Before the Dawn Part 34

To Helen he said a farewell like that of a boy to the girl who has been his playmate. Although she flushed a little, causing him to flush, too, deep tenderness was absent from their parting, and there was a slight constraint that neither could fail to notice.

Talbot was going with him, Wood and Colonel Harley were gone already, and Winthrop and Raymond said they should be at the front to see. Then Prescott bade farewell to Richmond, where in the interval of war he had spent what he now knew to be a golden month or two.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT RIVALS

A large man sat in the shadow of a little rain-washed tent one golden May morning and gazed with unseeing eyes at the rich spectacle spread before him by Nature. The sky was a dome of blue velvet, mottled with white clouds, and against the line of the horizon a belt of intense green told where the forest was springing into new life under the vivid touch of spring. The wind bore a faint, thrilling odour of violets.

The leader was casting up accounts and trying in vain to put the balance on his own side of the ledger. He dealt much with figures, but they were never large enough for his purpose, and with the brave man's faith he could trust only in some new and strange source of supply. Gettysburg, that drawn field of glorious defeat, lay behind him, and his foe, as he knew, was gathering all his forces and choosing his ablest leader that he might hurl his utmost strength upon these thin battalions. But the soul of the lonely man rose to the crisis.

Everything about him was cast in a large mould, and the dignity and slow gravity of his manner added to his size. Thus he was not only a leader, but he had the look of one--which is far from being always so. Yet his habitual expression was of calm benevolence, his gestures whenever he moved were gentle, and his gray eyes shed a mild light. His fine white hair and beard contributed to his fatherly appearance. One might have pointed him out as the president of a famous college or the leader of a reform movement--so little does Nature indicate a man's trade by his face.

Those around the gray-haired chief, whose camp spread for miles through the green forest, were singularly unlike him in manner and bearing, and perhaps it was this sharp contrast that gave to him as he sat among his battalions the air of a patriarch. He was old; they were young. He was white of head, but one might search in vain through these ragged regiments for a gray hair. They were but boys, though they had pa.s.sed through some of the greatest battles the world has ever known, and to-day, when there was a pause in the war and the wind blew from the south, they refused to be sad or to fear for the future. If the truth be told, the future was the smallest item in their reckoning. Men of their trade, especially with their youth, found the present so large that room was left for nothing else. They would take their ease now and rejoice.

Now and then they looked toward the other and larger army that lay facing them not far away, but it did not trouble them greatly. There was by mutual though tacit consent an interval of peace, and these foes, who had learned in fire and smoke to honour each other, would not break it through any act of bad faith. So some slept on the gra.s.s or the fresh-cut boughs of trees; others sang or listened to the music of old violins or accordions, while more talked on any subject that came into their minds, though their voices sank when it was of far homes not seen since long ago. Of the hostile camp facing theirs a like tale might have been told.

It seemed to Prescott, who sat near the General's tent, as if two huge picnic parties had camped near each other with the probability that they would join and become one in a short time--an illusion arising from the fact that he had gone into the war without any deep feeling over its real or alleged causes.

"Why do you study the Yankees so hard?" asked Talbot, who lay in the shade of a tree. "They are not troubling us, and I learned when I cut my eye teeth not to bother with a man who isn't bothering me--a rule that works well."

"To tell you the truth, Talbot," replied Prescott, "I was wondering how all this would end."

"The more fool you," rejoined Talbot. "Leave all that to Ma.r.s.e Bob.

Didn't you see how hard he was thinking back there?"

Prescott scarcely heard his words, as his eyes were caught by an unusual movement in the hostile camp. He carried a pair of strong gla.s.ses, being a staff officer, and putting them to his eyes he saw at once that an event of uncommon interest was occurring within the lines of the Northern army. There was a great gathering of officers near a large tent, and beyond them the soldiers were pressing near. A puff of smoke appeared suddenly, followed by a spurt of flame, and the sound of a cannon shot thundered in their ears.

Talbot uttered an angry cry.

"What do they mean by firing on us when we're not bothering them?" he cried.

But neither shot nor sh.e.l.l struck near the lines of the Southern army.

Peace still reigned unbroken. There was another flash of fire, another cannon shot, and then a third. More followed at regular intervals. They sounded like a signal or a salute.

"I wonder what it can mean?" said Prescott.

"If you want to find out, ask," said Talbot, and taking his comrade by the arm, he walked toward a line of Northern sentinels posted in a wood on their right.

"I've established easy communication," said Talbot; "there's a right good fellow from Vermont over here at the creek bank. He talks through his nose, but that don't hurt him. I traded him some whisky for a pouch of tobacco last night, and he'll tell us what the row is about."

Prescott accepted his suggestion without hesitation. It was common enough for the pickets on either side to grow friendly both before and after those terrific but indecisive battles so characteristic of the Civil War, a habit in which the subordinate officers sometimes shared while those of a higher rank closed their eyes. It did no military injury, and contributed somewhat to the smoothness and grace of life.

The thunder of the guns, each coming after its stated interval, echoed again in their ears. A great cloud of yellowish-brown smoke rose above the trees. Prescott used his gla.s.ses once more, but he was yet unable to discover the cause of the commotion. Talbot, putting his fingers to his lips, blew a soft, low but penetrating whistle, like the distant note of a mocking-bird. A tall, thin man in faded blue, with a straggling beard on his face and a rifle in his hand, came forward among the trees.

"What do you want, Johnny Reb?" he asked in high and thin but friendly tones.

"Nothing that will cost you anything, Old Vermont," replied Talbot.

"Wall, spit it out," said the Vermonter. "If I'd been born in your State I'd commit suicide if anybody found it out. Ain't your State the place where all they need is more water and better society, just the same as h.e.l.l?"

"I remember a friend of mine," said Talbot, "who took a trip once with four other men. He said they were a gentleman from South Carolina, a man from Maryland, a fellow from New York, and a d.a.m.ned scoundrel from Vermont. I think he hit it off just about right."

The Vermonter grinned, his mouth forming a wide chasm across the thin face. He regarded the Southerner with extreme good nature.

"Say, old Johnny Reb," he asked, "what do you fellows want anyway?"

"We'd like to know when your army is going to retreat, and we have come over here to ask you," replied Talbot.

The cannon boomed again, its thunder rolling and echoing in the morning air. The note was deep and solemn and seemed to Prescott to hold a threat. Its effect upon the Vermonter was remarkable. He straightened his thin, lean figure until he stood as stiff as a ramrod. Then dropping his rifle, he raised his hand and gave the cannon an invisible salute.

"This army never retreats again," he said. "You hear me, Johnny Reb, the Army of the Potomac never goes back again. I know that you have whipped us more than once, and that you have whipped us bad. I don't forget Mana.s.sas and Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, but all that's done past and gone. We didn't have good generals then, and you won't do it again--never again, I say. We're comin', Johnny Reb, with the biggest and best army we've had, and we'll just naturally sweep you off the face of the earth."

The emphasis with which he spoke and his sudden change of manner at the cannon shot impressed Prescott, coming, too, upon his own feeling that there was a solemn and ominous note in the sound of the gun.

"What do those shots mean?" he asked. "Are they not a salute for somebody?"

"Yes," replied the Vermonter, a glow of joy appearing in his eye. "Grant has come!"

"Ah!"

"He's to command us now," the Vermonter continued, "and you know what that means. You have got to stand up and take your medicine. You hear me telling you!"

A sudden thrill of apprehension ran through Prescott's veins. He had been hearing for a long time of this man Grant and his great deeds in the West, where no general of the South seemed able to stand before him.

Now he was here in the East among that group of officers yonder, and there was nothing left for either side but to fight. Grant would permit no other choice; he was not like the other Northern generals--he would not find excuses, and in his fancy double and triple the force before him, but he would drive straight for the heart of his foe.

It was a curious chance, but as the echo of the last gun rolled away among the trees the skies were darkened by leaden clouds rolling up from the southwest and the air became somber and heavy. Prescott saw as if in a vision the mighty battles that were to come and the miles of fallen scattered through all the wilderness that lay around them.

But Talbot, gifted with a joyous soul that looked not far into the future, never flinched. He saw the cloud on the face of Prescott and the glow in the eyes of the Vermonter, but he was stirred by no tumult.

"Never mind," he said calmly. "You've got your Grant and you are welcome to him, but Ma.r.s.e Bob is back there waiting for him." And he nodded over his shoulder toward the tent where the lone man had been sitting. His face as he spoke was lighted by the smile of supreme confidence.

They thanked the man for his news and walked slowly back to their camp, Prescott thoughtful all the way. He knew now that the crisis had come.

The two great protagonists stood face to face at last.

When Robert announced the arrival of Grant to his Commander-in-Chief a single flash appeared in the eye of Lee and then the mask settled back over his face, as blank and expressionless as before.

Then Prescott left the General's tent and walked toward a little house that stood in the rear of the army, well beyond the range of a hostile cannon shot. The arrival of Grant, now conceded by North and South alike to be the ablest general on the Northern side, was spreading with great swiftness among the soldiers, but these boys, veterans of many fields, showed little concern; they lived in the present and thought little of "next week."

Prescott noted, as he had noted so many times before, the motley appearance of the army, but with involuntary motion he began to straighten and smooth his own shabby uniform. He was about to enter the presence of a woman and he was young and so was she.

The house was a cheap and plain structure, such as a farmer in that sterile region would build for himself; but farmer and family were gone long since, swept away by the tide of war, and their home was used for other purposes.

Prescott knocked lightly at the door and Helen Harley opened it.