When Harold’s party had first charged up the hill, the young lieutenant with whom he had conversed beside the watch-fire on the previous evening, was at the head of his platoon, and as the two bodies met, he sent the last shot from his revolver full in the faces of the foremost rank.  So close were they, that the victim of that shot, struck in the centre of the forehead, tottered forward, and fell into his arms.  There was a cry of horror that pierced even above the shrieks of the wounded and the yells of the fierce combatants.  One glance at that fair, youthful face sufficed;—­it was his brother—­dead in his arms, dead by a brother’s hand.  The yellow hair yet curled above the temples, but the rosy bloom upon the cheek was gone; already the ashen hue of death was there.  There was a small round hole just where the golden locks waved from the edge of the brow, and from it there slowly welled a single globule of black gore.  It left the face undisfigured—­pale, but tranquil and undistorted as a sleeping child’s—­not even a clot of blood was there to mar its beauty.  The strong and manly soldier knelt upon the dust, and holding the dead boy with both arms clasped about his waist, bent his head low down upon the lifeless bosom, and gasped with an agony more terrible than that which the death-wound gives.

“Charley!  Oh God!  Charley!  Charley!” was all that came from his white lips, and he sat there like stone, with the corpse in his arms, still murmuring “Charley!” unconscious that blades were flashing and bullets whistling around him.  The blood streamed from his wounds, the bayonets were gleaming round, and once a random shot ploughed into his thigh and shivered the bone.  He only bent a little lower and his voice was fainter; but still he murmured “Charley!  Oh God!  Charley,” and never unfolded his arms from its embrace.  And there, when the battle was over, the Southrons found him, dead—­with his dead brother in his arms.

CHAPTER XXII.

At the door-way of the building on the hill, where the aged invalid was yielding her last breath amid the roar of battle, a wounded officer sat among the dying and the dead, while the conflict swept a little away from that quarter of the field.  The blood was streaming from the shattered bosom, and feebly he strove to staunch it with his silken scarf.  He had dragged himself through gore and dust until he reached that spot, and now, rising again with a convulsive effort, he leaned his red hands against the wall, and entered over the fragments of the door, which had been shivered by a shell.  With tottering steps he passed along the hall and up the little stairway, as one who had been familiar with the place.  Before the door of the aged lady’s chamber he paused a moment and listened; all was still there, although the terrible tumult of the battle was sounding all around.  He entered; he advanced to the bed-side; the dying woman was murmuring a prayer.  A random shot had torn the shrivelled flesh upon her bosom and the white counterpane was stained with blood.  She did not see him—­her thoughts were away from earth, she was already seeking communion with the spirits of the blest.  The soldier knelt by that strange death-bed and leaned his pale brow upon the pillow.