Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/68

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH say, although her feature, were utterly indistinguishable. At last she seemed to gain sufficient control of her breath to falter,

"You may go on; I—I will listen."

"It is only a short story. I was a member of Reynolds's battery, having enlisted from Illinois. I have been in the service nearly two years. During that last battle yonder, your soldiers charged and captured our guns. In the struggle I was struck in the side by a splinter, and rendered unconscious by a blow on the head. I chanced to fall beneath the cannon, which had been so demolished as to be rendered useless, and lay there like one dead until late at night. When consciousness returned I realized the horrors of my situation, as well as the certainty of capture and imprisonment if I remained there until daylight. Finding myself able to move, I crawled to a near-by stream, attended as best I could to my wounds, and, remembering a vague glimpse of your house down the valley, caught as our battery went forward into action, I naturally turned in that direction, seeking for some place of concealment until another night-fall."

She did not change her posture, yet as I paused I could plainly hear her rapid breathing.

"It was a hard journey, yet I finally crept into your tool-shed just before daybreak, and fell asleep. Your conversation with the negro aroused me, and after you had both gone, and the night came to hide my movements, I succeeded in procuring some food. Before starting to find my way into the Federal lines, I chanced to overhear some conversation on the front veranda, and learned that [ 60 ]