Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/21

LEFT WOUNDED ON THE FIELD My lip, were dry and cracked, my tongue parched and swollen. Suddenly, in the stillness, I distinguished the sound of some one approaching, and sank down again, motionless, listening.

They came slinking toward me from out the night much as jackals might, creeping along from body to body, mumbling to each other as they groped around in the darkness, occasionally lifting their heads to listen like hunted wild beasts. I recognized them instantly as the scourge of the battlefield: human scavengers, foul vultures, whatever uniform they might wear to hide their crime, midnight robbers of the dead. I lay there silent, almost breathless from the clutch of sudden terror, in my covert beneath the dismantled gun, while they swiftly rifled the pockets of that shapeless, hideous thing upheld by the wheel, they saw me lying there plainly enough, but nearer at hand were victims far easier of approach, and so they slunk growlingly past, leaving me unmolested. Yet I distinguished enough of their profane speech to render the situation clear. Our army had been pressed relentlessly back, driven pell-mell across the river in disorderly retreat and the victorious forces of the Confederacy held the field. I stared up at the pitiless stars, perspiration beading my forehead, my teeth clinched from despair and pain. With the first coming of another dawn details would search the field to collect the wounded; they would discover me lying there helpless, and hold me prisoner. A single shot rang out far to my right and the black figure of one of those skulking vultures went slinking past on a run, stumbling in his haste over the dead bodies. Already sentries [ 13 ]