Complete weird tales of.., p.449
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 449
“Well, you must mean Captain Stanley, who was at that time bandmaster of our regiment. He went in that day at Sandy River when our mounted band was cut to pieces. Orders was to play us in, an’ he done it.”
There was a silence.
“Where is he — buried?” she asked calmly.
“Buried? Why, he ain’t dead, is he?”
“He died at Sandy River — that day,” she said gently. “Don’t you remember?”
“No, sir; our bandmaster wasn’t killed at Sandy River.”
She looked at him amazed, almost frightened.
“What do you mean? He is dead. I — saw him die.”
“It must have been some other bandmaster — not Captain Stanley.”
“I saw the bandmaster of your regiment, the Fourth Missouri Cavalry, brought into that big white house and laid on my — on a bed — —” She stared at the boy, caught him by the sleeve: “He is dead, isn’t he? Do you know what you are telling me? Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes, sir. Captain Stanley was our bandmaster — he wasn’t captain then, of course. He played us in at Sandy River — by God! I oughter know, because I got some cut up m’self.”
“You — you tell me that he wasn’t killed?” she repeated, steadying herself against the canvas flap.
“No, sir. I heard tell he was badly hurt — seems like I kinder remember — oh, yes!” The man’s face lighted up. “Yes, sir; Captain Stanley, he had a close shave! It sorter comes back to me now, how the burial detail fetched him back saying they wasn’t going to bury no man that twitched when they shut his coffin. Yes, sir — but it’s three years and a man forgets, and I’ve seen — things — lots of such things in three years with Baring’s dragoons. Yes, sir.”
She closed her eyes; a dizziness swept over her and she swayed where she stood.
“Is he here?”
“Who? Captain Stanley? Yes, sir. Why, he’s captain of the Black Horse troop — F, third squadron.... They’re down that lane near the trees. Shall I take you there?”
She shook her head, holding tightly to the canvas flap; and the trooper, saluting easily, resumed his truss of hay, hitched his belt, cocked his forage cap, and went off whistling.
All that sunny afternoon she lay on the colonel’s camp bed, hands tightly clenched on her breast, eyes closed sometimes, sometimes wide open, gazing at the sun spots crawling on the tent wall.
To her ears came bugle calls from distant hills; drums of marching columns. Sounds of the stirring of thousands made tremulous the dim silence of the tent.
Dreams long dead arose and possessed her — the confused dreams of a woman, still young, awakened from the passionless lethargy of the past.
Vaguely she felt around her the presence of an earth new born, of a new heaven created. She realized her own awakening; she strove to comprehend his resurrection, and it frightened her; she could not understand that what was dead through all these years was now alive, that the ideal she had clung to, evoking it until it had become part of her, was real — an actual and splendid living power. In this vivid resurgence she seemed to lose her precise recollections of him now that he was alive.
While she had believed him dead, everything concerning his memory had been painfully real — his personal appearance, the way he moved, turned, the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand as it tightened in hers when he lay there at sunset, while she and Death watched the color fading from his face.
But now — now that he was living — here in this same world with her again — strive as she would she could neither fix either his features nor the sound of his voice upon her memory. Only the stupefying wonder of it possessed her, dulling her senses so that even the happiness of it seemed unreal.
* * * * *
How would they meet? — they two, who had never met but thrice? How would they seem, each to the other, when first their eyes encountered?
In all their lives they had exchanged so little speech! Yet from the first — from the first moment, when she had raised her gaze to him as he entered in his long, blue cloak, her silence had held a deeper meaning than her speech. And on that blessed night instinct broke the silence; yet, with every formal word exchanged, consciousness of the occult bond between them grew.
But it was not until she thought him dead that she understood that it had been love — love unheralded, unexpected, incredible — love at the first confronting, the first encountering glance. And to the memory of that mystery she had been faithful from the night on which she believed he died.
How had it been with him throughout these years? How had it been with him?
The silvery trumpets of the cavalry were still sounding as she mounted her horse before the colonel’s tent and rode out into the splendour of the setting sun.
On every side cavalrymen were setting toe to stirrup; troop after troop, forming by fours, trotted out to the crest of the hill where the Western light lay red across the furrowed grass.
A blaze of brilliant color filled the road where an incoming Zouave regiment had halted, unslinging knapsacks, preparing to encamp, and the setting sun played over them in waves of fire, striking fiercely across their crimson fezzes and trousers.
Through their gorgeous lines the cavalry rode, colonel and staff leading; and with them rode the Special Messenger, knee to knee with the chief trumpeter, who made his horse dance when he passed the gorgeous Zouave color guard, to show off the gridiron of yellow slashings across his corded and tasseled breast.
And now another infantry regiment blocked the way — a heavy, blue column tramping in with its field music playing and both flags flying in the sunset radiance — the Stars and Stripes, with the number of the regiment printed in gold across crimson; and the State flag — white, an Indian and an uplifted sword on the snowy field: Massachusetts infantry.
On they came, fifes skirling, drums crashing; the colonel of the Fourth Missouri gave them right of way, saluting their colors; the Special Messenger backed her horse and turned down along the column.
Under the shadow of her visor her dark eyes widened with excitement as she skirted the halted cavalry, searching the intervals where the troop captains sat their horses, naked sabres curving up over their shoulder straps.
“Not this one! Not this one,” her little heart beat hurriedly; and then, without warning, panic came, and she spurred up to the major of the first squadron.
“Where is Captain Stanley?” Her voice almost broke.
“With his troop, I suppose— ‘F,’” replied that officer calmly; and her heart leaped and the color flooded her face as she saluted, wheeled, and rode on in heavenly certainty.
A New York regiment, fresh from the North, was passing now, its magnificent band playing “Twinkling Stars”; and the horses of the cavalry began to dance and paw and toss their heads.
One splendid black animal reared suddenly and shook its mane out; and at the same moment she saw him — knew him — drew bridle, her heart in her mouth, her body all a-tremble.
He was mastering the black horse that had reared, sitting his saddle easily, almost carelessly, his long, yellow-striped legs loosely graceful, his straight, slim figure perfect in poise and balance.
And now the trumpets were sounding; captain after captain turned in his saddle, swung his sabre forward, repeating the order: “Forward — march! Forward — march!”
The Special Messenger whirled her horse and sped to the head of the column.
“I was just beginning to wonder—” began the colonel, when she broke in, breathless:
“May I ride with Captain Stanley of F, sir?”
“Certainly,” he replied, surprised and a trifle amused. She hesitated, nervously picking at her bridle, then said: “When you once get me through their lines — I mean, after I am safely through and you are ready to turn around and leave me — I — I would like — to — to — —”
“Yes?” inquired the colonel, gently, divining some “last message” to deliver. For they were desperate chances that she was taking, and those in the beleaguered city would show her no mercy if they ever caught her within its battered bastions.
But the Special Messenger only said: “Before your regiment goes back, may I tell Captain Stanley who I am?”
The colonel’s face fell.
“Nobody is supposed to have any idea who you are — —”
“I know it. But is there any harm if I only tell it to — to just this one, single man?” she asked, earnestly, not aware that her eyes as well as her voice were pleading — that her whole body, bent forward in the saddle, had become eloquent with a confession as winning as it was innocent.
The colonel looked curiously into the eager, flushed face, framed in its setting of dark, curly hair, then he lifted a gauntleted hand from his bridle and slowly stroked his crisp mustache upward to hide the smile he could not control.
“I did not know,” he said gravely, “that Captain Stanley was the — ah— ‘one’ and ‘only’ man.”
She blushed furiously, the vivid color ran from throat to temple, burning her ears till they looked like rose petals caught in her dark hair.
“You may tell Captain Stanley — if you must,” observed the colonel of the Fourth Missouri. He was gazing absently straight between his horse’s ears when he spoke. After a few moments he looked at the sky where, overhead, the afterglow pulsated in bands of fire.
“I always thought,” he murmured to himself, “that old Stanley was in love with that Southern girl he saw at Sandy River.... I had no idea he knew the Special Messenger. It appears that I am slightly in error.” And, very thoughtfully, he continued to twist his mustache skyward as he rode on.
When he ventured to glance around again the Special Messenger had disappeared.
“Fancy!” he muttered; “fancy old Stanley knowing the mystery of the three armies! And, by gad, gentlemen!” addressing, sotto voce, the entire regiment, as he turned in his stirrups and looked back at the darkening column behind him— “by gad! gentlemen of the Fourth Dragoons, no prettier woman ever sat a saddle than is riding this moment with the captain of Troop F!”
What Captain Stanley saw riding up to him through the dull afterglow was a slightly built youth in the uniform of the regular cavalry, yellow trimming on collar, yellow welts about the seams of the jacket, yellow stripes on the breeches; and, as the youth drew bridle, saluted, and turned to ride forward beside him, he caught sight of a lieutenant’s shoulder straps on the sergeant’s shell jacket.
“Well, youngster,” he said, smiling, “don’t they clothe you in the regulars? You’re as eccentric as our butternut friends yonder.”
“I couldn’t buy a full uniform,” she said truthfully. She did not add that she had left at a minute’s notice for the most dangerous undertaking ever asked of her, borrowing discarded makeshifts anywhere at hazard.
“Are you a West Pointer?”
“No.”
“Oh! You’ve their seat — and their shapely leanness. Are you going with us?”
“Where are you going?”
Stanley laughed. “I’m sure I don’t know. It looks to me as though we were riding straight into rebeldom.”
“Don’t you know why?” she asked, looking at him from under the shadow of her visor.
“No. Do you?”
“Yes.”
After a pause: “Well,” he said, laughing, “are you going to tell me?”
“Yes — later.”
Neck and neck, knee and knee they rode forward at the head of the Black Horse troop, along a road which became dusky beyond the first patch of woods.
After the inner camp lines had been passed the regiment halted while a troop was detailed as flankers and an advanced guard galloped off ahead. Along the road behind, the guns of the Rhode Island Battery came thudding and bumping up, halting with a dull clash of chains.
Stanley said: “This is one of Baring’s pet raids; we’ve done it dozens of times. Once our entire division rode around Beauregard; but I didn’t see the old, blue star division flag this time, so I guess we’re going it alone. Hello! There’s infantry! We must be close to the extreme outposts.”
In the dusk they were passing a pasture where, guarded by sentinels, lay piled, in endless, straight rows, knapsacks, blankets, shelter tents, and long lines of stacked Springfield rifles. Soldiers with the white strings of canteens crossing their breasts were journeying to and from a stream that ran, darkling, out of the tangled woodland on their right.
On the opposite side of the road were the lines of the Seventieth Indiana, their colors, furled in oilcloth, lying horizontally across the forks of two stacks of rifles. Under them lay the color guard; the scabbarded swords of the colonel and his staff were stuck upright in the ground, and the blanket-swathed figures of the officers in poncho and havelock reposed close by.
The other regiment was the Eleventh Maine. Their colonel, strapped with his silver eagles, was watching the disposal of the colors by a sergeant wearing the broad stripe, blue diamond and triple underscoring on each sleeve. With the sergeant marched eight corporals, long-limbed, rugged giants of the color company, decorated with the narrow stripe and double chevron.
A few minutes later the cavalry moved out past the pickets, then swung due south.
Night had fallen — a clear, starlit, blossom-scented dimness freshening the air.
The Special Messenger, head bent, was still riding with Captain Stanley, evidently preferring his company so openly, so persistently, that the other officers, a little amused, looked sideways at the youngster from time to time.
After a while Stanley said pleasantly: “We haven’t exchanged names yet, and you haven’t told me why a regular is riding with us to-night.”
“On special service,” she said in a low voice.
“And your name and regiment?”
She did not appear to hear him; he glanced at her askance.
“You seem to be very young,” he said.
“The colonel of the Ninetieth Rhode Island fell at twenty-two.”
He nodded gravely. “It is a war of young men. I think Baring himself is only twenty-five. He’s breveted brigadier, too.”
“And you?” she asked timidly.
He laughed. “Thirty; and a thousand in experience.”
“I, too,” she said softly.
“You? Thirty?”
“No, only twenty-four; but your peer in experience.”
“Your voice sounds Southern,” he said in his pleasant voice, inviting confidence.
“Yes; my home was at Sandy River.”
Out of the corners of her eyes she saw him start and look around at her — felt his stern gaze questioning her; and rode straight on before her without response or apparent consciousness.
“Sandy River?” he repeated in a strained voice. “Did you say you lived there?”
“Yes,” indifferently.
The captain rode for a while in silence, then, carelessly: “There was, I believe, a family living there before the war — the Westcotes.”
“Yes.” She could scarcely utter a word for the suffocating throb of her heart.
“You knew them?”
“Yes.”
“Do — do they still live at Sandy River?”
“The house still stands. Major Westcote is dead.”
“Her — I mean their grandfather?”
She nodded, incapable of speech.
“And” — he hesitated— “and the boy? He used to ride a pony — the most fascinating little fellow — —”
“He is at school in the North.”
There was a silence, then the captain turned in his saddle and looked straight at her.
“Does Miss Westcote live there still?”
“Do you mean Celia Westcote?” asked the Messenger calmly.
“Yes — Celia—” His voice fell softly, making of her name a caressing cadence. The Special Messenger bent her head lower over her bridle.
“Why do you ask? Did you know her?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
The captain lifted his grave eyes, but the Messenger was not looking at him.
“I knew her — in a way — better than I ever knew any woman, and I saw her only three times in all my life. That is your answer — and my excuse for asking. Does she still live at Sandy River?”
“No.”
“Do you know where she has gone?”
“She is somewhere in the South.”
“Is she — married?” he asked under his breath.
The Special Messenger looked up at him, smiling in the darkness.
“No,” she said. “I heard that she lost her — heart — to a bandmaster of some cavalry regiment who was killed in action at Sandy River — three years ago.”
The captain straightened in his saddle as though he had been shot; in the dim light his lean face turned darkly scarlet.
“I see her occasionally,” continued the Messenger faintly; “have you any message — perhaps — —”
The captain turned slowly toward her. “Do you know where she is?”
“I expect that she will be within riding distance of me — very soon.”
“Is your mission a secret one?”
“Yes.”
“And you may see her — before very long?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell her,” said the captain, “that the bandmaster of the Fourth Missouri—” He strove to continue; his voice died in his throat.
“Yes — yes — say it,” whispered the Special Messenger. “I will tell her; she will understand — truly she will — whatever you say.”
“Tell her — that the bandmaster has — has never forgotten — —”
“Yes — yes — —”
“Never forgotten her!”
“Yes — oh, yes!”
“That he — he — —”
“Yes! Oh, please — please say it — don’t be afraid to say — what you wish!”
The captain’s voice was not under perfect control.
“Say that he — thinks of her.... Say that — that he — he thought of her when he was falling — there, in the charge at Sandy River — —”
“But he once told her that himself!” she cried. “Has he no more to tell her?”
