and that the trenches were to
yawn beneath his hoofs, to swallow himself and his steed,--if I had
foretold these things as they were to occur, I wonder if the "pause
before the storm" would have been less awful, and our ride campward less
sedate. Poor Heath! Gallant New Englander! he called at my bedside, the
sixth day following, as I lay full of pain, fear, and fever, and after
he bade me good by, I heard his horse's hoofs ringing down the lane. Ten
minutes afterward he was shot through the head.

When I reached Michie's, at three o'clock, I had to be helped from the
saddle, and the fever was raging in my whole body before nightfall. My
hands were flushed, my face hot, but my feet were quite cold, and I was
seized with chills that seemed to shake my teeth from my head. Mrs.
Michie made me a bowl of scorching tea, and one of the black-girls
bathed my limbs in boiling water. The fever dreams came to me that
night, in snatches of burning sleep, and toward morning I lay restlessly
awake, moving from side to side, famishing for drink, but rejecting it,
when they brought it to my lips. The next day, my kind hostess gave me
some nourishing soup, but after a vain effort to partake of it, I was
compelled to put it aside. O'Ganlon procured some pickled fruit and
vegetables from a sutler, which I ate voraciously, quaffing the vinegar
like wine. Some of my regimental friends heard of my illness, and they
sent me quiet luxuries, which gladdened me, though I did not eat. During
the day I had some moments of ease, when I tried to read. There was a
copy of Wordsworth's poems in the house, and I used to repeat stanzas
from "Peter Bell," till they rang, in eddies of rhyme, through my weak
brain, and continued to scan and jangle far into the nights. Some of
these fever-dreams were like delusions in delirium: peopled with
monsters, that grinned and growled. Little black globules used to leer
from corners, and after a time they began to revolve toward me,
increasing as they came, and at length rolling like mountains of surge.
I frequently woke with a scream, and found my body in profuse
perspiration. There were fiery snakes, also, that, at first, moved
slowly around me, and I followed them with red and terrified eyes. After
awhile they flashed in circles of lightning, and hissed showers of
sparks, until I became quite crazed with fear. The most horrible
apparitions used to come to my bedside, and if I dropped to sleep with
any thought hal