Before the Dawn Part 60

"I wish you well. I cannot forget the great service that you did me, and I hope that you will return safely from a war soon to end."

"You might wish anybody that, even those whom you have never seen," he said.

Then with a few formal words he went away, and long after he was gone she still sat there staring into the fire, the gleams of reddish gold in her hair becoming fainter and fainter.

Prescott left Richmond the next morning.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FALL OF RICHMOND

Two long lines of earthworks faced each other across a sodden field; overhead a chilly sky let fall a chilly rain; behind the low ridges of earth two armies faced each other, and whether in rain or in suns.h.i.+ne, no head rose above either wall without becoming an instant mark for a rifle that never missed. Here the remorseless sharpshooters lay. Human life had become a little thing, and after a difficult shot they exchanged remarks as hunters do when they kill a bird on the wing.

If ever there was a "No Man's Land," it was the s.p.a.ce between the two armies which had aptly been called the "Plain of Death." Any one who ventured upon it thought very little of this life, and it was well that he should, as he had little of it left to think about. The armies had lain there for weeks and weeks, facing each other in a deadlock, and a fierce winter, making the country an alternation of slush and snow, had settled down on both. The North could not go forward; the South could not thrust the North back; but the North could wait and the South could not. Lee's army, crouching behind the earthen walls, grew thinner and hungrier and colder as the weeks pa.s.sed. Uniforms fell away in rags, supplies from the South became smaller and smaller, but the lean and ragged army still lay there, grim and defiant, while Grant, with the memory of Cold Harbour before him, dared not attack. He bided his time, having shown all the qualities that were hoped of him and more.

Tenacious, fertile in ideas, he had been from the beginning the one to attack and his foe the one to defend. The whole character of the war had changed since he came upon the field. He and Sherman were now the two arms of a vise that held the Confederacy in its grip and would never let go.

Prescott crouched behind the low wall, reading a letter from his mother, while his comrades looked enviously at him. A letter from home had long since become an event. Mrs. Prescott said she was well, and, so far as concerned her physical comfort, was not feeling any excessive stress of war. They were hearing many reports in Richmond from the armies. Grant, it was said, would make a great flanking movement as soon as the warmer weather came, and the newspapers in the capital gave accounts of vast reinforcements in men and supplies he was receiving from the North.

"If we know our Grant, and we think we do, he will certainly move," said Prescott grimly to himself, looking across the "Plain of Death" toward the long Northern line.

Then his mother continued with personal news of his friends and acquaintances.

"The popularity of Lucia Catherwood lasts," she wrote. "She would avoid publicity, but she can scarcely do it without offending the good people who like her. She seems gay and is often brilliant, but I do not think she is happy. She receives great attention from Mr. Sefton, whose power in the Government, disguised as it is in a subordinate position, seems to increase. Whether or not she likes him I do not know. Sometimes I think she does, and sometimes I think she has the greatest aversion to him. But it is a courts.h.i.+p that interests all Richmond. People mostly say that the Secretary will win, but as an old woman--a mere looker-on--I have my doubts. Helen Harley still holds her place in the Secretary's office, but Mr. Sefton no longer takes great interest in her. Her selfish old father does not like it at all, and I hear that he speaks slightingly of the Secretary's low origin; but he continues to spend the money that his daughter earns.

"It is common gossip that the Secretary knows all about Lucia's life before she came to Richmond; that he has penetrated the mystery and in some way has a hold over her which he is using. I do not know how this report originated, but I think it began in some foolish talk of Vincent Harley's. As for myself, I do not believe there is any mystery at all.

She is simply a girl who in these troublous times came, as was natural, to her nearest relative, Miss Grayson."

"No bad news, Bob, I hope," said Talbot, looking at his gloomy face.

"None at all," said Prescott cheerily, and with pardonable evasion.

"There go the skirmishers again."

A rapid crackle arose from a point far to their left, but the men around Talbot and Prescott paid no attention to it, merely huddling closer in the effort to keep warm. They had ceased long since to be interested in such trivialities.

"Grant's going to move right away; I feel it in my bones," repeated Talbot.

Talbot was right. That night the cold suddenly fled, the chilly clouds left the heavens and the great Northern General issued a command. A year before another command of his produced that terrific campaign through the Wilderness, where a hundred thousand men fell, and he meant this second one to be as significant.

Now the fighting, mostly the work of sharpshooters through the winter, began in regular form, and extended in a long line over the torn and trampled fields of Virginia, where all the soil was watered with blood.

The numerous hors.e.m.e.n of Sheridan, fresh from triumphs in the Valley of Virginia, were the wings of the Northern force, and they hung on the flanks of the Southern army, incessantly harrying it, cutting off companies and regiments, giving the worn and wounded men no respite.

Along a vast, curving line that steadily bent in toward Richmond--the Southern army inside, the Northern army outside--the sound of the cannon scarcely ever ceased, night or day. Lee fought with undiminished skill, always ma.s.sing his thin ranks at the point of contact and handling them with the old fire and vigour; but his opponent never ceased the terrible hammering that he had begun more than a year ago. Grant intended to break through the sh.e.l.l of the Southern Confederacy, and it was now cracking and threatening to shatter before his ceaseless strokes.

The defenders of a lost cause, if cause it was, scarcely ever knew what it was to draw a free breath. When they were not fighting, they were marching, often on bare feet, and of the two they did not know which they preferred. They were always hungry; they went into battles on empty stomachs, came out with the same if they came out at all, and they had no time to think of the future. They had become mere battered machines, animated, it is true, by a spirit, but by a spirit that could take no thought of softness. They had respected Grant from the first; now, despite their loss by his grim tactics, they looked in wonder and admiration at them, and sought to measure the strength of mind that could pay a heavy present price in flesh and blood in order to avoid a greater price hereafter.

Prescott and Talbot were with the last legion. The bullets, after wounding them so often, seemed now to give them the right of way. They came from every battle and skirmish unhurt, only to go into a new one the next day.

"If I get out of all this alive," said Talbot, with grim humour, "I intend to eat for a month and then sleep for a year; maybe then I'll feel rested."

Wood, too, was always there with his cavalry, now a thin band, seeking to hold back the hors.e.m.e.n of the North, and Vincent Harley, ever a good soldier, was his able second.

In these desperate days Prescott began to feel respect for Harley; he admired the soldier, if not the man. There was no danger too great for Harley, no service too arduous. He slept in the saddle, if he slept at all, and his spirit never flinched. There was no time for, him to renew his quarrel with Prescott, and Prescott was resolved that it should never be renewed if there were any decent way of avoiding it.

The close of a day of incessant battle and skirmish was at hand, and clouds of smoke darkened the twilight. From the east and from the west came the low mutter and thunder of the guns. The red sun was going down in a sea of ominous fire. There were strange reports of the deeds of Sheridan, but the soldiers themselves knew nothing definite. They had lost touch with other bodies of their comrades, and they could only hope to meet them again. Meanwhile they gave scarcely a glance at the lone and trampled land, but threw themselves down under the trees and fell asleep.

A messenger came for Prescott. "The General-in-Chief wishes you," he said.

Prescott walked to a small fire where Lee sat alone for the present and within the shelter of the tent. He was grave and thoughtful, but that was habitual with him. Prescott could not see that the victor of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville had changed in bearing or manner. He was as neat as ever; the gray uniform was spotless; the splendid sword, a gift from admirers, hung by his side. His face expressed nothing to the keen gaze of Prescott, who was now no novice in the art of reading the faces of men.

Prescott saluted and stood silent.

Lee looked at him thoughtfully.

"Captain Prescott," he said, "I have heard good reports of you, and I have had the pleasure also to see you bear yourself well."

Prescott's heart beat fast at this praise from the first man of the South.

"Do you know the way to Richmond?" asked the General.

"I could find it in a night as black as my hat."

"That is good. Here is a letter that I wish you to take there and deliver as soon as you can to Mr. Davis. It is important, and be sure you do not fall into the hands of any of the Northern raiders."

He held out a small sealed envelope, and Prescott took it.

"Take care of yourself," he said, "because you will have a dangerous ride."

Prescott saluted and turned away. He looked back once, and the General was still sitting alone by the fire, his face grave and thoughtful.

Prescott had a good horse, and when he rode away was full of faith that he would reach Richmond. He was glad to go because of the confidence Lee showed in him, and because he might see in the capital those for whom he cared most.

As he rode on the lights behind him died and the darkness came up and covered Lee's camp. But he had truly told the General that he could find his way to Richmond in black darkness, and to-night he had need of both knowledge and instinct. There was a shadowed moon, flurries of rain, and a wind moaning through the pine woods. From far away, like the swell of the sea on the rocks, came the low mutter of the guns. Scarcely ever did it cease, and its note rose above the wailing of the wind like a kind of solemn chorus that got upon Prescott's nerves.

"Is it a funeral song?" he asked.

On he went and the way opened before him in the darkness; no Northern hors.e.m.e.n crossed his path; the cry of "Halt!" never came. It seemed to Prescott that fate was making his way easy. For what purpose? He did not like it. He wished to be interrupted--to feel that he must struggle to achieve his journey. This, too, got upon his nerves. He grew lonely and afraid--not afraid of physical danger, but of the omens and presages that the night seemed to bear. He wondered again about the message that he bore. Why had not General Lee given some hint of its contents? Then he blamed himself for questioning.

He rode slowly and thus many hours pa.s.sed. Mile after mile fell behind him and the night went with them. The sun sprang up, the golden day enfolded the earth, and at last from the top of a hill he saw afar the spires of Richmond. It was a city that he loved--his home, the scene of the greatest events in his life, including his manhood's love; and as he looked down upon it now his eyes grew misty. What would be its fate?

He rode on, giving the countersign as he pa.s.sed the defenses. With the pure day, the omens and presages of the night seemed to have pa.s.sed.