Page:Nurse and spy in the Union Army.djvu/202

184 " Chaplain, will you be so kind as to take the saddle from my horse; it has been on since early morning, and I am not able to take it off." Not that I cared particularly for having the saddle removed, but just for sake of having "Reb" bring the chaplain to his senses, and give him a little shaking up, so that he might realize that these were war times, and that consequently it was out of the question for chaplains in the army, especially in time of battle, to

But instead of doing so, I sat down and wept bitter tears of disappointment and sorrow, and then, with a heavy heart and aching limbs, I returned again to the mill.

All that weary night my heart burned with indignation, and I seemed endowed with supernatural powers of endurance, for when morning came and found me still at my post, without having tasted food for twenty-four hours, I felt stronger and fresher than I had done the day before. My two young sick friends had been persuaded to lie down, and were now fast asleep, side by side with the wounded. But where was the chaplain ? What had become of him ? He had escaped with the earliest dawn, without so much as inquiring whether the men were dead or alive. This was