ll, I threw my banjo
away and got a musket."

"If I only had Stuart here to-day!" Lee sighed.

"He'd cut his way through, sir, with a shout and a laugh," Sweeney
boasted.

A courier handed Lee a dispatch and Sweeney edged away. The Commander
read the message with a frown and crumpled the paper in his hand. The
wagons at Appomattox had been cut to pieces. His army had nothing to
eat. They had been hungry for two days and nights.

"It's more than flesh can bear, Taylor--and yet listen to those guns!
They're still fighting this morning. Fighting like tigers. Grant's
closing in with a hundred thousand men. Unless Gordon breaks through
within an hour--he's got us--"

Lee gazed toward the sound of the guns on the left. His face was calm
but his carriage was no longer quite erect. The agony of sleepless
nights had plowed furrows in his forehead. His eyes were red. His cheeks
were sunken and haggard. His face was colorless. And yet he was calmly
deliberate in every movement.

An old man, flushed with excitement, staggered up to him.

Lee started.

"Ruffin--you here?"

"General Lee," he began, "will you hear me for just one moment?"

"Certainly."

Lee sprang to his feet.

"But how did you get into my lines--I thought I was surrounded?"

"I came out of Richmond with General Alexander's rear guard, sir, six
days ago."

"Oh, I see."

"Ten years ago, General Lee, in your house, I predicted this war. Last
week I saw the city in flames and I hope to God every house was in ashes
before that regiment of negro cavalry galloped through its streets."

"I trust not, Ruffin. I left my wife and children there."

"I hope they're safe, sir."

"They're in God's hands."

A courier handed Lee a dispatch which he read aloud.

"President Davis has been forced to flee from Danville and all
communication with him has been cut."

"General Lee," Ruffin cried excitedly, "this country is now in your
hands."

"What would you have me do?"

"Fight until the last city is in ashes and the last man falls in his
tracks. Fools at your headquarters have been talking for two days of
surrender. It can't be done. It can't be done. If you surrender do you
know what will happen?"

"I've tried to think."

"I'll tell you, sir. Thaddeus Stevens, the Radical Leader of Congress,
has already prepared the bill to take the ballot from the Southern white
man and give it to the negro. The property of the whites he proposed to
confiscate and gi