l General Ewell about the
Germans and ask him to give me a little infantry. Hurry now, and if he
gives them, bring them up quickly!"

The vedette galloped eastward. Ashby and his men rode back to the ridge,
the Horse Artillery, the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners. The
latter numbered four officers and forty men. They were all in a group in
the sunshine, which lay with softness upon the short grass and the
little pine trees. The dead lay huddled, while over them flitted the
butterflies. Ashby's surgeons were busy with the wounded. A man with a
shattered jaw was making signs, deliberately talking in the
deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which perhaps he had learned for some friend or
relative's sake. A younger man, his hand clenched over a wound in the
breast, said monotonously, over and over again, "I am from Trenton, New
Jersey, I am from Trenton, New Jersey." A third with glazing eyes made
the sign of the cross, drew himself out of the sun, under one of the
little pine trees, and died. Some of the prisoners were silent. Others
talked with bravado to their captors. "Salisbury, North Carolina! That's
not far. Five hundred miles not far--Besides, Fremont will make a rescue
presently. And if he doesn't, Shields will to-morrow! Then off you
fellows go to Johnson's Island!" The officer who had led the charge sat
on a bank above the road. In the onset he had raged like a Berserker,
now he sat imperturbable, ruddy and stolid, an English philosopher on a
fallen pine. Ashby came back to the road, dismounting, and leading the
bay stallion, advanced. "Good-day, Colonel Wyndham."

"Good-day, General Ashby. War's a game. Somebody's got to lose. Only way
to stop loss is to stop war. You held the trumps--Damn me! You played
them well, too." His sword lay across his knees. He took it up and held
it out. Ashby made a gesture of refusal. "No. I don't want it. I am
about to send you to the rear. If there is anything I can do for you--"

"Thank you, general, there is nothing. Soldier of fortune. Fortune of
war. Bad place for a charge. Ought to have been more wary. Served me
right. You've got Bob Wheat with you? Know Bob Wheat. Find him in the
rear?"

"Yes. With General Ewell. And now as I am somewhat in haste--"

"You must bid me good-day! See you are caring for my wounded. Much
obliged. Dead will take care of themselves. Pretty little place!
Flowers, butterflies--large bronze one on your hat.--This our escort?
Perfectly true you'll have a