ending and bringing, dismissing, and summoning of men and
things to rear or front, left or right, in a fury of supply and demand.

Ah, what! water? in her face? Her eyes opened wildly. A man was kneeling
beside her. He held a canteen; an armed officer in the foe's blue. With
lips parting to cry out she strove to rise and fly, but his silent
beseechings showed him too badly hurt below the knees to offer aid or
hindrance, and as she gained her feet she let him plead with stifled
eagerness for her succor from risks of a captivity which, in starving
Vicksburg and in such plight, would be death.

He was a stranger and an enemy, whose hurried speech was stealthy and
whose eyes went spying here and there, but so might it be just then
somewhere with him for whom she yet clung to life. For that one's sake,
and more than half in dream, she gave the sufferer her support, and with
a brow knit in anguish, but with the fire of battle still in his wasting
blood, he rose, fitfully explaining the conditions of the place and
hour. To cover a withdrawal of artillery from an outer to an inner work
a gray line had unexpectedly charged, and as it fell back with its guns,
hotly pressed, a part of the fight had swung down into and half across
this ravine, for which another struggle was furiously preparing on both
sides, but which, for him, in the interval, was an open way of
deliverance if she would be his crutch.

In equal bewilderment of thought and of outer sense, pleadingly assured
that she would at once be sent back under flag of truce, with compassion
deepening to compulsion and with a vague inkling that, failing the white
flag, this might be heaven's leading back to Callender House and the
jewel treasure, to Mobile and to Hilary, she gave her aid. Beyond the
thicket the way continued tangled, rough and dim. Twice and again the
stricken man paused for breath and ease from torture, though the sounds
of array, now on two sides, threatened at every step to become the cry
of onset. Presently he stopped once more, heaved, swayed and, despite
her clutch, sank heavily to the ground.

"Water!" he gasped, but before she could touch the canteen to his lips
he had fainted. She sprinkled his face, but he did not stir. She gazed,
striving for clear thought, and then sprang up and called. What word?
Ah, what in all speech should she call but a name, the name of him whose
warrant of marriage lay at that moment in her bosom, the name of him who
befor