“Oh, jess you keep your eye on your dad, and you’ll see things you never saw afore.  The minit them cavalry sneaks left us back thar, I made up my mind I’d skip Newmarket.  They’ve gone back to pick up more loot.  No one at the junction knows what our orders was.  Besides, it’ll be dark when we get thar.  The trains’ll be full of our wounded.  We’ll slip these Yanks in as if under orders.  No one will know but we’re hospital guards on a detail for the wounded.  When it is found out we shall be in Richmond, and, if the provost folk get hold of me afore I’ve been home and planted my haul, then I’m a Yank.”

“By mitey, Ben, you are a general, suah.”  Then suppressed laughter and the gurgling of the flowing enlivener.  Jack blissfully fell into dreams, wherein home things and warlike doings mingled in grotesque medley.  Relapses into consciousness followed at he knew not what intervals thereafter.  He was conscious of cruel torment and a clumsy transfer into another vehicle, confused sounds of groans, curses, waving lights, and the hissing of escaping steam almost in his very ears.  Then the anguish of thundering wheels, until his cracked brain reeled and he was mercifully unconscious.  How long?  His eyes opened on a clean white wall, flowers hung from the windows in plumy festoons, birds sang in the yellow dazzling sunlight.  What could it mean?  Was he at home?  Surely there was nothing of war in these comfortable surroundings.  His left arm was free, there was no one lying near to impede its movement.  So it wasn’t a hospital.  He took vague note of all this before he tried to lift his arm.  He raised his hand to rub his eyes and to assure himself that it was not a cruel delusion.  When he took it away, a kind face—­the face of a woman—­was bending over him.

“You are feeling better, aren’t you, lieutenant?”

“Lieutenant”?  Why did she call him lieutenant?  Had he been promoted on the battle-field?  Was he in the Union lines?  Oh, yes; else he would have been in a hospital, with moaning men all about him.  He tried to speak.  The woman put her finger to her lips, warningly.

“The doctor says you must not speak or be spoken to until you get strong.”

Days passed.  He couldn’t tell how many, for he lay, long hours at a time, unconscious, the mental faculties mercifully dead while the wounded ligatures knit themselves anew.  His right arm had been cut by a saber-stroke, and a pistol-ball had entered above the shoulder-blade.  Prompt attention would have given him recovery in a few days, but the twenty-four hours in a cart and the cars made his condition, for a time, serious.

But now he is visibly stronger, and his nurse brings people into the room to see him.  They look at him with wonder and admiration, while the good lady is all in a flutter of delight.  He hears himself spoken of always as the “lieutenant,” and hesitates to ask an explanation.  The physician comes but seldom, the lady explaining that all the doctors in town are busy in the hospitals.  The truth flashed upon him one morning, when his hostess came bursting in to say: