r.

"God send me a bullet," said Moray.... "Why do you stay here?"

"To--give you--that chance."

"You run it, too."

"I hope so. I am very--tired."

"I am sorry," he said, reddening.

She said fiercely: "I wish it were over.... Life is cruel.... I suppose
we must move on. Will you come, please?"

"Yes--my dark messenger," he said under his breath, and smiled.

A priest passed them in the smoke; her prisoner raised his hand to the
visor of his cap.

"Father Corby, their chaplain," she murmured.

"Attention! Attention!" a far voice cried, and the warning ran from rank
to rank, taken up in turn by officer after officer. Father Corby was
climbing to the summit of a mound close by; an order rang out, bugles
repeated it, and the blue ranks faced their chaplain.

Then the priest from his rocky pulpit raised his ringing voice in
explanation. He told the three regiments of the Irish Brigade--now
scarcely more than three battalions of two companies each--that every
soldier there could receive the benefit of absolution by making a
sincere act of contrition and resolving, on first opportunity, to
confess.

He told them that they were going to be sent into battle; he urged them
to do their duty; reminded them of the high and sacred nature of their
trust as soldiers of the Republic, and ended by warning them that the
Catholic Church refuses Christian burial to him who deserts his flag.

In the deep, battle-filled silence the priest raised up his hands; three
regiments sank to their knees as a single man, and the Special Messenger
and her prisoner knelt with them.

"_Dominus noster Jesus Christus vos absolvat, et ego, auctoritate
ipius, vos absolvo ab omvir vinculo_----"

The thunder of the guns drowned the priest's voice for a moment, then it
sounded again, firm and clear:

"_Absolve vos a peccatis_----"

The roar of battle blotted out the words; then again they rang out:

"_In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti!... Amen._"

The officers had remounted now, their horses plunging in the smoke; the
flags were moving forward; rivers of bayonets flowed out into the
maelstrom where the red lightning played incessantly. Then from their
front crashed out the first volley of the Irish Brigade.

"Forward! Forward!" shouted their officers. Men were falling everywhere;
a dying horse kicked a whole file into confusion. Suddenly a shell fell
in their midst, another, another, tearing fiery right of way.

The Spe