy, let me go!” cried Cleymore fiercely; “let go, I say.”

  “I will not, Cleymore
; we can’t lose you for a fool of a boy — —”

  “But it’s a woman!” roared Cleymore, wrenching himself free.

  II.

  AS he ran through the smoke-choked bridge, bright little flames shot from the crackling timbers, and he felt the hot breath of the furnace underneath. And all the time he kept repeating as he ran, “I’m a fool, I’m a fool, it’s all up now”; but he hurried on, shielding his face with his braided jacket, feeling his way through the flurries of smoke and sparks until a whirl of flame blocked his way; and on the edge of the burning depths he found what he was looking for.

  She was very slender and light, in her ragged uniform, and he lifted her and wrapped his jacket about her head. Then he started back, increasing his speed as the black smoke rolled up from the planks under foot, but it was easier than he had dared dream of, for she revived, and when Murphy loomed up in the gloom, and steadied them with an arm, he laughed aloud from sheer nervousness. Then a terrific explosion threw him on his face, but Murphy helped him up, and he seized his burden again and staggered toward the hill where Keenan’s guns were already thundering, and the crack — crack — crackle of rifles echoed and re-echoed from rock to cliff.

  “You’re hit,” said Douglas, as he entered the entrenchment.

  “I know it,” said Cleymore, hastily scanning the rifle-pits, “keep the men under cover, Douglas — what’s up? Wait, I’ll be there in a second. Here, Pillsbury, take this we — this officer to my burrow and stay there until I come!”

  Douglas, lying close to the top of the breastworks, glasses levelled, began to speak in a monotonous voice: “The two batteries have returned and are unlimbering to the west; they seem to have cavalry too; a heavy column is moving parallel to the railroad — infantry and ammunition convoy; more infantry coming through the cemetery; I can see more on the hill beyond; the batteries have unlimbered — look out!”

  “Down!” shouted Cleymore, but the shells sailed high overhead and plunged into the muddy torrent of the South Fork.