Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins Part 37

WHAT OCCURRED AT WARRENTON.

This conversation took place at an early hour of the morning. Two hours afterward, I was in the saddle and riding toward Chancellorsville, with the double object of inspecting the pickets and taking Mohun his commission.

I have described in my former _Memoirs_ that melancholy country of the Wilderness; its unending thickets; its roads, narrow and deserted, which seem to wind on forever; the desolate fields, here and there covered with stunted bushes; the owls flapping their dusky wings; the whip-poor-will, crying in the jungle; and the moccasin gliding stealthily amid the ooze, covered with its green sc.u.m.

Strange and sombre country! lugubrious shades where death lurked!

Already two great armies had clutched there in May, 1863. Now, in May, '64, the tangled thicket was again to thunder; men were going to grapple here in a mad wrestle even more desperate than the former!

Two roads stretch from Orange Court-House to Chancellorsville--the old turnpike, and the plank road--running through Verdiersville.

I took the latter, followed the interminable wooden pathway through the thicket, and toward evening came to the point where the Ely's Ford road comes in near Chancellorsville. Here, surrounded by the rotting weapons, bones and skulls of the great battle already fought, I found Mohun ready for the battle that was coming.

He commanded the regiment on picket opposite Ely's Ford; and was pointed out to me at three hundred yards from an old torn down house which still remains there, I fancy.

Mohun had dismounted, and, leaning against the trunk of a tree, was smoking a cigar. He was much thinner and paler than when I had last seen him; but his eye was brilliant and piercing, his carriage erect and proud. In his fine new uniform, replacing that left at Fort Delaware, and his brown hat, decorated with a black feather, he was the model of a cavalier, ready at a moment's warning to meet the enemy.

We exchanged a close grasp of the hand. Something in this man had attracted me, and from acquaintances we had become friends, though Mohun had never given me his confidence.

I informed him of Nighthawk's visit and narrative, congratulated him on his escape, and then presented him with his appointment to the grade of brigadier-general.

"Hurrah for Stuart! He is a man to count on!" exclaimed Mohun, "and here inclosed is the order for me to take command of four regiments!"

"I congratulate you, Mohun."

"I hope to do good work with them, my dear Surry--and I think they are just in time."

With which words Mohun put the paper in his pocket.

"You know the latest intelligence?" he said.

"Yes; but do not let us talk of it. Tell me something about yourself--but first listen to a little narrative from me."

And I described the visit which I had made with Tom Herbert to the house near Buckland; the scene between Darke and his companion; and, to keep back nothing, repeated the substance of their conversation.

Mohun knit his brows; then burst into a laugh.

"Well!" he said, "so those two amiable characters are still bent on making mince-meat of me, are they? Did you ever hear any thing like it?

They are perfect tigers, thirsting for blood!"

"Nothing more nor less," I said; "the whole thing is like a romance."

"Is it not?"

"A perfect labyrinth."

"The very word!"

"And I have not a trace of a key."

Mohun looked at me for some moments in silence. He was evidently hesitating; and letting his eyes fall, played with the hilt of his sword.

Then he suddenly looked up.

"I have a confidence to make you, Surry," he said, "and would like to make it this very day. But I cannot. You have no doubt divined that Colonel Darke is my bitter enemy--that his companion is no less, even more, bitter--and some day I will tell you what all that means. My life has been a strange one. As was said of Randolph of Roanoke's, 'the fictions of romance cannot surpa.s.s it.' These two persons alluded to it--I understand more than you possibly can--but I do _not_ understand the allusions made to General Davenant. I am _not_ the suitor of his daughter--or of any one. I am not in love--I do not intend to be--to be frank with you, friend, I have little confidence in women--and you no doubt comprehend that this strange one whom you have thrice met, on the Rappahannock, in Pennsylvania, and near Buckland, is the cause."

"She seems to be a perfect viper."

"Is she not? You would say so, more than ever, if I told you what took place at Warrenton."

And again Mohun's brows were knit together. Then his bitter expression changed to laughter.

"What took place at Warrenton!" I said, looking at him intently.

"Exactly, my dear friend--it was a real comedy. Only a poignard played a prominent part in the affair, and you know poignards belong exclusively to tragedy."

Mohun uttered these words with his old reckless satire. A sort of grim and biting humor was plain in his accents.

"A poniard--a tragedy--tell me about it, Mohun," I said.

He hesitated a moment. "Well, I will do so," he said, at length. "It will amuse you, my guest, while dinner is getting ready."

"I am listening."

"Well, to go back. You remember my fight with Colonel Darke near Buckland?"

"Certainly; and I was sure that you had killed each other."

"You were mistaken. He is not dead, and you see I am not. He was wounded in the throat, but my sabre missed the artery, and he was taken to a house near at hand, and thence to hospital, where he recovered. My own wound was a bullet through the chest; and this gave me so much agony that I could not be carried in my ambulance farther than Warrenton, where I was left with some friends who took good care of me.

Meanwhile, General Meade had again advanced and occupied the place--I was discovered, and removed as soon as possible to the Federal hospital, where they could have me under guard. Faith! they are smart people--our friends the Yankees! They are convinced that 'every little helps,' and they had no idea of allowing that tremendous Southern paladin, Colonel Mohun, to escape! So I was sent to hospital. The removal caused a return of fever--I was within an inch of the grave--and this brings me to the circ.u.mstance that I wish to relate for your amus.e.m.e.nt.

"For some days after my removal to the Federal hospital, I was delirious, but am now convinced that much which I then took for the wanderings of a fevered brain, was real.

"I used to lie awake a great deal, and one gloomy night I saw, or dreamed I saw, as I then supposed, _that woman_ enter my ward, in company with the surgeon. She bent over me, glared upon me with those dark eyes, which you no doubt remember, and then drawing back said to the surgeon:--

"'Will he live?'

"'Impossible to say, madam,' was the reply. 'The ball pa.s.sed through his breast, and although these wounds are almost always mortal, men do now and then recover from them.'

"'Will this one?'

"'I cannot tell you, madam, his const.i.tution seems powerful.'

"I saw her turn as he spoke, and fix those glaring eyes on me again.

They were enough to burn a hole in you, Surry, and made me feel for some weapon. But there was none--and the scene here terminated--both retired. The next night, however, it was renewed. This time the surgeon felt my pulse, touched my forehead, placed his ear to my breast to listen to the action of the heart, and rising up said, in reply to madam's earnest glance of inquiry:--

"'Yes, I am sure he will live. You can give yourself no further anxiety about your cousin, madam.'