“I will write at once to General Grover,” said he, “and to Lydia, too, who is at Porter’s field hospital; we have many wounded from your battle.”

XIX

THE ACCURSED NIGHT

     “If ever I were traitor,
     My name be blotted from the book of life,
     And I from heaven banished!”—­SHAKESPEARE.

The night of my return was the 29th of May, 1862.  I was very tired, although I had had a good rest the night before, and alternations of walking and riding in the day.  Our supper was soon despatched, and the Doctor got his pipe.

“Now, Jones, pull off that distinguished disguise and put on your own dress; there it is in the corner, just as your namesake brought it.”

“No, Doctor,” said I; “let’s save labour by not doing it; I can content myself till bedtime as I am.”

“How long have you had it on?”

“Almost two days.”

“Don’t you begin to feel like a Confederate?”

“Not just at this moment, Doctor.”

“So you have been with North Carolinians and with Georgians again?”

“Yes, and very nearly with South Carolinians.”

“You mean the regiment with the blue flag?”

“Yes; I wish I could have learned its number.”

“It was the First, very likely,” said he.

This seemed a most astonishing statement, although I had many times before had evidences of peculiar knowledge possessed by Dr. Khayme.  I thought it was the time to ask him, directly, how it was that he obtained information unobtainable by ordinary mortals.

“Why should you think so, Doctor?”

“Because of more than one circumstance.  Before communications with our Southern friends became so infrequent I kept up with Charleston.  I know that the First South Carolina regiment was on Sullivan’s Island early in 1861, some months before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and I remember reading in the Mercury that the ladies of Charleston had presented the First with a very heavy blue silk banner—­a State flag with the silver palmetto and crescent.”

“Then it may be the First regiment, Doctor; I saw the palmetto and the crescent.”

“More than that,” he continued; “the First South Carolina is one of the regiments which were lately under Anderson near Fredericksburg, and we know that Anderson’s force has fallen back on Richmond.  It must have passed through Ashland very recently.”

“I wonder if there are any men in that regiment whom we used to know,” said I, musingly.

“Very likely; there are companies in it from Charleston.”

“Wouldn’t it have been strange if I had gone with them, and somebody had recognized me?”

“Stranger things than that might happen to you; somebody might have recognized you—­some old schoolmate, for example—­and yet might have sworn that you are a Carolinian.  Was it known to everybody at school that you were from the North?”